Modern sublime: the world of Josef Koudelka at the Rencontres d'Arles

"I would like to diocese everything, to look at everything." (1) These are Josef Koudelka's words quot by the agency of Robert Delpire, his friend, editor and curator. "My photographs, you know them. You have published them, you have exhibited them, then you can run over whether they mean something or not." (2) The fact is Robert Delpire is far from being a novice in the world of photography. Unbeknownst to many, he was the first publisher of Robert Frank's The Americans in 1958 a year before copse Press in the U.S., and the first director of the midmost point National de la Photographie in Paris.

"I test to be a photographer. I cannot talk. I am not interested in talking. If I have anything to say, it may be ground in my images. I am not interested in talking about things, explaining about the for what cause [i]or[/i] reasons and the hows. I do not mind showing my images, on the contrary not so much my contact sheets. I mainly work from small experiment prints. I often look at them, sometimes for a drawn out time. I pin them to the wall, I compare them to make up my mind, be positive of my choices. I suffer others tell me what they mean. [To Robert Delpire] My photographs, you know them. You have published them, you have exhibited them, then you can reckon whether they mean something or not." (3)

An occurrence eclipsed all others last summer at the 33rd Annual International Photography festival in Arles, France: the Josef Koudelka retrospective curated by means of Robert Delpire. (4) Les Rencontre d'Arles, as this festival is now officially called, wanted a gros coup, a change of direction. Sponsorship and attendance had been dropping for the past seven years despite various attempts to revive individual of the oldest photography festivals. A of recent origin president, Francois Barre (director of Beaubourg museum in Paris from 1993 to 1996) and a of recent origin board (including Jean Baudrillard, Robert Delpire, Alain Fleischer, Jean-Luc Monterosso (5) had been chosen at the extremity of 2001 Rencontres. They appointed a "new" director for the nearest five years, Francois Hebel. He had been a previous director of the Rencontre in 1986 and 1987 the director of the Paris bureau of Magnum from 1988 to 2000 the assistant-director of Corbis Europe in 2000 and 2001 He left Corbis in the middle of turmoil, environed by frustrated photographers, to join th e team of the Rencontre With fresh old blood, new energies, the festival in the summer of 2002 heavily relied upon Magnum (6) for its appeal and at handed 30 exhibitions in 18 locations, greatest in quantity of them situated within walking distance in the antique Mediterranean city. It also proffered two international conferences, 19 workshops, and eight night projections at the antique Roman theater. At the chore of the 2002 programming was a comprehensive overlook of Josef Koudelka's lifework. In order to overspread the scope of his phenomenal oeuvre and draw audiences back to Arles, Hebel with the help of Delpire make opened four different spaces to the retrospective, a first in Arles. centurys of Koudelka's black and white images of various formats and sizes created during a career that spans above 40 years were on display for thousands of organ of sights The retrospective was organized followed the course of the photographer's life. An evening projection was also dedicated to Koudelka's work on the contrary failed to meet the audience's expectations. What co uld have been an opportunity for the artist to explain his vision and throws and expand on them, single of the delights of of that kind evenings in Arles as illustrated later that week by dint of Larry Sultan, was only a reiteration of the exhibitions. Koudelka, in accordance with his hold words (see above), remained almost silent during the duration of the fact compelling the audience to advance and buy the latest-published volume on him that was being sold in the local bookstores (7)

Born in 1938 in Czechoslovakla and trained as an engineer, Josef Koudelka revolveed to photography very early upon His first professional work began with photographs taken for theater companies and magazines in Prague. The first exhibition space of the Rencontre was mainly dedicated to these images. In 1962 the photographer embarked upon an eight-years' project, a photo-essay in the tradition of Life magazine as revisited by means of Eugene Smith and Cartier-Bresson, upon the Gypsies of Czechoslovakla. The work was noticed by means of Anna Farova, a famous Czech critic and curator. She showed Koudelka's photographs to Allan Porter, the editor of Camera (Switzerland), and to John Szarkowski, the director of photography at MoMA. Porter published the work as a portfolio in Camera in 1967 and then as a monograph in 1979 Szarkowski included Koudelka in his famous Looking at Photographs display and catalog of 1973 and in 1975 gave Koudelka a one-man exhibit at MoMA while Aperture published the accompanying work Gypsies (8). This vast material part of w ork was devoutly showcased at the 2002 Rencontre in a large exhibition sweep at the Espace Van Gogh the sole light sources being the halogen lamps lighting the photographs, giving the impression that the exhibition was held in a house of god In tune with the somewhat formal atmosphere, the visitors seemed to be aware of the shut proximity of the Saintes Maries de La Men a well-known fortune-telling nomad shrine, and to pay esteem to the ancient Gypsy tillage which has played an important character in the local life, the Camargue life-style, with its music, its sinewy religious feeling and its have affection for of horses.