The Arles Photography Meetings: not to be missed, thirteen exhibitions that shake up the way we see the world

For two months, as it has every year since 1970, Arles becomes the center of the photography world. From classic black and white to garish color, intimate narratives, political manifestos, embroidered photographs, and war images, the image takes center stage in the city. Here are thirteen exhibitions not to be missed at the Rencontres de la photographie 2025: "Images indociles," which runs until October 5, 2025, in dozens of venues throughout the city of Arles. Both in and out exhibitions included.

1 Nan Goldin, rock star of photography

She's the rock star of this edition. When she enters the Arles amphitheater, dressed all in black and in the mistral blowing on Tuesday, July 8, the audience resembles a troop of moved admirers. Even if the silhouette is fragile, the American artist is definitely there. She receives the Kering Women in Motion award and, with her devastating humor, replies: "I receive a 'woman in motion' award when I can barely walk!" For more than fifty years, she has captured her entourage ravaged by drugs or enchanted by parties, her world flickering in harsh lights, between violence and tenderness.

Of her voice hoarse, she declares: "I am queer." And when images from Memory Lost appear on a giant screen, her film about addiction made of photographs, super 8 films, crackling telephone messages accompanied by brutal rock mixed with Schubert, it is the work of a great lady of photography who is always angry that imposes itself. Always an activist, she reads alongside Édouard Louis a text of struggle in favor of Gaza, affirming her anger in the face of silence.

At the Rencontres, in the Sainte Blaise chapel, his latest creation, Syndrome de Stendhal (2024), is more serene. Face to face, her photographs and details of masterpieces of classical, Renaissance and Baroque art. Her naked and stoned friends, smiling or desperate, with sensual or wounded bodies, are thus on a par with the great masters. Nan Goldin has not forgotten her motto: " My photography has always sought to ward off loss: that of people, places, experiences, memories. (...) It is a way for me to show people the admiration and love I have for them."

Nan Goldin's " Stendhal Syndrome " is presented at the Saint Blaise church (attention, small capacity of 25 people)

2 David Armstrong, the melancholic dandy

A friend of Nan Goldin, David Armstrong also casts his eye over those around him in the 1970s and 1980s. They met in Boston. But while the photographer relentlessly captures everyday life in a raw and up-close manner, David Armstrong sets down his camera, his 6x6, and carefully frames it. He's a classic portraitist, with elegant lighting. As the exhibition curator Matthieu Humery explains to franceinfo Culture, " David didn't just want to capture a moment, he needed the filter of the camera, he needed this camera, he needed this construction, this care in framing. Even during a very painful period, that of the AIDS epidemic, the more painful it became, the more he wanted to take care of his photographs."

In the exhibition with its carefully designed scenography, compared to the portraits of this generation, both rock and delicate, David Armstrong's landscapes are hazy as if in a fog.Matthieu Humery adds: " We present a dozen landscapes that are all blurred, vaporous. For him, it was a bit like this idea of ​​melancholy in a very difficult period. And in a way, it's his response, with this blur, this disappearance." By bringing together these two perspectives, Goldin and Armstrong reveal two divergent perspectives that tell the same story, the same despair and laughter.

David Armstrong is presented at La Tour, Parc des Ateliers, Luma Foundation

3 Louis Stettner, the forgotten photographer

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He too was a rebel in his own way. Louis Stettner has somewhat disappeared from the exhibition walls. Yet, this American, born in 1922, a friend of Boubat and Brassaï, traveling from New York to Paris, and documenting social struggles in the United States—he who always declared himself a Marxist—had an exemplary career of freedom and rigor. Highly committed, the FBI monitored him and bugged him. Exhibition curator Virginie Chardin had the brilliant idea of ​​searching the archives kept by his wife Rachel, near Paris. She confides that if Stettner is somewhat forgotten, that is also his quality: uncompromising and uncompromising with regard to galleries or press agencies. The photographs of these workers in the 1970s, in extremely contrasting black and white, prove it. He is on that side. His portraits are a hymn to those who work with their hands in difficult conditions. "When he photographs demonstrators and workers, he really wants to show them in their majesty, in their strength and combativeness, and certainly not in a miserable way," the curator tells us. "It's really at the heart of his commitment, at the heart of his life, quite simply. But I think he himself didn't feel so different."

" The World of Louis Stettner" can be seen at the Van Gogh Space

4 Yves Saint Laurent, a model of beauty

Simon Baker, head of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, and curator of the exhibition with whom franceinfo Culture visits the Yves Saint Laurent and Photography exhibition, likes to repeat in French tinged with a British accent: "He has style, he was stylish at every moment of his life." The greatest portraitists of the 20th century posed for the brilliant creator of haute couture. The man with the tormented soul seems so reassured in front of their lenses. They are Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, Robert Doisneau, Jean-Paul Goude, Françoise Huguier, William Klein, Sarah Moon, Bettina Rheims, Jeanloup Sieff or Sabine Weiss, the photography who's who.

Simon Baker is admiring: " We see a 21-year-old young man photographed by Irving Penn. It's a perfect photo of Penn. Later, when he is Photographed by Hermann Newton, it's a perfect photo of Newton. I'm also thinking of his photo by Jeanloup Sieff. He chose to be naked. And this photo is so magnificent. Everyone knows he was very shy. He took this gamble of being naked in his own advertisements."

5 Camille Lévêque in search of the father

Change of atmosphere. Heading towards Ground Control, towards the station and an atmosphere of industrial site. The wind stirs up dust, but that doesn't stop Camille Lévêque from fiercely defending her project. In Search of the Father recounts as much her intimate quest for a father who left and was absent for a long time during her childhood as it does a rich and profound reflection on fatherhood, masculinism, and the image of the husband in the couple. Camille Lévêque twists the iconic images of good husbands, good fathers, heads of families, and even Stalin, "the good father of the people."

She explains to us: " My purpose and my project is to reflect on these gender roles, to get away from these representations which are archaic. Thank God. Today, we are rethinking the family, it is not nuclear, it can be single-parent, it can be homoparental. So there are these questions obviously political, feminist, but really above all political on the construction of the family, the construction of society and gender roles."

By deconstructing images and blurring stereotypes, the artist allows visitors to wander through this hangar, like a new page in the image of another society.

Camille Lévêque's series "In Search of the Father" is on display at Ground Control

6 "On Country", Australia returned to the natives

This is the most ambitious exhibition of the Rencontres. A carte blanche for Australian photography. On Country: Photography from Australia brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists exploring their lands and stories. The images hanging in the beautiful Sainte-Anne church tell of colonization, the enslavement of indigenous peoples, and the erasure of their connection to this land. The settlers swept this history away.

Elias Redstone is the conductor of the gathering of these artists, he explains the title of the exhibition to us: " On Country is an important concept for First Nations people. On Country are the physical and spiritual relationships to these lands. The first peoples of Australia have lived on this land for 65,000 years, there are 250 different cultures."

The most impressive series is Majority Rule, a series by photographer Michael Cook. In or in front of places of power, the same silhouettes of Indigenous people appear. An illusory image, a stark reminder of the lack of Indigenous representation in Parliament, the judiciary, and the business world. On Country: 15 perspectives and 15 ways to remind us that first come, first served, not first served.

" On Country" can be seen at the Saint-Anne church, Place de la République

7 Letizia Battaglia, the courage of a photographer

Dense, contrasting black and whites. Crying sisters, mothers screaming at the loss of a son. Handcuffed mafiosi who have lost their arrogance, judges protected but soon to be killed. This is the world of Letizia Battaglia. We are in Palermo, in the 1980s, the mafia war is bloody. For everyday life L'Ora , the photographer captures the tragic mafia events that bloodied the capital of Sicily for more than a decade. But she never forgets in the face of this spectacle that men and women live very close to these events. Walter Guadagnini, the curator of the exhibition, knows what drove the photographer: " In life, there is violence, there is love, there is death, there is all that. And she wanted to tell all that naturally, she had to tell the violence because she was in a very violent land. She wanted to document them, to denounce them, but at the same time, she always said that she was looking for life." And alongside these works on Palermo in blood, the visitor discovers a photographer among the mentally ill, the abandoned, more simply of his contemporaries.

Letizia Battaglia: "I have always sought life" can be seen at the Saint-Martin du Méjan chapel

8 MYOP, the collective is 20 years old

The Myop agency is made up of photojournalists who have been traveling the world for two decades to inform and document this vibrant land. In twenty years, they've taken tens of thousands of photos. To celebrate the anniversary, they had to invent a clever scenography. At the former Municipal Showers, a long corridor resembling an urban exploration project, the doors are lined with details, cropped images of their images.

In the background, a large screen where photographs scroll by too quickly, like a kaleidoscope. But sit down and the madness of the world moderates its pace. The presence of a visitor is enough to calm the media frenzy. Clever, we said. But staging is not enough if the message is in vain. So, it is Alain Keler, the "ancestor" of the agency, as he calls it himself, who delivers it to franceinfo Culture: "Photography? It's passion and also the fact of being together. It's important for photographers because when you're too isolated, you lose a little touch with the profession. Well, at MYOP, we do things together, we make books, we make magazines. We see each other, we drink, we talk a little about photography, and then we move forward, finally, we move forward." But if the agency stays the course and grows, the future is black and white. Antoine Kimmerlin, the agency's administrator and photographer Stéphane Lagoutte acknowledge this. The press is no longer buying, young photographers often scrape by, and AI is lurking. AI will be a major concern throughout the festival week.

9 With Eric Bouvet's room

If there's one great reporter laden with awards for having crisscrossed the planet, it's Éric Bouvet. But his large black and white formats on metal supports resembling torn notebook pages are far from his world of war and conflict. He responds to the remark: " Yes, of course, because from photojournalism I'm moving to a more 'artistic' but above all documentary subject." This world of sex captured with humor is a true documentary. He adds: " That's what interests me with the photographic medium, it's using the different tools. My work, whether author, documentary, portraitist, or journalist, has only one mission: to leave a trace. So that in the future, we can understand what the era we live in was like."

Éric Bouvet uses a view camera, a monster in terms of weight and size, but a brilliant tool for such fine rendering. "The view camera brings me more serenity; it often brings contemplation. It's a different way of living," he says.

"Sex, love..." to see at the VoX gallery , 68 rue du 4 septembre

10 Marion Dubier-Clark, photograph embroiderer

Marion Dubiet-Clark has found another way to slow down time. A photographer who has been traveling the world for five years, since the Covid years, anxious like many others, she has subjected her own images to the torture of the needle. She had experience in leatherwork. Thus came the idea of ​​embroidering certain details, and thus her photography takes on a new look. It's pop, it's joyful, the material changes the point of view.

" Photography takes on a new visual dimension," she says. "I always want to convey joy in my photos, so with brightly colored threads. I tell myself, sometimes, life is not easy, as a photographer, the fact of sharing joyful photos, lightness pleases me." This large format, The Door, Palm Springs tells the story of a California of 120 cm by 160, captured in 0.60 seconds. But it took 10 days at 8 hours a day, a work that allows her to take her time.

Marion Dubiet-Clark exhibits at Fujikina in the former National School of Photography, rue des Arènes, and at the Little Big Galerie , rue de l'Hôtel de Ville.

11 Jean-Michel André, the quest for memories

It's at Croisière, this venue open to the four winds, but which always hosts exhibitions not to be missed, that we meet Jean-Michel André. His book Chambre 207, published a year ago by Actes Sud, recounted the photographer's personal quest. The story was at once that of a tragedy, that of the photographer, and a news item that has never been solved. On August 5, 1983, Jean-Michel André's father was murdered along with six other people in a hotel in Avignon. They were on vacation with their family. In his book, a work of autobiography, Jean-Michel André travels in search of lost memories...

Here is the book transposed into an exhibition. The story is the same, but the wandering and its reading change, giving even more power to the images, to the poetry of this search for the lost father. The photographer tells franceinfo Culture: " It's a project with which I question the limits of the image. What can we do? There have been horrible images that have been conveyed by the press. Either I burn them, or I reframe them. So there is a therapeutic gesture at the base, followed by an artistic gesture."

Following his father's assassination, Jean-Michel André lost his memory of the tragedy he experienced that evening. Blackout, erasure. Over many years, the project matured, and he says: "Since I have no memory, it's a bit like reinventing the end of the story, a bit like a children's story where we're scared. But in the end, you have to balance it all so that it's an experience that can lift us up rather than drag us down, and photography can do that."

See "Room 207" on Cruise

12 What if the photo spoke to you?

To earn a place among the dozens of exhibitions at the Arlesian In et Off, you also need ideas. Original scenographies, remarkable designs, unusual locations. James Vil, for one, had a spark. " If photographs could speak," he says. The principle is simple. A QR code, a scan, and a story in your ears. So you embark on a sonic stroll while looking at the photographs hanging on the wall.

The landscapes of Madagascar, these children untying a net or pulling the boat back from fishing. Listen: " I am the beach that resists. The men plow me with ropes. They pull, slowly, as one pulls on the day. Each step backward is an advance for the boat. I feel their muscles, their breath." Guy Chapelier's voice captivates, the setting comes to life, and it's a way of giving the viewer the words the photographer guessed when he pressed the shutter. The magic happens. Image and sound create their own cinema.

13 Karine Sicard Bouvatier, the destroyed youth of the deportees

This exhibition, Deported, I Was Your Age , should be visited in silence. The goal: not to forget the deportation, but preserving the memory is not enough for photographer Karine Sicard Bouvatier. She wants this testimony to survive the passing of time. They are between 90 and 100 years old. They were between 5 and 15 when they were arrested and deported. The photographer immortalized them at home, many years later. But not alone.

Karine Sicard Bouvatier's idea: to photograph them with a child, a young person the same age they were when their lives turned tragic. The photographer explains the spirit of her approach to franceinfo Culture: "This story is old, it's like a candle going out, and now the flame is diminishing, and the young person is this other candle that approaches and is relighted so that this candle can continue forever because they can pass it on to others later. And so these photos are a document of this passage."

The portraits are like family photos, even though they didn't know each other two hours before. There's no staging, but emotion emerges as you watch these two strangers recount this unforgettable tragedy. The young sometimes resemble the old. A complicity is always evident in their attitude, in their gaze. Sometimes the child protects the survivor. Karine Sicard Bouvatier, too, stopped the world.

Karine Sicard Bouvatier at the Temple d'Arles from July 5 to 27, 2025, for the exhibition "Deported, I was your age "

Arles Photography Meetings 2025. Images Indociles until October 5, 2025 and Arles Off Festival in the streets and galleries of Arles