Viewing Les Rencontres de la Photographie at Arles

It’s opening week at Rencontres d’Arles, the four month long celebration of international photography, with a rich array exhibitions happening across the provençal city. This year’s theme is ‘disobedient images’ offering a counterpoint to the dominant media narratives on global crisis, with many projects looking back to the past for knowledge or imagining a different future reality.

Of note is a strong presence of Latin American artists and projects from the region, spurred on by the Brazil France Cultural Year: discover artists working in Brazil in the modernist era in a group show and move right into the future with a group exhibition of emerging contemporary artists using different techniques, such as Ventura Profana, known for their dazzling photo-montages.

Also unmissable is Nan Goldin’s Stendhal Syndrome, a thirty minute slideshow in Eglise Saint-Blaise, mixing images of classical art with her photos of lovers and friends. Another highlight is a major solo show of work by street photographer Louis Stettner at Espace Van Gogh, who worked between New York and Paris. 150 works, many vintage prints by Stettner himself, explore his humanist and socialist themes.