“Photography allows me to express what I am unable to explain with words,” confides Béatrice Helg. The artist is exhibiting nearly 70 photographs taken over the past 35 years at the Musée Réattu in Arles, a true immersion into her abstract world where everything is meant to be revealed by light. Indeed, the artist creates astonishing compositions from fragments of reality, such as rusty metal plates or even ceiling insulation, which she arranges in such a way as to create a surging painting. “I am passionate about poetry and theater, particularly the words of Claude Régy. I believe that in these troubled times, inner experience is fundamental,” she says, describing the process behind her work Cosmos, a large golden circle reminiscent of a sleeping sun.
“You can see whatever you want!” she says in front of other photographs, assuring that it is a “window open to the invisible” and that everyone can have “their own spiritual experience.” “When everything converges, I have the impression that the space trembles,” she continues, explaining that her work in staging the objects is extremely meticulous and rigorous, as is that of the resulting print. A definite bridge between contemporary art and photography.
Another venue dedicated to this dialogue between the arts is the Collatéraux, in the Roquette district, where the exhibition “Roots” is taking place, organized by Cultish Studio, the creative platform of Publicis Luxe. It features contemporary artists working on the notion of roots, whether concrete or metaphysical. While Diana Scherer presents a sort of large cloth made of dried grass, Thomas Desoutter focuses on hospitalism, a depressive syndrome that affects children separated early from any bond of affection, through a filmed choreography he has named “Origini.”
Our stroll then takes us to the edges of the exhibitions dedicated to Nan Goldin and Letizia Battaglia, both of which are mobbed by visitors. While I didn’t have the courage to stand in the long line in front of Nan Goldin’s exhibition (for now), I was able to visit “I’ve Always Searched for Life” on the work of the Sicilian photographer. An immersion in a world of misery, violence, and devotion. We come across the harsh faces of mafiosi arrested by the Palermo police, bodies lying on the asphalt, grieving women… Also children, who often appear in Battaglia’s photographs, and who are sometimes consumed by hunger. Harsh and moving images that tell of an Italy of yesterday deeply marked by poverty and the reign of the mafia.
While the Nan Goldin exhibition attracts a crowd, her presence last night at the Théâtre Antique brought the crowd to a crawl. The venue was sold out, and more than a thousand people attended the Women in Motion award ceremony. The photographer joked, “You’re brave to give me this prize; you don’t know what awaits you!” Indeed, after a special screening of her photographs and a conversation with the director of the Rencontres d’Arles, Nan Goldin transformed the end of the evening into a veritable platform to raise awareness of what is happening in Gaza.
With the writer Édouard Louis, she read a long text in which she called for action against the ongoing situation following images projected in icy silence. A few voices were raised in the audience to criticize this stance, making the atmosphere even more electric. Unperturbed, Nan Goldin continued reading her text, defending her vision to the end and recalling with gravity and sadness the ongoing horror, the unimaginable number of children who have died in the bombings.
Jean-Baptiste Gauvin
