2025 will be an exceptional year. I am celebrating 40 years of living in Arles, half of a life punctuated by wonderful literary and photographic encounters. Pure HAPPINESS!
This will be my last exhibition. Financially, I’ve reached the end of what I could give. For 40 years, all these investments in my work as an author were possible thanks to my job as a reporter, out of my love of poetry. Recognizing this relationship between poetry and image has not always been easy, despite the friendship and the texts of my poet, academic and filmmaker friends: Jean Andreu, Cyril Anton, Fernando Arrabal, Michel Butor, Marie-Christine Bretzner, René Char, Edmonde Charles-Roux, Renato Cristin, Bruna Donatelli, Marie Frisson, Georges Fréris, Lucien Giraudo, Adèle Godefroy, Vicki Goldberg, Philippe Jaccottet, Zhu Jing, Jean Kéhayan, Laurence Kučera, Philippe Larue, Eliahu Lemberger, Ivan Levaï, Jean-Marie Magnan, Louis Mesplé, Bernard Noël, Alain Paire, Robert Pujade, Jean Roudaut, Jean-Maurice Rouquette, Dominique Sampiero, Tereza Siza, Christian Skimao, Abigaíl Suncín and Jean Charles Tacchella.
Today, it is the youth who offer me their talent for my latest work: Apolline Beucher-Pingeon (introductory text) and Quentin Muzin (poems on images). Also featuring contributions from Mireille Calle-Gruber, literary critic and professor at the Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 University, and José-Flore Tappy, poet and literature researcher, editor of Philippe Jaccottet’s work in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade; both dear friends.
This latest exhibition is a tribute to Bernard Noël, who loved my project on Sète, a city he knew well. We had already worked together on Arles and Chartres. This exhibition is entitled: “Sète, City of Light & Poetry.”
I also pay tribute to René Char, who was the first to believe in me, with portraits and his texts about our shared work.
My first exhibition in Arles was on July 1, 1984, with René Char; he wrote the introductory text, which you will find in this tribute. Since then, I have been present in Arles every year with new photographic and literary works or retrospectives enhanced by the texts of all those poet friends mentioned above. How time flies: I am 79 years old. One exception: in 2020, with Covid, the Rencontres d’Arles were canceled.
I moved from news stories to poetry of the moment for beauty. Today, I am relieved. I donated all of my photographic work to the Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie at the Ministry of Culture in 2022, along with the manuscripts of literary authors and their correspondence. I can leave peacefully to join my poet friends, in the “fatality of the universe” (René Char).
I have never forgotten our fate. Memento mori, which literally means in Latin “Have in mind, in the thought, that you are dying…” Or in English “Remember that you are going to die.” It is our destiny, so let us enjoy life and Love.
Serge Assier
