Robin Lopvet is the first photographer exhibited by Lydie Marchi, the new director of the Centre d’art et de photographie de Lectoure. She spoke with our correspondent Jean-Jacques Ader.
After 2023 when Damarice Amao was the artistic director of the Gers establishment, a new period began with the appointment in February 2024 of Lydie Marchi. Meeting and first interview.
Jean-Jacques Ader: Could you introduce yourself?
Lydie Marchi : I trained as an art historian; after my beginnings at the Maeght Foundation in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, around 2010 I participated in co-founding in Marseille the contemporary drawing salon Paréidolie, while working in the northern districts of Castellane, where numerous projects of receptions and artist residencies were developed. So one side was glitter and the other was hand-on, which ultimately complemented each other, and gave meaning to my work. In 2019 I directed the Châteauvert art center, in the Var.
What is its particularity?
LM : Already, it’s a small village of 141 inhabitants, yet with an art center of 800m2 with resources; and also neighbors such as Georges Lucas or Brad Pitt who operate vineyards nearby. It was a magnificent experience, in extreme rurality, to see the villagers come regularly to visit the center, as well as to attract people who were from far away.
Then, at the end of my five years mandate, still with the idea of a rural project, I decided to apply to Lectoure where I had already come for the Photographic Summer, and which on this occasion, introduced me to the Gers.
Here you will therefore concentrate on photography.
LM : Yes of course, even if we are in an art center, which would allow us to show something else, but only to the extent that it would find meaning among a public who still expects photography.
How do you plan to place yourself in the history of the festival?
LM : In continuity of course; The next Photographic Summer will be called Terra Nostra, and will mainly evoke the notion of hospitality. A central notion I think. We are in a former chaplaincy here, and this is of course a central theme of current political events. It is also a feeling that I felt when I came to take up my duties in Lectoure, where I was magnificently welcomed.
This Summer, will this Terra Nostra theme be served by all types of photographs?
LM : Yes, it should remain pluralistic, apart perhaps from documentary photography which will probably only be in one location, if this is confirmed.
There will be classic black and white photography, color with magnificent digital prints; we are going to have a very beautiful film by Driss Aroussi; a Franco-Portuguese artist, Esmeralda Da Costa, who does photo work on wood; a focus on the young generation of Corsican photographers, six artists selected by an exhibition curator of Corsican origin like me; a monumental installation by Thomas Mailaender at the grain market, but I prefer not to say more…
The current exhibition, by Robin Lopvet (until May 12th 2024) is therefore your very first program here.
LM : Yes, I wanted to start with a proposition, let’s call it light, at least tinged with humor, to counterbalance a little the bit heavy atmosphere of the moment. These images do have meaning, in particular for everything relating to the massive use of images and their manipulations, their functions diverted into propaganda and counter-informations.
Interview Jean-Jacques Ader
Centre d’art et de photographie de Lectoure
Maison de Saint-Louis
8 Cr Gambetta
32700 Lectoure, France
https://centre-photo-lectoure.fr/
