Rizzoli Bookstore, Damiani and ARTBOOK/DAP Present: A conversation with photographer Rachel Cobb and contributing author Bill Buford followed by a Book Signing on Thursday, October 25 at 6pm
Over the past forty years, photographer Rachel Cobb has regularly visited and, at times, lived in Provence, where she experienced firsthand what it is like to endure the mistral, the fierce wind that funnels down the Rhône Valley, occasionally gusting to hurricane strength. No one who spends time in the region can escape it. It is everywhere, yet always unseen.
Photographing the impact of this relentless force of nature on life in Provence has been Cobb’s mission for the last fifteen years. As she became sensitive to the rhythms and effects of the mistral, she realized it was not just a weather phenomenon, it was an integral part of the fabric of Provençal life, impacting its architecture, agriculture, landscape and culture. Houses have few or no windows on the northwest, windward side and the main entrance on the southern, sheltered side. Rows of trees lining fields create windbreaks to shield crops. Artists have long been drawn to the area for the clear skies that follow a mistral.
How do you photograph wind? With images of a leaf caught in flight, a bride tangled in her veil, spider webs oriented to withstand the wind, and grapes lashed by powerful gusts (“You can taste the wine better when there’s a mistral,” a winemaker says). In her artfully composed photographs, Cobb makes us feel the wind. Her long-term project documenting the “devil mistral” is published in her first monograph: MISTRAL: The Legendary Wind of Provence (Damiani, November 2018).
For more information: https://www.mistralthebook.com/
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Rizzoli Bookstore
1133 Broadway at 26th Street, New York, NY USA
October 25, 2018 to October 25, 2018
