Olivier Etcheverry, the scenographer of the Arles festival has just died.
Here is the statement from the family:
“Olivier Etcheverry died this morning March 3, 2022 at the Cognacq-Jay hospital in Paris.
A scenographer, trained in the Decorative Arts, he began a career in the theatre, notably at the Rennes comedy, before being the architect in 1986 of the renaissance of the scenography of exhibitions at the Rencontres de la photographie in Arles.
Called by his cousin François Hébel in 1985 to question how to exhibit photography at the Rencontres d’Arles, at a time when exhibitions were very conventional and the doors of museums were closed to photography, he proposed a colorful scenography, with walls of various shapes, integrating posters, installations, beach huts… and a physical experience for the visitor. The 20 exhibitions of the summer 1986 program took place in the SNCF workshops in Arles, investing for the first time the “Forges” building. This presence of art in an industrial site was then innovative, contemporary to the creation of the Store in Grenoble by Patrick Bouchain.
In 1987, he created the twenty exhibitions of the program in places considered most unsuitable: motorway bridge, chapels, apartments, schoolyards…
Back in Arles in 2002 in tandem again with François Hébel (until 2014), then with Sam Stourdzé and Christoph Wiesner who succeeded each other at the direction of the Rencontres de la photographie, Olivier Etcheverry’s work continued to offer ways of exhibiting that became an inspiration to the entire photographic community.
His multiple interests attracted him to other arts. He made a number of films about artists. He directed a dance festival in Arles for three years, hailed by Le Monde as the best program of its kind. The exhibitions and catalogs (Dubuffet, Tapiès, Masson, Prassinos, Surian, Klemensiewicz) which he curated for the contemporary art gallery of the General Council of the Bouches-du-Rhône in Aix-en-Provence became landmarks.
For ten years artistic director for the Livre de Poche (Hachette), he called on a wide range of artists for book covers.
He formed another great tandem in his life with Jean-Noël Flammarion, that he knew during his youth, with whom he created Rue Visconti in 2010, a gallery, publishing house and production of ever more demanding films. They exhibited and published in particular the work of Tania Mouraud, Jacques Monory, Gérard Traquandi, Anne and Patrick Poirier… He produced several monumental installations within the framework of the gallery, including “Les Grandes Ondes” by François Morellet at the Louvre/Saint Honoré.”
