Until Sunday is the MAP, the photographic festival of Toulouse. This is Jean-Jacques Ader, a local photographer very involved in the local world of Toulouse image that kept a diary .
A real visual kaleidoscope forms this eleventh multidisciplinary edition, composed by Pierre Garrigues, its president, and Ulrich Lebeuf, who is in charge of the program. Photojournalism, fashion, documentary, aesthetic research, a small cold shower awaits you during the visit. Here are three exhibitions set aside among the fifteen others, in very different styles.
Eric Bouvet, well known French photojournalist, offers very different works, including a striking slideshow, which shows his immersion in a Russian commando, and reminds us of the cruelty that man is capable of in war. The scrolling photographs are commented by the poignant voice of the photographer, confiding his hesitations and doubts about his role. In parallel with his press assignments, in the next room, is a series in black and white that represents a more personal and thoughtful work, revealing here and there the daily life of civilians surrounded by ruins and where life tries to regain the upper hand, rare images that give the mouth a bitter taste.
If the small room dipped in darkness that hosts the collages of Robin Lopvet is not the most spacious, the atmosphere reveals his light boxes. The artist documents her Taiwanese artistic residency in a fictional form and by totally assuming the evidence of digital retouching. But it’s behind a window, that a screen deserves attention. The 45-minute video that is filmed is even more explicit making visible the very progress of the images, pieces by piece, in the form of an animation developed by the artist, it illustrates the creative process, and reminds us that each work is a construction, an organization, like the Taiwanese environment, and because of this fragility it is easy to deconstruct it.
The environment is also the center of interest of Guillaume Zuili. The urban memory that haunts the suburbs of Los Angeles where he is the correspondent of the VU agency since 2002, is transcribed here with decors crushed by the light and dug with granular shadows. Produced for the festival, these unique silver prints remind us, in our world full of images, one of the main definitions of photography that is: the imprint; the light inscribes it on a sensitive matter, restoring it in the form of grey values on the paper. Through this materiality, the photos of Guillaume Zuili allow us to see now what has been, without being able to be dated. It is not only a contemplative step but also a questioning of the representation of the world, and the place we occupy.
The diversity of styles and the multi-generational spirit are clearly claimed by the organizers, masking a little the affirmation of an identity, but with regard to the eclecticism of the programming (Peter Knapp, Marie-Laure de Decker and the new generation) and the road traveled for more than ten years, the MAP still hold for us beautiful emotions.
MAP photo festival from May 3rd to 19th, 24 rue Croix-Baragnon in Toulouse, free entry.
Detailed program and practical information: https://map-photo.fr
Jean-Jacques Ader
