On August 14th, Lucien Clergue will celebrate his 80th birthday. Since we’ll be on vacation by then, and since the Rencontres d’Arles, his most beautiful creation along with his daughters Anne and Olivia, opens today, we decided to move the celebrations up. Clergue occupies a special and controversial place in French photography. Loved and despised, he is nevertheless a great photographer and a marvelous human being.
Happy birthday, Lucien.
Take a moment to browse this tribute put together by Ericka Weidman. It covers every facet of Lucien’s professional and private life through over 200 photographs. This is exactly the kind of feature L’Oeil is trying to create: a fun but exhaustive tour of a photographer’s work.
We would like to thank Lucien’s daughter, Anne, for organizing this day.
Jean-Jacques Naudet
Today we’re publishing a message written by Lucien Clergue’s childhood friend, the writer Jean-Marie Magnon :
Dear Lucien,
I’m rereading André Malraux’s Lazarus I found this passage which sums our friendship:
“You know the story of the Martian who spent a few hours on earth. He didn’t encounter mankind, but he found a Kodak. He brought it back into his flying saucer and made it work. The object was so perfectly assembled to take pictures that it had to be a living thing. How true. If we ignore the camera, we’re reaching out, burning, and in the end we’ll find a Kodak. Afterwards, we’ll discover that to understand Kodak is much more difficult than understanding the camera. I’m not hoping for a key to the world, only a go-between.”
I thought I was that Martian, that I saw the world through your photographs, that you were my go-between in my quest for mother earth and that I was hardly more advanced because your camera thought for both of us. You did better than I did when it came to beauty, for lack of understanding the world. You took full pleasure in the image. I had to be content to interpret it and dress it up in words.
Jean-Marie Magnan
FESTIVAL
Rencontres d’Arles 2014
“Les Hommes et les Femmes” by Lucien Clergue
From July 7th to September 21st, 2014
Atelier de Chaudronnerie
13200 Arles
France
http://www.rencontres-arles.com
&
Les Clergue d’Arles
From July 7th to September 21st, 2014
Musée Réattu
10 Rue du Grand Prieuré
13200 Arles
France
http://www.rencontres-arles.com
SCREENING
Lucien Clergue presents his films at the School of Photography in Arles July 9th 2014 at 4pm
• Wednesday, July 9th at 5pm
Drame du taureau (1965), Prix Louis Lumière (1966) 10¹
Dans Arles où sont les Alyscamps (1966) 10¹
Delta de sel de (1967) 8¹
Le Phare (1967) 5¹
• Thursday, July 10th at 5pm :
Journal de voyage en Pays d’Arles de Jean-Marie Drot, 1962, 60¹
• Saturday, July 12th at 5pm:
Drame du taureau (1965), Prix Louis Lumière (1966) 10¹
Dans Arles où sont les Alyscamps (1966) 10¹
Delta de sel (1967) 8¹
Le Phare, (1967) 5¹
• Sunday, July 13th at 5pm :
Journal de voyage en Pays d’Arles de Jean-Marie Drot, 1962, 60¹
École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie
16 rue des Arènes
13631 Arles
France
http://www.enp-arles.com
