Under the title of Love Stories, the 13th Photaumnales brings together about sixty international photographers in different locations in Beauvais and its surrounding areas. Guided visits of the exhibitions at the Quadrilatère and at the Musée de l’Oise for this 2016 edition articulated around the theme of “Love Stories”.
Across the years, the annual Photaumnales festival, co-directed by Fred Boucher and Adriana Wattel, has increased in scale and international standing. An example: the programme of residences with Gaspésie that invites French photographers to work in this region of Quebec, and Diaphane hosting photographers from across the Atlantic. This is where the visit to the Quadrilatère begins, a magnificent 2,000 square metre space where most of the Festival’s programme is assembled. You are welcomed with a series by Ambroise Tézenas who cast a different eye on the Vallée, in Gaspésie, cultivating a mystery of this land so distant from France but with which we are so close though language and history. Facing these landscapes, the portraits by Claudia Imbert who has herself sought to get to know the inhabitants of Petite Vallée. A little further away, you discover the forest of Picardy as seen by Normand Rajotte from Quebec in his series titled ”Love Nature”,the counterpart of a personal project on the same theme in the south-east of Quebec. This is also the thing about a residence: it allows the photographers to extend their work beyond borders, be they regional or international.
Within the framework of its partnership with the Hong Kong International Photo Festival (HKIPF), Photaumnales invites us, still at the Quadrilatère, to a discovery of Hong Kong photography from 1950 to the present day through the work of nine photographers. An unpublished journey in black and white or in colour that shows as much how this island has changed as have the eyes and practice of the photographers.Contemporary works respond to Ho Fan’s (1931-2016) classic black and white images, tinged with humanism in the style of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Our favourites were Eason Tsang and his “Rooftop” and Lau Wai with his series “Album” that explores the past through enlarged details of family images.While it is sensitive, it is also a journey through collective memory.
On the first floor, Paul Ardenne and Barbara Polla, guest curators of the Festival, explore the theme of Love Stories through about thirty artists presenting one or several pieces of work: big names like Joel-Peter Witkin, Anders Petersen and even Pierre & Gilles alternate with new discoveries. From homosexuality in Russia with the Dane, Mads Nissen, honored with a World Press award last year, to the almost classic family photos by the Finn, Tuomo Manninen or even the powerful images from the series “History of Sex” – hidden behind a black curtain –by the American, Andres Serrano, in Beauvais this year, love has neither boundaries nor limits.
But to discover the most original exhibition of the Festival, you have to go to the Musée de l’Oise, a few paces from the Quadrilatère. Jean-Christophe Ballot’s photographs are shown there in the heart of the permanent collection. As you go through the rooms, you are surprised to discover them next to the paintings. Judiciously placed to resonate with the permanent paintings, they invite the spectator to discover the reconciliation of these two sisters, former enemies, photography and painting. It paid off!
Sophie Bernard
Exhibitions
Love stories, Love Hong Kong, Love Gaspésie, Love Residences
Until 1st January 2017
Quadrilatère, 22 rue Saint Pierre, Beauvais.
Divines and Divas, Jean-Christophe Ballot (and Ange Lecci, Vik Muniz)
Until 20th March 2017
MUDO, Musée de l’Oise de Beauvais
http://www.mudo.oise.fr/
Catalogue
Love Stories
Editions Diaphane
15 euros
http://www.photaumnales.fr/
