The Late Side Effects of LSD
If it were 1938, we would certainly be writing this article in Basel. Indeed, it was there that, in the Sandoz labs, a small team of chemists led by Professor Arthur Stoll synthesized LSD, a molecule that would open the door to a whole new artistic and aesthetic era. This then unknown substance would be tested under medical supervision.
But since it’s 2014, we’ll be talking about Stefano Stoll, director of the highly respected Festival Images in Vevey and, incidentally, the great-grandson of the aforementioned chemist. L’Oeil de la Photographie asked me to shed some light on Stoll the man; the festival itself will be covered in other articles.
It’s a difficult task given the symbiotic relationship of Stoll with the festival. Not a day goes by—not an hour—without Stefano Stoll talking about Festival Images, thinking about Festival Images, working on Festival Images. It’s gotten to the point where his loved ones sometimes worry.
The day after the festival closes, he’s already preparing the next one. You might have seen him in places as far-flung as the Gaza Strip, or La Boca in Buenos Aires, studying an image stuck to a clay wall, trying to convince the artist to come to, “You know, the Festival Images of Vevey…”
Perfectly trilingual, our Swiss director spent a month in Cuba in 2011 learning Spanish so that he could converse with Spanish-speaking artists without an interpreter. He greeted me with an unaccented “Hermano” when he joined me on the Pacific coast of Columbia that year. He had no idea what was in store for him.
Read the full article on the French version of The Eye.
