Capturing Movements in Space – Arles Rencontres de la photographie-July 1- September 25, 2022
Curator: Maria Ines Rodriguez
In Arles city center “l’église Sainte Anne” facing “l’église Saint Trophime” are two architectural icons but only Sainte Anne who stops being a Church in the 18th century and has been used as a museum showing art then all the gothic windows are clear glass, so during the summer daylight is flooding the space, which is primarily devoted to photography by Arles international Festival because its flooding daylight, which is ideal to view B&W and Color photography.
I needed more spaces than just the side chapels and the choir for all the works I wanted to display, so I am very grateful to Maria Ines Rodriguez who agreed with my selection (we talk through email as I live in the US and she lives between Brussels and Paris. After trying just a wall perpendicular to the center of the choir, which was rigid and for me difficult to lit, we both thought that a space having a deeper curve was an elegant solution because when entering from either left or right you saw that the depth of the church was masked but you saw prints on the curved external wall in front of you.
Here is the map sent to me in March 2022 when my selection of prints with size of prints was almost completed I needed size of walls in the chapels and in the built additional space where I will know how many framed prints could be hanged.
I sent to Arles the list of prints position in chapels or wall that are all numbered in the map you can see here and in which you have title like Einstein on the Beach in chapel #1 of the opera by Robert Wilson (direction, libretto, set, props) and music by Philip Glass performed by Glass’s orchestra. All other chapels are listed with name of the artist like Lucinda Childs in Chapel #2, Simone Forti, Yvonne Rainer in Chapel #3, Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton in Chapel #4. The choir from left to right was devoted toTrisha Brown starting in 1972 with Accumulation, Group Accumulation in Central Park, Spanish Dance, Locus. to Line-up, to Woman Down the Ladderfrom wall #9 to #13). Continuing to move clockwise on the additional space on wall #14 to #16, you find three works by Trisha Brown that are performed in proscenium theater: Glacial Decoy with Set and costumes by Robert Rauschenberg, Opal Loop with Cloud Installation by Fujiko Nakaya, Lateral Pass with set and costumes by Nancy Graves.
On wall #17, 18 and 19 you see photographs of Robert Whitman’s performance work using film projection and set construction as well as performers on stage and is also a muti-media artist with installations in the 1960s that were totally new. All the photographs I have of Robert Whitman’s performance from the 1960s were restaged by him in 1976 when I photograph his restaging for: American Moon (1960), Nightime Sky (1965), Flower (1963). Wall #18 Light Touch was a new performance that was rehearsed for three weeks in 1976.
Wall #19 Prune Flat (1965) with projected film with Simone Forti and Lucinda Childs on a stage zn other performers dressed in white.
Wall #20 Laura Dean and her company dancing on the orchestral music of Steve Reich’s Drumming (1975) then Merce Cunningham rehearsing in the afternoon a solo on the stage of the Palais des Papes in Avignon, France (1976) and a contact sheet showing Merce Cunningham in 1975 recording on video his dancers in his studio in Westbeth, New York.
Wall #21 Contacts Sheets of Roads with trees in France and Inondation de la Saone (River) (1987).
Wall #22 Icy Lake (1977) a fire destroys a series of building late in the evening and the water froze in extinguishing the fire, and the next morning a brilliant sun permitted me to shoot those photographs (1977).
seems deserted but has no damage from where I am and ELS of the block with the building where a wall has collapsed. It is announced that the whole block is going to be evacuated and torn down and whatever will be built will be expansive lofts in the lower East Side.
In Chapel #5 You have Diptych Buildings shot in 1978 and printed with an enlarger using two different negatives of buildings that are near each other.
Chapel #6 is the first chapel devoted to Richard Foreman’s Ontological Hysteric Theater with plays Total Recall (1970 Dec-Jan1971), Hotel China (1971 Dec-Jan1972), Evidence (1972) Sophia, The Cliffs (1972 Dec-Jan1973).Classical Therapy = A Week under the Influence (1973- Festival d Automne Paris, France), Vertical Mobility and Pain(t) played the same weeks on different days (1974 April May) .
Chapel #7 Second chapel for Richard Foreman’s Ontological Hysteric Theater with plays Rhoda in Potatoland (1975 Dec-Jan 1976), Pandering to the Masses: A Misrepresentation (1975 January- March), Blvd de Paris, I have got the shakes (1977).
Chapel #9 Silvia Palaccios Whitman made very varied performances Going (1974), Sling Shot (1975), Moving including Cat’s Craddle, Elephant’s Trunk, Legs, and Human Coil (1975), then Clear View (One Day at the Time) (1976 at The Kitchen), Passing Through (1977 at Sonnabend Gallery) and Around the Edge (1978).
At the right of the entrance there was a screening room where three dance films were shown: Calico Mingling, choreography by Lucinda Childs (1973), Water Motor (Solo dance by Trisha Brown) (1978), and Slide Show (2010) a film with photographs of my archival photographs organized to show how different types of movements were invented by the Judson Group which I photographed later starting in 1972 till 1985.