Lens Culture is pleased to provide a preview of 64 “picks” from the upcoming Rencontres d’Arles 2007, which begins with a bang July 2-8, and then continues on through the summer. You can view a large-format slideshow of our early selection here.

This year’s Rencontres d’Arles looks to be truly fresh, diverse and re-vitalizing for the world of photography — especially compared with last year’s rather homogenous events which were mostly curated by Raymond Depardon (showcasing the work of many of his old cronies in photojournalism, including some truly awful paparazzi stuff).

The 2007 Rencontres has been co-curated by a lively group of experts from all over the world, and includes special large sections (contemporary, artistic, experimental, and historic) focusing on China and India: “in search of a living history of modern and contemporary times.” 

China
The Dashanzi Art District of Beijing has become a center for artistic ferment, disorder, exchange and experimentation for a city and country in the throes of radical change. Taken by storm by artists in 2002, in five years this large industrial and military zone has become a focal point unique in the world for artists, galleries, theatres and more. The works of very many of these artists should prove to be delightful revelations as they take over the SNCF railway workshops of Les Ateliers to present their divergent visions of shared contemporary realities.

India Now
Photography in India is rooted in a culture that was less impeded by government injunctions and social taboos than those in China, and therefore, it has taken a different creative direction. Photography there is more strongly linked to traditions, to the business of living, to family, romantic and social relationships; it was a discipline practiced, notably, by the Maharajahs as an artistic exercise – a token both of the modernity they embraced and a family happiness captured in albums.

However, today, India has a whole generation of photographers driven by the need to give expression to its huge, highly coded society. They have this in common with Chinese photographers, but the likeness stops there, for India never went through the shock of a cultural revolution; indeed, democracy and the independence whose 60th anniversary is celebrated this year have shaped a lasting form of social organization.
 
This "stasis" weighs on the younger Indian generation, whose photographs of family, love and sexuality seem to be voicing a conflict between attachment and the need to break free. 

Also, in connection with the 60th anniversary of Magnum, one of the most famous Indian photographers, Raghu Rai, a Magnum correspondent, will have a retrospective of his photographic chronicles of India during the last forty years.

New Discoveries
Above and beyond the major themes of photography about China and India, nominators Bice Curiger, Alain Fleischer, Johan Sjöström, Anne Wilkes Tucker and Thomas Weski have each invited several outstanding contemporary photographers to show their work — independent of themes. These inventive photographers promise to offer strong visual-arts sensibilities, getting us back into the areas for which Arles has been famous.

Private Albums
The funny, bizarre, eclectic and tragic vernacular collections of Erik Kessels will be on show in their entirety in Arles. An advertising art director and exhibition curator in Holland, Erik Kessels is above all a keen collector of vernacular photography, family albums, technical images and weird material found on the Internet. He published an award winning book in 2005 called Useful Pictures.

Another show, of more than 300 personal polaroids, will give us a view inside the flamboyant world of Pannonica de Kœnigswarter, a wealthy heiress, jazz buff, and amateur photographer. She was more commonly known as Nica, a baroness and patron of jazz musicians in the Be-Bop years (Thelonious Monk wrote Pannonica for her; and Horace Silver, Nica’s Dream). From the end of World War II until the early 1980s she caught a host of legendary musicians in their private moments as many jazz greats took refuge in her home: Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk... The result should be a fascinating visual history of passion and creativity.

Lots More, Too
And of course, there is always too much to experience: the abundant nightly screenings and events, the simultaneous Off Festival, workshops, lectures, portfolio reviews. And oh yes, Lou Reed will be there with 30 friends to perform a live version of his film, Berlin. Wow.

For more information about the festival, you can check the website: www.rencontres-arles.com