Editorial

Afterimage, Jan-Feb, 2005 by Bruno Chalifour

2003 certainly ended in an exciting way in the visual arts with the first ICP triennial in New York and the controversial Cruel and Tender exhibition at the Tate Modern in London, a show that would then travel to the Ludwig Museum in Cologne. Then the new year picked up with AIPAD in New York, a photographic fair about which we expressed some reservations most notably because of one presentation that sounded very much like a reckless take on Susan Sontag's newly published text Regarding the Pain of Others ("reckless" because of its frequent lack of intellectual integrity and the many factual slips that it contained, not to mention the fact that Sontag's name was never mentioned. We will consider the very same work by Sontag in the pages of this magazine thanks to Peter Wolheim's sharp investigating plume). Then spring came with a very stimulating Fotofest in Houston. The chosen theme this year was "Water." Fotofest H20 04, as it was titled, celebrated its tenth anniversary in a brilliant way. New and elegant headquarters in a rather strategic location were inaugurated on that occasion, and the festival revealed some of the emerging artists and works of the moment: Edward Burtynsky's breathtaking series Shipbreakers, Alexey Titarenko's exploration of photographic time, David Maisel's colorful Lake Project, Steven Benson's project on the Three Gorges Dam in China (he was our summer cover and his work will be shown in Paris and Germany later this year). Christian Cravo's humanistic work in black and white (a portfolio published by Afterimage before Fotofest), and Ernestine Ruben (another Afterimage portfolio before Fotofest). Extreme visual poetry was also present with the works of Korean artists Han Sungpil, Bohnchang Koo, and Jungjin Lee. Of course, Frederick Baldwin and Wendy Watriss, Fotofest's two parents, could not organize a photo-festival on water in Texas and not invite the Water in the West project. The social, the political, the poetic, the humanistic, all these aspects of photography and video were represented at Fotofest. The festival has just announced its next theme for its 2006 edition: the Land, obviously another multifaceted issue that will certainly feature challenging and exhilarating work.

May is the traditional time chosen for photographers in the Toronto area (Canada) to meet and exchange the broad variety of experiences and practices that the medium can provide. In 2004, under Edward Burtynsky and Stephen Bulger (from the Stephen Bulger gallery). Contact grew and tried to reach out even more. We are looking forward to the future of this expanding festival. In Spain PhotoEspana, whose organization and programming, just like Fotofest, emulates the Mois de la Photo in Paris and the Rencontres d'Arles in the way a whole city is involved in an effort to provide not only its population but a national and international audience with an unequaled variety of work, echoed in its own way the theme already investigated by Vincent Lavoie for the Month of Photography in Montreal the previous fall, and ICP's Strangers. Historias, in Madrid in the late spring and early summer, gave a very interesting insight into a contemporary Spanish photography scene that has not yet made its way to international institutions in spite of its creativity (no-one can deny that to Spanish visual artists. Pedro Almodovar being a good example). The festival also featured Paul Graham. Allan Sekula, Rineke Dijkstra, Rene Burri, Mario Cravo Neto, Joan Fontcuberta, Jean Moral, etc....

Les Rencontres d'Arles 2004 had invited Martin Parr as their artistic director. Of course the choice appealed to a crowd of fans, and attracted another audience of people curious to see how far the British photographer would push his envelopes. And, of course, this made sure that the Magnum crowd would be around, reassuring, and presenting new work by new members. The festival was challenging, educational, and certainly entertaining, but sometimes running the risk of becoming a hodge-podge because of the decision by its director, Francois Hebel, to show some of the work that was affected by the 2003 strikes. This effort, however, received a well-deserved ovation on the night Harry Gruyeart gave his very personal presentation in the "theatre antique." This very quiet virtuoso of color surprised his audience by starting the soiree with a very intimate and emotional black and white video, in the very style exposed in these pages (4-7, 12) by Ondine Chavoya in his essay on Michel Auder's work.

Then came fall and its wave of new shows. Among the exciting news of the season were the fact this year Photo Paris (the French equivalent of AIPAD in New York) coincided with the Mois de la Photo, and that to crown it, in a joint effort, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Education, and Beaubourg were sponsoring a two days' conference hosted by the Centre Photographique d'Ile de France looking at the relationship between document and art seen through artistic practices (see report p.2). Although providing a broad range of expertise, the conference was somewhat lacking in depth and scholarly participation in photography, a consequence of the concomitance of too many events probably, and also a sign that efforts should be renewed in the direction of the critical and theoretical analysis of the medium in a country that witnessed its birth. It felt as if photography was still perceived as a servant of the (other) arts and that the new and unique perspective it has developed for over 150 years, as a separate practice, with its own constraints and the very particular relationship it entertains with its subjects, objects, and audiences was once again ignored. I can see some of you cringe as you are reading these words but no-one would challenge the same assertions if they were applied to painting, music, dance, film and video, sculpture or literature.