FESTIVALS
Proliferating widely in the last quarter of the twen-
tieth century, photography festivals are now an
intrinsic part of both the exhibition of photography
and the growth and development of the medium.
The festivals serve as meeting places for a commu-
nity of photographers, critics, collectors, and pho-
tographic enthusiasts. Festival curators, in selecting
works and designing programs around specific
themes, help to identify current and emerging issues
as well as acknowledge new talent and previously
unrecognized bodies of work. Speakers, forums,
publications, and other educational activities fur-
ther the work of photographic history, criticism,
and theory. By publishing catalogues, archiving
exhibitions, and providing both face-to-face and
online access to these holdings, photography festi-
vals contribute significantly to the study of the
medium. Photography festivals also play a central
role in the establishment of a global network linking
photographers to academic, professional, and gen-
eral audiences.
The history of photography festivals parallels
that of arts festivals. While the arts have always
been associated with religious celebrations and
other recurrent public gatherings, the idea of events
designed specifically to celebrate the arts is a pro-
duct of nineteenth century arts societies and acade-
mies presenting annual salons and seasons. For
photography, this took the form of events such as
the annual print show initiated by the British Royal
Photographic Society in 1858. As the academy
shows sparked oppositionalsalons des refuses, pub-
lic exhibitions became sites of contestation over the
ownership of art and taste. At the same time, the
arts, both official and oppositional, were featured
in a series of international exhibitions that began in
the latter half of the nineteenth century. Photogra-
phy was on display at the first of the major events
of this kind, theGreat Exhibition of 1851.
In 1895, the launch of theVenice Biennalemarked
the beginning of the international arts festival as we
know it. TheBiennale, like the Olympics founded
contemporaneously with it, invited national delega-
tions to compete for prizes awarded according to
commonly held standards of excellence. In the twen-
tieth century, events such as Emile Jaques-Dalcroze’s
Hellaru Festival (founded 1910) and Max Rein-
hardt’s Salzburg Festival (founded 1921) helped
redefine the nature of performing arts by acting as
showcases for avant-garde work. In 1932, theVenice
Biennaleestablished anEsposizione d’Arte Cinemato-
grafica—what was to become the first of the large
international film festivals. It was followed in 1946
by theCannes Film Festival, an event that placed the
international competition for artistic excellence
within a commercial context.
Despite the success of international arts festivals
focused on other art forms, the first such festival
dedicated to photography was not founded until- In that year, Lucien Clergue organized the
Recontres d’Arlesin Arles, France, a general arts
festival with a significant photography component.
Recontres d’Arles remained a relatively obscure
event until 1974 when Clergue persuaded both
Ansel Adams and Brassaı ̈to attend as featured
speakers. Attracting major figures to the festi-
val—in a manner similar to the way film festivals
use the star system—gave theRecontres de Arles
photography festival an international prominence.
Photographers such as Yousef Karsh, Andre ́Ker-
te ́sz, and Aaron Siskind were featured by the festi-
val in succeeding years. The festival continued to
grow and, in 2004, the 35th Recontres d’Arles
mounted 40 simultaneous exhibits, published a
300-page catalogue, and offered 21 workshops
and two conferences as well as presenting fiveRen-
contres d’ArlesAwards.
In his introduction to the 2002Recontres d’Arles
catalogue, Artistic Director Franc ̧ois He ́bel argues
that the success of the festival and the many photo-
graphy festivals that have succeeded it derives from
a need on the part of photography’s audience, like
cinema’s audience, to develop standards of taste in
a medium where the difference between ‘‘master
and clone’’ is often difficult to discern. He ́bel sug-
gests that the pursuit of this taste-building exercise
has taken place at three different types of events:
the city-based ‘‘month of photography’’ festival;
the smaller, specialized festival; and events design-
ed for professionals working in the medium.
The original and pre-eminent ‘‘month of photo-
graphy’’ event—arguably photography’s equiva-
FESTIVALS