Blurring Borders

In the exhibition catalogue, Suzanne Pagé, then director of ARC, specified that this wasn’t another exhibition on the relationship between painting and photography or between art and photography. As for you, you wrote that “something essential” was taking place, but in order not to confine it, you refused to designate it too precisely. What was, in the end, the subject of Ils se disent peintres, ils se disent photographes [They Call Themselves Photographers, They Call Themselves Painters]? Blurred borders. It’s difficult to understand today, when relationships are more ‘divisive’. Although expressing myself with force and passion, I situated myself—and still do—in nuance and in what, in art, resists definition. Ils se disent

peintres, ils se disent photographes showed works produced with the photographic medium and let the viewer decide what it was about. Full stop. The Bechers were then at Sonnabend’s, an art gallery, Luigi Ghirri in a photography gallery. One day Christian Boltanski said to me, “Photography’s photojournalism, the rest’s painting.” I quite liked this point of view. I contributed a lot to spreading it. Maybe too much. Some of my photographer friends resented it. You can’t be friends with everybody all the time.

You were, from the early 1970s, one of the first critics to write about photography in a daily newspaper, Le Figaro. Why did you create the exhibition Ils se disent...? At the same time, in the same daily newspaper, I wrote about science fiction, thanks to Bernard Pivot. We were in the post-1968 period and there was a critical stance on “Great Art”. SF wasn’t literature, and photography wasn’t art. I became a sort of photo specialist at Le

Figaro, France Culture, artpress, a little bit everywhere. I soon felt cramped in this “speciality” and I wanted to breathe more.

PULLING OUT ALL THE STOPS What is striking in your catalogue text is the rejection of the history of photography. Among the photographers of the 19th century, only Marey and Disdéri passed muster, but because they were heralding modern art. In the 1970s it wasn’t much

better: according to you, most photogra

phers were “floundering”. I still agree with what I said. But I have to put something right: I don’t reject the history of photography, I reject those histories that first go over the technical evolution of the medium. And if, in connection with the 1970s, you’re talking about “creative photography”, yes, it was floundering!

On the other hand, one period found favour in your eyes: the inter-war period, the avant-gardes. The relationship between photography and art was particularly strong at that time. Did you find such a happy conjunction among the artists of Ils se disent... ? First of all, how did the exhibition come about? I’d written a harsh article about a Rodchenko exhibition at ARC. Suzanne Pagé phoned me, asked me to come and clarify what I said in person, which I did. To test me, perhaps, she suggested that I do an exhibition. The exhibition was Tendances actuelles de la photographie en France [CurrentTrends of Photography in France], which wasn’t very good. But it was interesting enough, nevertheless, for Suzanne Pagé to phone me three years later and say: “I have a hole in my programme, could you do an exhibition in two months, without any money at all?” The next day I proposed what was to be entitled Ils se disent peintres, ils

se disent photographes. I wasn’t paid, there wasn’t even money for shipping the works. These shortages, these difficulties stimulated everyone. People pulled out all the stops.. Ileana Sonnabend sent me, at her own expense, from the United States, William Wegman’s big Polaroids. A kind of joy was born from these exhibition conditions; a kind of disorder too, with questions more than answers, a few “rockets”, as Baudelaire put it, and a particular way of making all this vibrate. Today I’m told this exhibition’s legendary.

What does it represent in your career? For me, it marked a kind of full stop to my relationship with photography, strictly speaking. Later, in 1995, I was nevertheless offered the artistic direction of the Arles festival. I accepted on condition that I be free to make my own choices and choose my own angles. Which I obtained. Easily, I have to say. It has recently been written, rather foolishly, that I’d been provocative there. What would be the point in that? I simply wanted to broaden the field. I included everything that could be done with photography, everything that was, at the time, neglected and which I found fascinating: scientific, industrial, wedding photography... and, of course, the works of artists using photography. I even installed a photo booth. I got rid of reportage: I wanted to mark the occasion. There was also video. It unleashed, I’m told, the wrath of the pu

rists. What a nuisance, the purists! The scandal—thunderous!—came from the erotic photos of Araki, though actually quite toned down. Probably just a pretext.

A MANIFESTATION Ils se disent... brought together 35 artists, including four duos of artists, who are striking for the diversity of their origins and their protean practices. Which were the big

families? No family, individualities, variety, freedom. If we absolutely want to place it in a trend, I would say that the exhibition was part of the continuation of body art, land art and Harald Szeemann’s wonderful exhibitionWhen Attitudes Become Form.

Ed Ruscha seems to be one of the pioneers

of what you sought to show? And HansPeter Feldmann and Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince and Christian Boltanski and Gilbert & George... They weren’t “pioneers”, but they were very good artists, quite simply: active, inventive, daring. I showed what happens when you use photography in this way. The “purebred” photographers were terribly academic and cold-blooded.

One may well ask which artists were missing. Why is there no Jeff Wall? His first pictorially inspired stagings were very recent at the time. The same could be said of Georges Rousse, at the very beginning of his career. These two examples show that you had caught something that was being born. In your text you used the term “manifestation”.You were capturing something that was just manifesting itself. There are many others missing. Let me remind you that this exhibition was done in two months and without money.This isn't an excuse, but an explanation. Today the choice would be different, more but also less. As for the event, it was situated at the convergence of different currents, it wasn't an assessment.

How was it organised in space? The exhibition was held in a vast area of ARC. It was my second exhibition. I dared do anything. With Suzanne Pagé, we talked, without ever coming into conflict. In the end, we reached an agreement. We always did. Easily. With pleasure.

Was there a trajectory? I wouldn’t say there was a route that would have led visitors to something specific, but there was a mise-enscène. I created friction, short circuits, hung Feldmann’s photographs very high, saying to myself that it didn’t matter whether I saw them or not, put other photographs at the very bottom of the wall. I had also left large areas empty and elsewhere created accumulations. What I detested was framed photographs, all lined up at 1.70 m high.

There was no theoretical thread? I am a primal anti-theoretician.Theory doesn’t interest me, or not much. It closes, it encloses, it freezes. I had fun doing this exhibition in a kind of happy madness. It was an alert, light manifestation I think, not theoretical.

Moreover, in Le Monde, Hervé Guibert concluded his review of Ils se disent... by calling it “A very funny scholarly exhibition.”What do you think of that? He got the point perfectly. We got on well with Guibert: he wasn’t dogmatic.

How was Ils se disent... received? Basically, it was given a very positive reception. Of course, a lot of people were also against it and reproached the vagueness but, as it was intended, I agreed with them!

The various accounts of the exhibition, including that of Anne Dagbert in artpress, are quite brief and don’t stress the importance that we can give it today. Why has it

become historic? That isn’t for me to say. Perhaps because it was pointing out something true. At the time, it was obvious. It was only afterwards that we said it was significant. The same thing happened in Arles. At the time I caused a scandal. Afterwards it was said that it had been an important turning point. Today, as I had done 25 years ago, videos and works by artists using photography are shown there.

Do you think Ils se disent... marks the birth certificate of what was later called by Dominique Baqué photographie plasticienne

[visual art photography]? Oh no, please! What does “visual art photography”, “creative photography” mean? I never couple the word “photography” with anything else. Photography is a medium, that's all. It has a lot of qualities, but why shut yourself up in it? I prefer to encompass it in something larger… What I mean here is that the 1980s were blessed enough to have three remarkable personalities to work with photography: Jean-Luc Monterosso who, with the Mois de la Photo festival and then the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, opened the door to young people, to something alive; Alain Sayag with first-rate action at the Centre Pompidou; and, at the Ministry of Culture, Agnès de Gouvion Saint-Cyr who, among others, proposed my name for Arles in 1995 and bravely supported me (as did the mayor).

1980 was also marked by the publication of La Chambre Claire by Roland Barthes. The photographs published in it were at the opposite pole to most of the practices

present in Ils se disent... I find this book overvalued and even appallingly banal. I expect something else from those who write about art. In my youth, there was a critic named MichelTapié. When I read it, I understood less what I saw than I did before I read it. For me, a critic is a smuggler. He has to deliver a few “keys”, but above all, he has to make people want to go and see.

Was Ils se disent... a critic’s exhibition? An exhibition for enthusiasts, rather, for someone involved in art, alert and free.

Translation: Chloé Baker Michel Nuridsany is a literary critic, art critic, curator and writer. Most recent book: Giuseppe Penone. Catalogue raisonné des cartons d’invitation (Marval, 2020).