"Faced with the impossibility of producing the exhibitions, equipping the premises, faced with the interruption of international trade, and taking into account the new recommendations of the government, we must give up organizing the 2020 edition of the Rencontres d'Arles ", wrote Wednesday in a statement the board of directors of the 51st international meetings of Arles photographs. The Meetings, which were scheduled from June 29 to September 20, are now part of the long list of cultural events to bear the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic.
"Never has a decision been so difficult to make"
It is the first time in their history that the Rencontres, the first edition of which took place in 1970, has been canceled. Having become one of the main photo festivals in the world, the Meetings have enjoyed worldwide popular success. From 60,000 visitors in 2008, attendance rose to 145,000 in 2019.
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After the cancellation of the Easter fair, it is a new blow for the city of Arles, a former working-class city hit by deindustrialisation, now turned towards tourism. "Never has a decision been so difficult to make," writes in its press release the board of directors of Les Rencontres, assuring that it has "considered all the scenarios" and made this decision "in order to preserve the future of Les Rencontres. the curators will notably receive their "exhibition rights", he added.
Last edition for Sam Stourdzé
Thirty-five exhibitions were planned for this edition which had the theme of resistance, mixing photography, collages and cinema. By presenting the program, on March 12, five days before the announcement of confinement by the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron, its director, Sam Stourdzé had sensed that this 51st edition could, like other public events, suffer the consequences of the epidemic and indicated "already put all the solutions in place to welcome the public".
This edition was the last for Sam Stourdzé, specialist in photography, who took the lead of the Rencontres de la photo in 2014 and was appointed, at the beginning of March, to the management of the Villa Medici in Rome.
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In half a century, more than a thousand exhibitions have brought together some 1,600 artists, and 26 artistic directors have succeeded one another at the head of the Meetings. The budget of 7.8 million euros is divided between patronage, subsidies and ticketing. The festival, free for Arles residents, generates, according to the municipality, 22 million euros in economic benefits from 100,000 visitors.
In France, most of the summer festivals had to be canceled, notably in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region: the Cannes festival, the Aix-en-Provence lyric art festival, the international theater festival of Avignon, the Orange choregias. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe announced the ban on events gathering more than 5,000 people at least until September.