Arles Festival Concludes With Night Of Surprising Awards

What's a photo festival without a little controversy? While the Rencontres d'Arles festival's exhibition program--comprised of 20 shows guest curated by British photographer Martin Parr--drew widespread approval, the July 11 awards ceremony left many scratching their heads. Of the five awards given out that night, almost all were criticized.

No one seemed more surprised than fashion photographer Jonathan de Villiers when he beat out Japanese legend Daido Moriyama and Portuguese artist Helena Almeida for the No Limit Award. De Villiers seemed nonplused as he arrived on stage to accept the award, but he mischievously thanked fellow Brit Elaine Constantine -- one of nine photographers on the jury -- for lobbying hard on his behalf.

The award marked an amazing return for de Villiers, who sold his commercial darkroom in London in the early Nineties to study philosophy at Cambridge University. Drawn back to photography, he has in recent years shot advertising campaigns for Sony and Time magazine, and his caustic photo stories for British, French and Italian Vogue often seem to challenge the morality of the fashion industry.

Applause was also muted for Anglo-Greek photographer John Stathatos, who won the Project Assistance Grant ahead of New Yorker Marina Berio, a former assistant to Nan Goldin who now teaches at ICP, and Ewen Spencer from the U.K.

More contentious was the selection of Kyoto-based artist Yasu Suzuka ahead of American photographers Reuben Cox and heavily favored Tim Davies in the Discovery Award.

Few, though, doubted that Toronto-based photographer Edward Burtynsky was a worthy winner of the Outreach Award, which recognizes work that "has increased dialogue and exchange in the interest of humanity." Burtynsky's large-format color images of landscapes scarred by man's industrial exploitation of natural resources won ahead of fellow Canadian Matei Glass and Cairo-based photographer Lara Baladi.

The Book Award went to South African photographer David Goldblatt's Particulars (Editions Goodman Gallery), which was chosen from more than 250 entries submitted by publishers from across the world. Taken from a series photographed over many years capturing small details of a wide cross-section of his countrymen, the expensively produced book takes publishing standards to new heights -- printed in five colors on 250gsm acid-free, dioxin-free Job Parilux paper manufactured from chlorine-free pulp in an edition of 100 collectors' copies and 500 standard copies.

Parr -- an obsessive book collector with a particular predilection for meticulous design -- accepted the $12,000 award on Goldblatt's behalf.

© Harri Kallio

Two further international awards were decided at Rencontres. The European Publishers Award proved equally controversial when Finnish artist Harri Kallio collected the prize for his project using life-size models to recreate the life of the now extinct Dodo bird and photograph it in its natural surroundings on the island of Mauritius. Many commented that his humorous presentation, set to the music of Tiny Tim, had little to do with photography, and looked more like a sculpture installation.

Stuttgart-based photographer Peter Granser -- who last year picked up the Discovery Award in Arles -- collected the 2004 Leica Oskar Barnack Award for his "Coney Island" series.

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Information on next year's Rencontres d'Arles Awards will be posted at www.rip-arles.org in the spring, while details on how to enter The European Publishers Award can be found at www.dewilewispublishing.com. The Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2005 is now open for entries. Visit www.leica-camera.com/kultur for details.