As artist biopics continue to multiply, it is worth remembering that Van Gogh has inspired a wide range of interpretations since the early days of cinema. Each filmmaker, beyond a purely historical perspective, reinvents Van Gogh in their own way.

This programme traces a series of key moments, featuring works in which the painter becomes less a subject than a visual motif, and where cinema asserts its own language—sometimes to the point of letting Van Gogh dissolve into the image.

Screening excerpts:

• Van Gogh — Alain Resnais, 1948

• Lust for Life — Vincente Minnelli, 1956

• Van Gogh — Kijû Yoshida, 1978

• Dreams (Crows / Yume) — Akira Kurosawa, 1989

• Van Gogh — Maurice Pialat, 1991

Closing with:

• Un Flic — Jean-Pierre Melville, 1972

No booking required
Free admission, subject to availability
Venue: La Chapelle du Méjan
Place Nina Berberova, 13200 Arles

Hervé Gauville is a writer and art critic. Former head of the visual arts section at the newspaper Libération, he also contributed a regular cinema column to Artpress magazine and taught at the Geneva University of Art and Design (course entitled Arts plastiques & cinéma). He has published numerous writings on art as well as several literary works.

At a time when filmed biographies are multiplying—and painters’ biopics in particular—it is worth recalling that one of the most illustrious among them has been the subject of hundreds of essays, both literary and cinematic. Cinema was born five years after the death of Vincent van Gogh. Ever since, documentaries and fiction films have competed in their efforts to recount his life and approach his art.

Viewing Van Gogh through the lens of a camera differs fundamentally from the observation and analysis practiced by the art historian, the critic, or the amateur. It is hardly surprising that there are almost as many Van Goghs as there are filmmakers who have portrayed him. After all, do the painter’s some forty self-portraits not reveal as many different facets of his face? The so-called Self-Portrait at the Easel bears little resemblance to the Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear.

Following the adventures of a life bordering on legend is a way of tracing the shifting discourse surrounding the painter—and, more broadly, art itself.

Rather than compiling an exhaustive list mixing museographic videos and educational documents, a deliberate choice was made to focus on nine films produced over the span of half a century, roughly from the centenary of Van Gogh’s birth to that of his death. What these films share is that they are first and foremost works of cinema. The painter serves as their pretext rather than their goal. In doing so, they prioritize cinematic art before seeking to render justice—if such justice is even required—to their subject, their “motif.”

In return, like a mirror held up to the camera, the Van Gogh figure illuminates cinema in its pursuit of authenticity and, above all, autonomy. What is at stake, then, is creating work with and through the work of a painter—that is, a fellow artist. And in the proliferation of images, Vincent gradually disappears, persisting all the while in his art.

L’attrait de Vincent van Gogh (2018) par Hervé Gauville aux Éditions Yellow Now ISBN 2873404221, 160 pages

In this political fable, which claims to be as much Roberto Rossellini’s Eleven Fioretti of Francis of Assisi as Laurel and Hardy’s slapstick comedy, Pasolini shows the impossible dialogue between the intellectual and the people. His film is thus an acerbic critique of “left intellectuals” that are incapable of grasping popular aspirations.
A film of great formal simplicity, The Hawks and the Sparrows nevertheless remains eminently personal for its author through the themes of Marxism and Catholicism that run through his entire work. Alongside the debutant Ninetto Davoli, Pasolini’s future favourite actor, Totò’s comedic genius shines through here.
The Hawks and the Sparrows is a philosophical comedy that stands out in Pasolini’s filmography.

A short presentation on Pasolini’s cinematographic work will be given by Laura Vichi before the screening.
Laura Vichi has a doctorate in theatre and film studies from the University of Bologna in Italy. She teaches film history and is the director of L’Usine aux Images, an association for education in the visual arts.

Read some reviews on the film:
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-hawks-and-the-sparrows-196
https://cinefilesreviews.com/2017/09/27/the-hawks-and-the-sparrows-1966-movie-review/

See the trailer: https://youtu.be/8riUlf9dAaY

Glenn Belverio / Sadie Benning / Dana DeGiulio / Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings
Anna Mantzaris / Ridykeulous / Tom Rubnitz & Ann Magnuson

This evening of film screenings invites the Arles public to discover a selection of short films echoing the practice of Nicole Eisenman, whose work is currently on show at the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles in the exhibition “Nicole Eisenman and the Moderns. Heads, Kisses, Battles”.

“About Feelings, Laughter and Streets” draws on experimental films produced in the New York of the 1980s and 1990s – films issuing from the same artistic milieu as Eisenman and pursuing similar formal experiments and questions. This screening event is an opportunity to honour the short films made by the Ridykeulous collective founded in 2005 by Eisenman and A.L. Steiner, as well as the TV productions by the American journalist and artist Glenn Belverio, such as The Lesbian Museum (1992).

Through eight films dating from 1984 to 2020, “About Feelings, Laughter and Streets” is a chance to immerse ourselves visually in Eisenman’s artistic biotope, and at the same time to discern the enduring resonances of these experimental New York productions in the practice of younger artists, notably in the sphere of animation.

The majority of the films in English are not subtitled.
Free Entrance – Total running time: 80 min

PROGRAMME :

Ridykeulous (Nicole Eisenman + A.L. Steiner), Times Square S.C.U.M. MANifesto (2011), 7 min
Ridykeulous is a curatorial initiative headed by artists Nicole Eisenman (b. 1965, Verdun) and A.L. Steiner (b. 1967, Miami) and founded in 2005. Ridykeulous mounts exhibitions and events primarily concerned with feminist and queer issues, and uses humorous strategies to critique the art world and culture at large.

Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings, Everything Is Folly In This World That Does Not Give Us Pleasure (2021), 2 min 26
Hannah Quinlan (b. 1991) & Rosie Hastings (b. 1991) are a duo based in London. Working across drawing, film, installation, performance and fresco, their practice examines the behaviours, history, politics, and artefacts of LGBTQIA+ culture in the Western context.  Quinlan and Hastings are committed to exposing nationalism, masculinity, and whiteness within the LGBTQIA+ community and the effects on the community of state-led violence, including policing, gentrification, and austerity.

Glenn Belverio, The Lesbian Museum, 1992, 29 min

Glenn Belverio (b. 1975, New York) is an independent filmmaker living and working in New York City. In 1990 he began producing and co-hosting the popular US cable-TV series The Brenda and Glennda Show, of which The Lesbian Museum forms one episode. The show was designed to popularize the art of drag queens, while addressing the issues of gender and gay politics being debated in American society at that time. At the Lesbian Museum, Brenda and Glennda interview artists at the opening of Christine Martin’s controversial exhibition The Lesbian Museum: 10,000 Years of Penis Envy at Franklin Furnace. For the exhibition, each artist (including Brenda and Glennda) were given a dildo and asked to turn it into a work of art.

Dana DeGiulio, Dr Zoom – Episode 1-8, 2020, 8 min 41 s

Dana DeGiulio (b. 1978, Chicago) is a painter whose project pits action and materiality against image. Her work in video, drawing, installation, painting, writing and teaching is about edges and touch and attention. An itinerant professor of visual art for the last fourteen years, Dana DeGiulio currently teaches at New York University, Columbia University, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She works at home in Brooklyn next to the window.

Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings, Gaby, 2018, 7 min 55

The first part of Gaby includes a montage of found video clips in which active police dance at pride parades to Y.M.C.A. , The Village People’s iconic 1978 song. Over the last decade, similar sequences have been making the headlines of news outlets, triggering an unanimous positive reaction. Often joined by celebrating paraders, the officers are usually caught on mobile phone cameras, and their apparent amicability clashes strongly with today’s alarming rise of police brutality. The film follows with an animatic sequence of a 1977 issue of the gay magazine Christopher Street, extolling, mostly white, male gay communities’ propensity to rejuvenate disregarded neighbourhoods and “save” Manhattan from the “slums”, in what can be understood as early testimonies of a queer history of gentrification in New York.

Sadie Benning, If Every Girl Had a Diary, 1990, 8 min

Sadie Benning (b. 1973, Madison) is a self-taught American filmmaker and artist. Known for their intimate films addressing issues of homosexuality, identity and desire, they enjoyed some success on the 1990s American art scene. They remain one of the most famous representatives of the New York underground culture of that epoch.

Tom Rubnitz and Ann Magnuson,Made for TV, 1984, 15 min

Thomas Rubnitz (1956, Chicago – 1992, New York) is an artist particularly known for the videos he made during the years 1980– 1990. Originally from Chicago, he spent most of his life in New York’s East Village, a centre of American gay and queer culture. This emblematic figure of the 1980s New York underground scene leaves behind an essential, political, joyful and insolent body of work. Tom Rubnitz died of an AIDS-related illness in 1992.

Anna Mantzaris, ENOUGH, 2017, 2 min 22 s

Swedish animation director and filmmaker Anna Mantzaris (b.1986, Stockholm) holds an MA in Animation from the Royal College of Art in London. Her films have won over 80 international awards, including the European Animation Award, the Vimeo Award for Best of the Year, the Walt Disney Award and the Audience Award at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. She teaches on an occasional basis and has been a guest lecturer at the Royal College of Art in London, the Stockholm University of the Arts and the National Film & Television School in England.

In conjunction with the “Arles se livre” Festival, the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles presents an event on the theme of sound poetry and how it is archived.

Sound poetry, while generally situated outside the field of books, relies on the use of the voice, which is transmitted to the listener either directly or by radiophonic or other technological means. It originated in the first quarter of the 20th century with the phonetic poetry of Georgian artist Ilia Zdanevitch (1894-1975) and the visual poetry or parole in libert of Filippo Marinetti (1923-1944), among others. Closely linked with the Dada movement, it developed more broadly in the 1950s, bringing together poets such as Bernard Heidsieck (1928-2014), Henri Chopin (1922-2008) and François Dufrêne (1930-1985). It also gave rise to other work centred on the breath, such as the “megapneumes” of artist Gil J. Wolman (1929-1995) included in the current exhibition “Breathing One’s Breath”.

The nature of this poetry raises many questions. Given that the recording of performances or actions by sound poets varies,
how can we think about its transmission?
How can it be archived?
Who rejects the printed word and why?
What do young artists do with such a powerful yet unstable legacy?

These issues will be addressed by a round table made up of  Eric Mangion, Director of the Centre d’art de la Villa Arson (Nice) and curator of the exhibition “La Voix libérée – Poésie sonore” at the Palais de Tokyo in 2019, and Anne Le Troter, an artist whose practice explores the mechanics of language and speech through sound. It will be moderated by Julia Marchand, Associate Curator of the Fondation Vincent Van Gogh Arles.

The philosopher Clément Layet will present his latest book, which brings together the painter’s extensive writings, Pierre entourée de chutes: écrits et entretiens sur la peinture, la politique et le théâtre (1953-1998), recently published by L’Atelier contemporain.

More generally, Clément Layet will also share his thoughts on the themes that run through the exhibition “Nature humaine – Humaine nature”.

Clément Layet is also the author of Hölderlin: la démesure et le vivant (Vrin, 2020) and André du Bouchet (Seghers, 2002).

Cover of the book: Pierre entourée de chutes – Écrits et entretiens sur la peinture, la politique et le théâtre, 1953-1998 de Gilles Aillaud (2022) – 30 € – 672 pages – ISBN : 978-2-85035-090-0

Vue de l’exposition. Photo : François Deladerrière
Gilles Aillaud, La Fosse, 1967
Huile sur toile, 200 × 250 cm (FNAC 29065)
En dépôt au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes
Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris
© Adagp, Paris, 2022 / Cnap
Crédit photographique : Jean-Manuel Salingue – Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes

In the first part of the evening, Jean de Loisy, co-curator of the exhibition, will give the floor to Raymond Martinez, photographer, great admirer and commentator of Van Gogh’s work. He will be followed by Arnauld Pierre, author, critic, art historian and professor of the History of Contemporary Art at the Université de Paris-Sorbonne, and author of the book Maternités cosmiques, La recherche des origines, de Kupka à Kubrick aux Éditions Hazan (2010).

This double encounter will be followed by a musical reading of letters by Vincent van Gogh on the theme of Night, imagined and orchestrated by Marie Vauzelle.t

Lettre de Van Gogh à Eugène Boch. Arles, mardi 2 octobre 1888.
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
(Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

As part of the exhibition La Haute Note Jaune, which features several paintings by German artist Albert Oehlen,
we are organising a screening of the film The Painter made in 2021 by the artist and Oliver Hirschbiegel, a docu-drama starring Ben Becker and the voice of Charlotte Rampling.

(!) The screening will take place in the LUMA Arles auditorium, located in the Tower on level 1.

Free, online reservation recommended HERE
Original version: German – English subtitles

about the film
Fiction, documentary, filmed performance? Actor Ben Becker plays Albert Oehlen, a painter creating a painting. The film crosses formal boundaries and questions the meaning of the creative process and the struggle for authenticity at different levels. As the painter himself says, ‘Art must show its internal process of creation, like a stripped-down, totally visible mechanism, and must not be the artist’s field of sensitive expression’. /Jean-Charles Vergne

about the artist Albert Oehlen
Born 1954 in Krefeld, Germany; lives in Gais, Switzerland
Albert Oehlen’s work, linked to neo-Expressionism, draws on conceptual gestures and logic. It is rooted in the punk movement and German left-wing ideology of the 1970s; the artist constantly questions the authoritarian and dominant nature of painting, attempting to free it from its historical obligations and references. The result is a body of experimental work that grapples with the many ideological and formal crises of the contemporary age.

Genre: Biopic
Year: 2015
Country of origin: France
Running time: 1 h 47 min
Director: Fabrice Maze
Production: Aube & Oona Elléouet Breton – Seven Doc

Synopsis: Claude Cahun (Lucie Schwob) is an independent woman, emancipated, an income earner, a non-militant homosexual, a ‘wandering writer’, a versatile artist, a revolutionary, an anti-fascist, an individualist, an atypical surrealist, in a word, unclassifiable. Out of all conformism, out of a perpetual concern for differentiation and a ‘mania for the exceptional’, she produced an innovative and disconcerting body of photographic work in which she portrayed herself with the help of her partner, Marcel Moore (Suzanne Malherbe), with whom she shared her entire life. A mythical couple, often overshadowed, despite their many collective works. ‘All creation is self-creation’, wrote Claude Cahun, rebelling against any form of identification and for whom ‘labels are detestable’. Her desire was ‘to travel only on the bow of oneself’.

+ about artists

I am your life’s work’ wrote Claude Cahun (Lucie Schwob) to her partner Marcel Moore (Suzanne Malherbe) in 1914. Sisters by marriage and lovers since adolescence, the two artists produced a body of photographic and literary work for almost forty years, always signed with Cahun’s name alone. Originally from Nantes, and close to the Surrealist community in Paris in the 1920s, they forged a highly personal path that questioned both artistic and sexual identity. Their cooperation, based on complementary skills, was expressed as much in publishing as in experimental theatre during the inter-war period. They joined the Resistance on the island of Jersey during the Occupation, and their political commitment bears witness to a relationship that was always marked by collective anonymity. (source here)

The exhibition ‘La Haute Note Jaune’ presents 5 photographs by Claude Cahun.
The Foundation would like to thank Jersey Heritage Collections for lending the works.

An art historian and critic, independent curator and professor of art history at the Beaux-arts de Paris from 1988 to 2019, Jean-François Chevrier is the author of numerous essays and books on modern art, including photography and architecture.

Books and exhibition catalogues since 2004 (selection):

– published by L’Arachnéen: La Trame et le hasard (2010) – Des territoires (2011), Les Relations du corps (2011) – L’Hallucination artistique. De William Blake à Sigmar Polke (2012) – Œuvre et activité. The question of art (2015).

– Restricted Action. L’art moderne selon Mallarmé (cat. MACBA/Musée des beaux-arts de Nantes, Hazan, 2004-2005) – Jeff Wall (Hazan, 2006/2013) – Formes biographiques (cat. Musée Reina Sofia/Carré d’art Nîmes, Hazan, 201

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)