"Chaque année, depuis 2013, Olympus revitalise ce dialogue éternel en pro- posant à trois grands noms de la photographie contemporaine de parrainer trois jeunes diplômés de l’École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie d’Arles. L’idée de cet « échange de vues » est née de la complicité d’Olympus avec l’École d’Arles dont il est un fidèle partenaire depuis de nombreuses années."
Art is fed by on correspondences, echo chambers, influences, claimed or not. Every artist is preceded by elders, masters, and in turn generates disciples. Every year since 2013, Olympus has revitalized this eternal dialogue by asking three great names in contemporary photography to sponsor three young graduates of the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles. The idea of this "exchange of views" was born out of Olympus' complicity with the École d'Arles, of which it has been a faithful partner for many years.
This photographic dialogue is based on a simple principle: from a corpus of about fifteen works proposed by each of the "referents", the students must produce images in response. This bold protocol takes bets on the future. It compares the accomplished works of the masters with those in the making of the students. The challenge? To ensure that young emerging talents take ownership of the photographs of their elders, extend them, refute them, transpose them, divert them, in order to make their own work. In 2015, the "referents" were Denis Darzacq, Paolo Woods and Dorothée Smith. They teamed up with Swen Renault, Elsa Leydier and Rébecca Topakian. In 2014, Françoise Huguier, Antoine d'Agata and Denis Rouvre dialogued with Sajede Sharifi, Santiago Torres and Steven Daniel. In 2013, Sarah Moon, Stanley Greene and Jean-Christian Bourcart sponsored Lise Dua, Jeannie Abert and Matthieu Rosier.
These "conversations" resulted in three exhibitions that were presented, in 2013, 2014 and 2015, in the prestigious setting of the Rencontres d'Arles. This winter, the gallery Les filles du calvaire is happy to join this process and to show a part of the images created during these three years of exchanges. It brings together the eighteen photographers who participated in this unique adventure.
