THE RENCONTRES D’ARLES

What vegetable is that? Which animal? What’s it all about? Michel Bouvet’s posters for the Rencontres d’Arles provoke hundreds of questions each year, which we are incapable of answering. When we needed to re-launch the Rencontres in 2002, we consulted some very grand graphic studios; the brief was to ‘ginger up’ the message. Michel Bouvet took us at our word and got the job. But from the very first year confusion reigned. Instead of ginger, some interpreted it as a pimento, or a carrot; taxi-drivers in Arles would ask me what that loaf of corn bread was on the bus-shelters, and so it went on. But, in fact, what looked like being a total failure as far as the message was concerned turned out to be a marvellous topic of conversation and a good way of creating the buzz. So we decided to dig ourselves deeper into the absurd. Over the years we’ve moved out of the orchard and into the zoo, but Michel Bouvet’s method has stayed the same. We have to have the poster the autumn before the festival, even though the programme is far from complete. But Michel Bouvet insists that he can only design the thing if he knows what the programme is. This means that every year we embark on an enjoyable game of liar’s poker in which we give a totally imaginary programme to our favourite poster designer and he in turn comes back to us with twenty or so very pretty designs in coloured crayon, which have nothing to do either with each other or with the imaginary programme. Then the team and the President of the Rencontres go into the ritual of choosing which one is to be the visual for the year. Hypocritically, and slightly to reassure ourselves, even though our minds are already made up, we always ask ‘the opinion of the Michel Bouvet studio’. The answer is always evasive and gets everybody off the hook. Nonetheless, in our frustration at having to reject so many designs that we could have chosen every year, we plan to mark the tenth year under the new dispensation by sharing with the public all the proposed designs along with the process of creating the poster which in all its forms, from the catalogue to the mugs, has become the mascot of the Rencontres d’Arles.

François Hébel, artistic director of the Rencontres d’Arles.

Exhibition realised with the support of Gares & Connexions.

Mounting and canvas by the Atelier Robin Tourenne, Paris.

Framing by Circad, Paris.

Exhibition venue: Atelier de Maintenance, Parc des Ateliers.

LES AFFICHES CULTURELLES

Michel Bouvet is one of today’s best-known poster makers, both in France and abroad. This profoundly humanistic artist graduated from the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1978. An illustrated poster—the advertising variety aside—is aimed at a range of publics: people in the street, cultural circles and connoisseurs. The theatre, opera and cultural centre kinds demand real dialogue between client and creator: the author of the play, the director or the head of the centre has to be questioned so as to home in on the work’s specific features, style and meaning. A detailed, respectful breakdown of Shakespeare, Jean Genet or Chekhov is a basic requirement which Michel Bouvet undertakes scrupulously, shaping a graphic translation of his subject that reflects the rigorous personal criteria that are his trademark. With its powerfully distinctive language a Bouvet poster conveys all the essentials, catching and holding our eye and obliging us to understand while at the same time intriguing us with its accomplished use of graphics and / or photography. For Bouvet the creative process begins with drawing, but it can also involve the work of photographer / artists like Francis Laharrague and sometimes call for the creation of an artefact. One striking example of the latter was the letter H for Shakespeare’s Hamlet: a three-dimensional, crenellated metal piece that was then photographed. The Bouvet style is defined first and foremost by the black border and the outlining of the forms. The areas of flat (and often primary) colour are sealed off by these lines. There is a coldly lucid side to his mechanical, not to say scientific process of analysis and breakdown that could make his art seem impersonal. But this is art aimed at everyone, leaving the viewer free to interpret according to a specific set of criteria, as was the case with the Pop Art of the sixties and seventies. Viewers discovering a new poster must be taken by surprise and informed. To retain their attention, Bouvet turns this art of the ephemeral into a graphic, visual and intellectual exercise. Bouvet is looking for universality: his visually compelling symbols and tweaked artefacts demand a reaction. The success of a play or a festival also hinges on identification on the part of those directly involved: on establishing a kind of mutual understanding between client and public. As a committed teacher, Bouvet excels in the art of guiding and transmitting; as a poster artist specialising in the cultural domain, he uses his mastery of visual metaphor to enhance the message and enthuse the viewer.

Marie-Pascale Prévost-Bault, Chief Curator, Musées Départementaux de la Somme.

Excerpt from the exhibition catalogue :Michel Bouvet, Affichiste (Michel Bouvet, Poster Artist) will be on show at the Museum in the Abbaye de Saint-Riquier Baie de Somme from 25 June – 22 October 2011.

Mounting and canvas by the Atelier Robin Tourenne, Paris.

Exhibition venue: abbaye de Montmajour.