Edition 2009

Michel NURIDSANY

Born 29 April 1938 in Neuilly, France.

Lives and works "everywhere".


Besides his work as a critic for Le Figaro (1971–2002), Radio France Culture and Art Press, Michel Nuridsany works in three fields: visual art, film and literature.

Nuridsany has directed ten films and videos on artists such as Klossowski, Boltanski, Lavier, Le Gac and Mozart's opera Bastien and Bastienne. He also wrote the script for Juan Luis Buñuel's Leonor starring Michel Piccoli and Liv Ullmann.

He edited the series "Textes" for Flammarion and "Littératures" for the French National Library. He has also published 30 books, among them the biography Warhol, the novel Ce sera notre secret, Monsieur Watteau, 100 Chefs d’Oeuvres de la Peinture and L’art Contemporain Chinois.

Michel Nuridsany was in charge of the French section of the biennials in Sao Paulo in 1985 and in Cairo/Alexandria in 2001.

He curated the exhibitions Ils se disent peintres, ils se disent photographes at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1980, C’est pas du cinéma (video) at Le Fresnoy in 2002, Les Nouveaux Réalistes in Beijing, Shanghai and Canton in 2003, Fraîcheur de vivre  (video) in Canton, Shanghai, New Delhi, Macao, Jakarta, Algiers, St Etienne and Riga in 2004–07, and Génération Vidéo (Chinese video) at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris in 2004.

He was Director of the Rencontres d'Arles in 1995 and President of the jury at the Montreal International Festival of Films on Art in 2009. In 2009, Michel Nuridsany was nominator for the Discovery Award of the Rencontres d’Arles. He nominated Adrien Missika who presented his series Space between at the Grande Halle.

He is Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters; Knight of the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin.
  • Institutional partners

    • République Française
    • Région Provence Alpes Côté d'Azur
    • Département des Bouches du Rhône
    • Arles
    • Le Centre des monuments nationaux est heureux de soutenir les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles en accueillant des expositions dans l’abbaye de Montmajour
  • Main partners

    • Fondation LUMA
    • BMW
    • SNCF
    • Kering
  • Media partners

    • Arte
    • Lci
    • Konbini
    • Le Point
    • Madame Figaro
    • France Culture