Christian Caujolle studied in Paris with Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes and Pierre Bourdieu. He worked as Picture Director at Libération before founding the VU photo agency in 1986.
France –
Emaho caught up with celebrated French curator and photographer Christian Caujolle to see the view from his rarefied space.
Manik: It’s been more than 26 years roughly that you have started your career as a photo editor with Liberation and then you started curating; how has the journey and experience been so far?
Christian: I think that the first thing is that for different reasons the environment of photography and then the content…the aesthetics of photography radically changed. Let’s say that there are two main points which made those changes radical. One is the crisis of media business in printed paper and the second one is the invention of technology with the invention of development and coming of digital image. So the result in one way is a fact that the traditional media are in economic trouble but also may be conceptual trouble. As a consequence on what was the main or more visible area of photography from the 50s-80s, which was information, information with mostly photojournalism and part of documentary. That doesn’t means that photojournalism died, that means it’s no more at its top; that means that documentary photography, I will say in tradition which is an old tradition including from the beginning of 20th century when someone as Sander became more important than before in and after… there are big changes in the perception of photography with the development of the functionality of books, the exhibitions.
So the real perception of the cultural and artistic dimension of photography and as consequence the development of an art market for photography…I think we have to be conscious about another thing with digital and with development of digital by the industry something happened which is the end of a golden period for photography that doesn’t mean it died. But I think photography built as a memory of 20th century and globally is the most important and complex visual means of expression of the 20th century that absolutely finished; whereas in another world, which is a world of imagery… and photography is a part of that world of imagery. Photography can no more be arrogant except probably because of very complex and problematic systems in there… on the market some part of photography is arrogant… on the art market… but let’s say that the main function of photography with very different kinds of aesthetics which was building memory of 20th century, that’s finished.
I have no idea about what would be the visualized memory of the first part of 21st century; I have no idea at all about what would be the family album of kids who are 10yrs old today so that is serious change. For us there is something else… which for me makes including more importance of fact of showing photography, what changed which is also positive that today more and more people can produce images and share, send or make them travel very quickly, speed is one of the main value of today’s society… I think its a very dangerous value.
