LA REVANCHE DE L’ARCHIVE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE (PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVES HIT BACK), an exhibition devised by Joerg Bader, will constitute the central focus of the 50JPG festival and will take place from 4 June to 31 July 2010. It will bring together some thirty artists coming from all sorts of background, and will be held at the Centre de la Photographie Genève (CPG) – Bâtiment d’art contemporain. With the participation of : Claudia Andujar, Arab Image Foundation, Roy Arden, Ariella Azoulay, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Mabe Bethônico, Ursula Biemann, Christian Boltanski, Marcelo Brodsky, Banu Cennetoglu, Martin Dammann, Michele Dantini, Silvie & Chérif Defraoui, Jeremy Deller / Alan Kane, documentation céline duval, Dora Garcia, Jochen Gerz, Catherine Gfeller, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Lois Hechenblaikner, Edward Hillel, Jacob Holdt, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Armin Linke, Susan Meiselas, Gustav Metzger, Gabriele & Helmut Nothhelfer, Uriel Orlow, Mathieu Pernot, Peter Piller, Walid Raad, Ricardo Rangel, Rosângela Rennò, Guadalupe Ruiz, Marie Sacconi, Joachim Schmid, Sean Snyder, Larry Sultan & Mike Mandel, UMAM Documentation & Research, Meir Wigoder, Akram Zaatari. from 4 June to 31 July 2010 Opening on 3 June 2010 from 18.00 Centre de la photographie Genève Bâtiment d’art contemporain 28, rue des Bains 1205 Geneva Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00 Guided tours in French : on Sunday 6, Saturday 12, Sunday 20 and Saturday 26 June at 11am Other dates and tours in English and German for groups (minimum 10 people) are possible on demand. Bookings: +41 (0)22 329 28 35 Rates: 5.– Frs / person (free for children under 16) There are two main reasons linked to archives that have allowed photography, which was a mere slave of art history, just a faithful reproducer of paintings and sculptures relegated to the cellar, to attain the noble level of the museum of fine art. On the one hand, the artists of the historical avant-gardes, in their fervour to transform society and life, used photography as a medium that could touch a wider public than that of art, via the mass media. A number of their protagonists, such as Hannah Höch, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy or Alexander Rodchenko, among others, secretly kept archives of photographs. On the other hand, museums of fine art started to highlight works by photographers who were aspiring to constitute archives through their photographic documents. Eugène Atget is the first in this lineage. His work inventorying Old Paris was turned to good account by the Surrealists at the end of the 1920s and served as a model for Walker Evans and Berenice Abbott. In the post-war era the “inventory” of the German population at the time of the Weimar Republic by August Sander was an example for Bernd and Hilla Becher in particular. All these photographers were involved in what Walker Evans calls the “documentary style”, one of the characteristics of which is in fact the ambition to set up an archive. Today, the nature of the photographic archive interests a growing number of photographers and artists. Confronted with the avalanche of photographs produced daily, more and more producers of images are becoming archivists-iconographers. LA REVANCHE DE L’ARCHIVE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE takes stock of this infinitely rich field that resonates closely with “Visual Culture”. By considering the period from the 1970s, with for example Christian Boltanski or Bernd & Hilla Becher, to the present day, it reconnects with the spirit of the avant-gardes and also shows a range of works that are all closely or distantly related to political art or art policy. LA REVANCHE DE L’ARCHIVE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE goes beyond the framework of a conventional exhibition of photographs. It offers not only a broadening outside the field of contemporary art, by including stances reflecting political militancy, anthropology or photo-reportage, and also showing photographic productions from the most varied points of view, giving prominence to methods of presentation that are not restricted solely to vintage prints mounted behind glass and with a cardboard mat. LA REVANCHE DE L'ACHIVE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE will be presented in a reduced form at the Museu da Imagem e do Som (MIS) in São Paulo in 2011/12. The catalogue of the exhibition LA REVANCHE DE L’ARCHIVE PHOTOGRAPHIQUE (French and English) will be published in Summer 2010. It will be about 200 pages in length and will offer each artist in the exhibition a double page with at least two colour illustrations. It will also include critical texts analysing the theme of the photographic archive in the field of “Visual Culture”. Several academic authors have been invited to participate, including: Ariella Azoulay, Sueli Rolnik, Christian Hubert-Rodier, Hubertus von Amelunxen and Irit Rogoff. The artists of our partner institutions and galleries taking the photographic archive as their theme will also be included. The 50JPG June – July 2010 Exhibitions – Colloquium – Portfolio Viewing – Lectures www.50jpg.ch The 50JPG (50 Jours pour la Photographie à Genève – 50 Days for Photography in Geneva) is a triennial devoted to photography initiated by the Centre de la photographie Genève (CPG) in 2003. In 2010 it will be held for the 3rd time. Each triennial uses photography to question a contemporary set of problems. After REPRÉSENTATION DU TRAVAIL/TRAVAIL DE REPRÉSENTATION in 2003 and PHOTO-TRAFIC in 2006, the event this year is focusing on the theme of the photographic archive. Around thirty exhibitions are planned, as well as a colloquium, a portfolio viewing and lectures.