While the histories of photography are being constantly shaped, artists are diverging more and more from the classical canon. But continuity in one way or the other (wether under economical, stylistic, historical or personal considerations) can be understood as a healthy basis for experimentation.

The experiments COSMOS is interested in surprise first of all by shaking our beliefs in continuity and continuance, but time will test the radicalness of each proposition. We consider experimentation in the arts as a heritage of the 20th century which the digital but amplifies in it’s own way. So while we’ve been heavily invested in the digital since our beginnings, it’s certainly not the answer to everything. COSMOS has been slowly growing over the last 7 years, but its place in the festival this year also confronts us with new reflections and considerations. COSMOS loves experiments, and the confusing continuity of the photographic world – so why not have them together?

In 2015 COSMOS has invited 10 entities (Institutions, galleries, curators, publishers) to reply to the following questions:

– How can photography experiment while keeping an open dialogue with the history that nourishes it?
– How to uncategorize and free photography from old-fashioned models?
– Which economical models can respond to the overall crisis that endanger artists?
– How to use interactivity and information sharing in a dynamic and creative way?
– What new ways of seeing and feeling can be devised in a limited space?
– How to effectively communicate your work during a festival?

In result Cosmos and the participants have conceived ten exhibitions around the guiding principle “Continuity”. Cosmos doesn’t propose a subject-based nor a generation-based exhibition, but a survey of projects and ways of inventing new relations with images and publishing in all it’s forms, proposals that we deemed important enough to share with you.

Projects

The Random Series by Miguel Angel Tornero (presented by Nicolàs Combarro)
Les déserteurs by Stéphanie Solinas (presented by RVB Books)
Lick Creek Line by Ron Jude (presented by Gallery Robert Morat)
Twice by Cyrille Weiner (presented by edition 19/80)
Supravision: Photography and the Visual Servitude of the Unseen, Visionary Customs (Presented by Brad Feuerhelm)
At the Wall and Metropolis by Mame-Diarra Niang (presented by Gallery Stevenson)
Mold is beautiful from SFP images in quarantine (presented by Luce Lebart)
Images dissuasives by Samuel Gratacap presented by Temple
A space Oddity (presented by GDM, Galerie de multiples)

COSMOS-Arles books is a satellite space in the rencontres d’Arles dedicated to photobooks. Over the years, COSMOS has become an essential meeting place for collectors, curators, photographers, publishers, and those, simply, who love photography.

http://cosmosarlesbooks.com