A Guide to July 2024 Photography Festivals & Exhibitions

Les Rencontres d'Arles, Rita Puig-Serra at PhMuseum Lab, Cortona On The Move, Tyler Mitchell and Jean-Marie Donat Collection at C/O Berlin, and Tatjana Danneberg at MEP are among the photography events to visit this month.

Les Rencontres d'Arles 2024

Arles, France / 1 July - 29 September

Every summer since 1970, throughout a large number of exhibitions at various of the city's exceptional heritage sites, the Rencontres d'Arles has been a meeting point for photography passionates, artists and experts, while playing the role of a springboard for photographic and contemporary creative talents. During the opening week in July, all of Arles lives to the beat of photography. A place of exchange with creators, the festival invites the public to join artists and curators on the program for exhibition tours, panel discussions, workshops, portfolio reviews, conferences, book signings, and readings. Projections, concerts, and performances liven up the evenings. During the famous Night Of The Year, the unmissable festive event, visitors party under the stars until dawn.

The 2024 edition delves into new perspectives such as eddies, spirits, traces, parallel readings, and rereadings. Among the exhibited artists are Cristina De Middel, Rajesh Vora, Randa Mirza, Debi Cornwall, Stephen Dock, Nicolas Floc'h, Marine Lanier, Uraguchi Kusukazu, Bruce Eesly, Coline Jourdan, Marilou Poncin, Paribartana Mohanty and many others.

Discover the complete list of exhibited artists on their website.

Anatomy Of An Oyster by Rita Puig-Serra at PhMuseum Lab

Bologna, Italy / 12 June - 15 September

Mother-of-pearl, which will in time become the pearl, begins to form when a foreign element is introduced into the oyster. Starting from this metaphor, Catalan artist Rita Puig-Serra traces her childhood in an effort to process the abuses she suffered in her family as a child. It is an attempt to tell what needs to be told; a way of telling what could never be revealed to a now absent mother. And, at the same time, a way of telling it to herself. Anatomy Of An Oyster is about what we hold inside and don't have the courage to say. Rita Puig-Serra uses photographs, text and archival images to tell her story. She searches through family photos for details of the person who abused her. The pearl, which is an oyster’s autobiography, is the result of this exploration: a search carried out to find it, assimilate it, and finally remove it.

Rita Puig-Serra's work has been selected through PhMuseum 2023 Women Photographers Grant. The exhibition is part of the PhMuseum Days 2024 and will remain open after the opening on the 27 June and 11 July from 5.30pm to 7.30pm. It will then be open to visitors again during the PhMuseum Days festival from 12 to 15 September 2024.

Wish This Was Real by Tyler Mitchell and Studio Rex by Jean-Marie Donat Collection at C/O Berlin

Berlin, Germany / 1 June - 5 September

C/O Berlin presented its new exhibition program. Wish This Was Real is Tyler Mitchell’s first solo exhibition in Germany which offers new perspectives on his long-standing themes of self-determination and the extraordinary radiance of the everyday. Studio Rex brings a significant part of the Jean Marie Donat Collection's archive into the country, inviting a dialogue between Africa and Europe, as well as between personal and collective memory and forgetting across the past and present.

Curated by Brendan Embser (Senior Editor at Aperture) and Sophia Greiff (Curator and Co-Head of Program at C/O Berlin Foundation), in collaboration with Tyler Mitchell Studios, Wish This Was Real covers nearly ten years of Mitchell’s dynamic artistic practice in photography and video, demonstrating the influence of the “New Black Vanguard,” which American writer Antwaun Sargent describes as the proliferation of images by Black photographers who work between the genres of art and fashion.

Studio Rex exhibition delves into the role of photo studios in visual culture, the relevance of (self-)representation, and the challenges that arise when telling such stories. And finally, the significance of the disappearance of this trade. Curated by Boaz Levin (Curator and Co-Head of Program of the C/O Berlin Foundation), and the Collector Jean-Marie Donat, the exhibition provides further insight into the practice of studio photography while also bearing witness to a lost era of Kreuzberg‘s residents and their everyday lives, as well as the changing times, fashions, and gestures. In addition, a photo studio backdrop invites visitors to photograph themselves.

Both exhibitions explore the significance of photography as a medium for self-representation and self-determination in multiple ways. Tyler Mitchell for the Black community in contemporary America, Studio Rex for the many migrants in Marseille from the 1960s to the 1980s. 

Visit C/O Berlin's website to discover more.

Cortona On The Move

Cortona, Italy / 11 July - 3 November

Cortona On The Move comes back with its 14th edition of the international photography festival under the theme Body of Evidence. Now approaching its 14th edition, under the direction of Veronica Nicolardi, the artistic direction of Paolo Woods and the photographic curatorship of Kublaiklan the festival makes documentary narrative the center of its interest and focuses on contemporary and socially relevant themes. Exhibited artists include Myriam Boulos, Carmen Winant, Rehab Eldalil, Ken Graves and Eva Lipman, Cesura collective (Arianna Arcara, Chiara Fossati, Giacomo Liverani, Marco Zanella, Alex Zoboli), Carl Ander, Philip Montgomery, Matthieu Nicol, Pawel Jaszczuk. On this occasion, OTM Company is proud to present a comprehensive program of educational activities dedicated to both professional and aspiring photographers. The offer includes lectures, workshops, portfolio reviews, and meetings, allowing participants to live an immersive and unique experience, learning from the masters and professionals of contemporary photography.

Find out more about the festival's program on their website.

Something Happened by Tatjana Danneberg at MEP

Paris, France / 27 July - 29 September

The MEP Studio presents the first solo exhibition in France of Austrian artist Tatjana Danneberg, whose work combines photography and painting. By experimenting with materials and processes for transferring images to canvas, Tatjana Danneberg transforms her candid analogue photographs into expressive paintings. Using point-and-shoot cameras, the artist seeks to prolong occasional memories by depicting relatives, acquaintances, and everyday objects in familiar and often intimate shots. Her technique for making the transition from photography to painting is fairly complex.

Discover more on MEP's website.

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Also open this month:

Photogaspésie 2024 / Gaspésie--Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Canada / 15 July - 30 September

Out of discussions with the artists, their proposals, and the omnipresence of the everyday in their work, the idea of Transcending The Commonplace emerged. The theme of the 15th edition originates in a meeting with Kinuko Asano, director of the gallery Écho 119, and the decision to entrust her with the curatorship of an exhibition bringing together five Japanese artists for the 2024 edition. Around that idea, they assembled different bodies of work that are part of the “humanity of the moment", a concept that makes the artist an observer, a researcher.

See/The Time/In Colour at Centre Pompidou Metz / Metz, France / 13 July - 18 November

Curated by Sam Stourdzé, the exhibition recalls the importance of photography in discovering the world as we know it, bringing together around 250 works and 50 photographers, and offering a unique overview of the major technical challenges that have marked the history of the discipline. It will provide an opportunity to discover exceptional works: from very rare plates showing the restoration of masterpieces from the Italian Renaissance to rarely exhibited seascapes by Gustave Le Gray and autochrome plates from the collection of Albert Kahn recreated for the exhibition.

Annual Latin American Foto Festival 2024 / The Bronx, United States / 13 July - 30 July

Curated by Cynthia Rivera and Michael Kamber, the Bronx Documentary Center (BDC) will hold its 6th annual Latin American Foto Festival featuring large-scale photographs by both emerging and established photographers, with their work displayed throughout the South Bronx’s Melrose neighborhood. Artists featured include Audrey Cordova, Federico Ríos Escobar, Natalia Favre, Zahara Gómez, Nicole Kramm, Cuerpas Reales, Hinchas Reales, Sonia Madrigal, Mayra Martell, Project MiRA, Musuk Nolte, Nuevayorkinos, Fernanda Pineda, Ángela Ponce, María Jesús Folil Pueller and Greta Rico.

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Check out our festivals and exhibitions page to get a complete view of what's coming up on the photography calendar over the next few months.