Christoph Wiesner, director of the Rencontres d'Arles photography festival, has transformed a global concern about image censorship into a celebration of photographic resistance. When Donald Trump announced plans to delete unwanted photos from government archives, Wiesner found inspiration for this year's festival theme: "unteachable images" that resist dominant narratives and challenge established discourse.
The Austrian-born festival director can often be spotted cycling through the sweltering streets of Arles, France, wearing his signature blue espadrilles as he rushes between appointments during the summer festival season. His blonde hair slightly thinning and disheveled, his blue-gray eyes maintaining a friendly demeanor, Wiesner embodies the approachable energy that has helped make the Rencontres d'Arles the world's oldest, largest, and most successful photography festival.
This year's festival showcases an impressive 47 exhibitions spread across diverse venues throughout the southern French town, including monasteries, churches, ancient catacombs, cultural centers, and even the top floor of a department store. Visitors can explore approximately 4,000 photographs, with the collection seemingly expanding each year. The festival has drawn 23,000 people to the remote town of Arles in just its first week alone, attracting photographers, artists, journalists, and passionate amateurs from around the world.
The concept of "unteachable images" emerged from Wiesner's reaction to Trump's February directive targeting the DEI trinity of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The order called for removing all content related to these themes from government photo archives, including those of the Defense Department. Reports indicate that approximately 26,000 images were deleted, including, ironically, photos of the Hiroshima atomic bomber Enola Gay, named after the pilot's mother. The artificial intelligence system used for the purge made no distinction between "gay" as a sexual orientation and "Gay" as an American family name in the keyword catalog.
"This is proof to me that images have something to say," Wiesner explains. "They must have power if they need to be erased. But people at American universities sat down and made backups. This shows the resilience of images." He notes that while "resistance" felt too strong a term and carries specific connotations in France, "unteachable" appealed to him because it provokes thought and poses riddles.
Wiesner stands out in the French curatorial landscape as a German-French dual national, or as the French would say, "franco-allemand." He spent 15 years in Germany—five in Cologne working for gallerist Esther Schipper, and ten in Berlin at the then-newly opened project space. This experience allows him to speak German with a gentle, slightly singing accent, though he grew up speaking French.
Born in 1965 in Gemünden am Main in the Franconian district of Main-Spessart, Wiesner's story began when his French mother and German father met in Turkey. When he was three, the family moved to France. His French grandmother later recalled how young Christoph would ask for "Wurscht" (sausage), but people couldn't understand what the child wanted. Growing up in Senlis, near Chantilly, proved somewhat lonely for the shy boy who preferred playing alone. His father faced difficulties with French colleagues who sometimes called him "boche," a derogatory term for Germans, as resentments from World War II, which had ended less than 25 years earlier, had not yet been erased by time.
Wiesner's art world career began thanks to a high school strike. When classes were cancelled, the teenager secretly took a train to Paris with a friend, planning to visit a museum and see a Woody Allen film. "When I entered the Centre Pompidou and stood before Henri Matisse's painting 'Luxury, Calm and Voluptuousness,' I knew I wanted to do something with art," he recalls. He studied museology at the École de Louvre in Paris, followed by his Berlin years, a brief stint at Yvon Lambert's gallery in Paris, and his appointment as artistic director of the Paris Photo fair in 2015. In 2020, he was offered the leadership of the Arles festival.
The "unteachable images" encompass a vast range of photographic works: images of First Nations people from Australia, Brazil's emerging photography scene, and the courageous documentation of Mafia terror by Sicilian photographer Letizia Battaglia. The exhibition features American Louis Stettner, whose work bridged American street photography and France's humanistic school, as well as explorations of fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent's eye both as photographer and subject. Particularly fascinating is the tribute to anonymous photography, compiled by gallerists Marion and Philippe Jacquier from their extensive collection.
The festival's growth has been remarkable, attracting 145,000 visitors in the year following the pandemic, 160,000 in 2024, with Wiesner expecting even larger crowds this year. When asked if he fears that too much success might damage the festival, he acknowledges the legitimate concern but sees it more as an opportunity than a threat. "Arles is a small town, but the cultural scene has completely transformed in recent years. Foundations have emerged everywhere, the city has become very dynamic, full of energy."
The transformation has been rapid and dramatic. In just over a decade, this sleepy town of 55,000 inhabitants—known for its mistral winds, Roman monuments, bullfighting tradition, and legendary poverty—has become a magnet for the cultural world. The Van Gogh Foundation opened first in 2013, followed by Luma, the generous and slightly megalomaniacal project of Swiss art patron Maja Hoffmann, co-heir to the Basel pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche. Hoffmann put Arles on the contemporary art map with a building designed by American star architect Frank Gehry and world-class exhibitions. In 2022, Korean artist Lee Ufan opened his foundation in a 16th-century city palace, which Japanese star architect Tadao Ando carefully gutted and transformed into a kind of modern art monastery.
Recent rumors in Arles suggest that French artist Jean-Marc Bustamante, who held a professorship at Munich's Academy of Fine Arts until ten years ago, has purchased the Sainte-Croix church with plans to create another contemporary art foundation. During her visit, French Culture Minister Rachida Dati also announced plans for a photography museum. The cultural scene, like the images it celebrates, proves truly unteachable—it will eventually consume old Arles, leaving only memories behind. Only unteachable images will remain.
