ARLES 2022: Babette Mangolte: Capturing Movements in Space
Babette Mangolte. Trisha Brown rehearsing “Line Up” in her loft on Broadway, with, from left to right, Wendy Perron, Judith Ragir, Trisha Brown, Mona Sulzman and Elizabeth Garren, 1977. Courtesy of Babette Mangolte.
Written by Nikkala Kovacevic
Copy Edited by Erin Pedigo
Photo Edited by Yanting Chen
The prestigious Women in Motion award 2022 has been presented to Babette Mangolte by Kering and the Rencontres d'Arles for her contributions to the French and American experimental art scenes over her career. The award, given annually, recognizes a female artist whose career has had significant impact on the artistic community. The award has previously been given to the artists Susan Meiselas, Sabine Weiss, and Liz Johnson Artur.
Born in France, Mangolte became one of the first women to attend L'Ecole Nationale de la Photographie et de la Cinématographie, where she began working on feature films, specifically experimental filmmaking. She moved to New York in the 1970s to become involved in the budding New York experimental film scene, residing there ever since. In an excerpt from the 2022 awards press kit, in an interview extract from a special issue of Fisheye magazine, Mangolte described her appreciation for performance art creating “a sense of time, a reflection of when the project was done,” when the interviewer asked her to tell why “the notion of performance is at the heart of her work.”
She is perhaps most known for her work on feature films, including Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, now a cult favorite auteurist film. Mangolte’s signature works are distinguishable by her experimental style, heavily influenced by French New Wave cinema. And her works emphasize “photographic and cinematic language based on the subjectivity of the camera, the viewer’s key role and the human body’s relationship to space,” as described by the Rencontres d'Arles.
Babette Mangolte. Robert Wilson & Philip Glass “Einstein on the Beach” opera with libretto and scenic design by Robert Wilson, with Music by Philip Glass and his orchestra. Act 1: Train, with from left to right Lucinda Childs, Dana Reitz and Sherryl Sutton, 1976. Courtesy of Babette Mangolte.
Mangolte developed this language throughout the ’70s, becoming a dedicated documentarian of New York’s performing arts scene. This exhibition features some of her photographs depicting rehearsals, experimental dance projects, and solo performances. Her fascination with the body’s role in regard to space, as well as its relationship with the camera, translates seamlessly through her photos. Despite working mainly in film, Mangolte intentionally captures movement and life through her still photography.
Her pieces are time capsules of a seminal era of New York art production, as well as art pieces on their own. Her photos feel almost like walking through a wax museum, figures waiting apprehensively to complete their motions while also fixed in time, themselves acting as an archive of a moment in history. In her exploration of the human body and space, Mangolte’s photographs capture individuals in intense movement and unbridled emotion. This contrasts the sets and stages that create the exhibition’s backgrounds; each scene crafted around her artistic vision.
Mangolte’s camera is at once a fixture in her pieces as much as it becomes synonymous with the viewer's eye. French New Wave influences are again apparent; her photographs capture the realism of each moment while also staging them to reflect her artistic vision. Much like French New Wave’s neorealism, Mangolte herself has become an auteurist visionary in the capturing of performance and movement, her camera the conduit into her vision and mind.
