The Orient Express Endowment Fund present Bar car. A little history of the railway meal.
After the success of the exhibition Orient-Express et cie presented in 2021 in Arles and in 2023 at the Villa Médicis, the Orient Express Endowment Fund and Les Rencontres d’Arles are renewing their collaboration and co-producing the exhibition this year Bar car. A little history of the railway meal at the Espace Croisière as part of the festival. The photographs and archives on display retrace the history of railway restoration in France from the end of the 19th century to the present day. A history of innovation and techniques, design and culture!
The photographs and archives presented in the exhibition come from the funds of the former Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Litters and the Archives Documentation Service of the SNCF group. Halfway between industrial photography and advertising photography, these images have the primary function of embodying modernity by showcasing permanent novelty. Of course, the companies show what they want to show us: a reality constructed from an ideal railway universe without roughness. But these draw a history of innovation, of work, but also an aesthetic, cultural and design history. More than simple reflections of successive innovations, these photographs document their time. Even more, they make up the different eras as much as they bear witness to them.
The book which accompanies the exhibition will be published by Textuel editions by Arthur Mettetal, curator of the exhibition.
Bar car. A little history of the railway meal
Orient Express Endowment Fund
July 1 – September 29, 2024
Cruise Area
3 Rue Claude Férigoule
13200 Arles, France
www.croisiere-arles.fr
