Last Saturday marked the opening of Les Rencontres D'Arles, the premiere European photography festival that has rolled out every summer in this historic French town for 41 years. The 2010 theme is "Du Lourdes et du Picant," or "Heavy Duty and Razor Sharp," in English. There are more than 34 exhibitions organized as "Trails," such as The Film Photography Trail, The Argentina Trail, and The Rock Trail. More shows are scattered throughout the city's historic sites, including Espace Van Gogh and the gothic St. Anne's church.

I arrived late in the day - just in time to catch Francois Hebel, director of the festival, giving his inaugural speech followed by a big opening reception in the adjacent courtyard. The next morning I set out to see the Rock Trail's main feature, a show called I am a Cliche: Echoes of the Punk Aesthetic, installed at the Grand Hall - an enormous industrial warehouse in the Park des Artists. The exhibition features work from the birth of Punk to the present and includes Billy Name's photographs from Andy Warhol's Factory days and Robert Mapplethorpe's iconic images of Patty Smith, to more recent images by Wolfgang Tillmans.

Left to right: Festival headquarters; installation at le Grand Hall, a 19th-century train station; work by Meredyth Sparks; installation of Rhona Bitner's series, Listen. Photos by Tom Wool.

Many of the photos in this show are familiar, in particular work by Stephen Shore, Dan Graham and David Wojnarowicz. But it's the pacing and way in which works by different artists play off one another that really makes the show so magnetic. Of special interest were Rhona Bitners' images from her series Listen, which is a collection of color images depicting famous and not so famous punk music venues, including CBGBs. The absence of people and the extreme state of disrepair in some of these places inspire a melancholy feeling reminiscent of William Eggleston's view of Graceland.

A series of collages by Meredyth Sparks, done using appropriated photographs made in the early 70's, include a reworked image of David Bowie from his Glam Rock days, which is mounted on a light box with tiny holes punched through it and overlaid with lines and polygons in foil, glitter and vinyl.

Both Rhona Bitner and Meredyth Sparks - artists who are new to me - live and work in Brooklyn. That's what's so great about Arles; you can go half way around the world to discover people from your own back yard. Then there is the sheer volume of things to see - and the fact is that you can catch a late dinner in Place du Forum, then at 11 o'clock take in a slide show at the open air Roman Theater. The setting is definitely half the fun.

Les Rencontres d'Arles opening week, with festival events and workshops, continues through July 13; the 60 exhibitions on view continue through September 19th 2010.

Tom Wool is a New York based photographer whose work from the Rombuk Valley in Tibet continues through July 26th at the Rubin Museum of Art.

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