Don't ask me how, but I survived.
Probably with a little help from my friends... Thank you all for coming and supporting, it felt good.
And since it seemed right to write a final statement, this is it :
"Radical Honesty", 1999 © Ann Ray
Where should I start ?!... Thank you so much to my wonderful team, Myriam Blundell Phillips , my producer, & Jeremy Pilain especially, without them I simply could not make it, thank you to the Rencontres d'Arles, & Sam Stourdzé, my maverick curator & Director of the Rencontres d'Arles , thank you to Patrizia Pilotti & Olivier Massart, Damien & Florence Bachelot, & my family for their essential support, thank you to Eliot McQueen & his dearest mother, to Shaun Leane & to all my friends who came to Arles and to all my friends who couldn’t make the trip but were so present - I haven’t yet replied to all your tender messages, please forgive me -, thank you Sarah Burton, Philip Treacy & Annabelle Neilson.
Last but not least, thank you to all the people I met that week, photography lovers, amateur or professional photographers, art lovers, artists, journalists, philosophers, humanists, dreamers, visitors of all sorts, all these so-called “strangers” who came spontaneously to me to express their joy and emotions after seeing “Les Inachevés- Lee McQueen”... how they all embraced the truth of the images, the radical honesty of the project, in a universal spiritual momentum, has been a mesmerizing human experience that I will not forget : the celebration I was hoping for. The homage to Lee. It’s a gift to be able to transmit , and it’s a gift to be understood.
As for you, my Dearest Lee, thank you so much... I had this very new feeling that, at last, thanks to your trust & thanks to that exhibition, the world may have the possibility to see you now as you truly were : an extraordinary artist, and a wonderful man. It’s been a privilege to know you, to watch you create, it’s been a joy to give you my best, I’ve been as far as I could to transmit what you gave me, it’s been a dream coming true to make you justice with my photographs in Arles: I believe you would have loved to be there. & let me tell you, as tough as it has been sometimes, if I had to do it all again, I would do it for you. Without compromise.
Love, always.
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