Rachel Cobb - MISTRAL

Rachel Cobb will be in conversation with Malcolm Daniel

Mistral is a portrait of Provence seen through its legendary wind. Photographer Rachel Cobb illustrates the effects of this relentless wind that funnels down the Rh ne Valley, periodically gusting to 120 km per hour--hurricane strength on the Beaufort wind force scale.

The region has, accordingly, adjusted to accommodate the mistral's impact. Some houses are built the traditional way, with few or no windows on the windward side and the main entrance on the sheltered side. Heavy stones hold down terra-cotta roof tiles. Rows of trees lining fields create windbreaks to shield crops.

Cobb spent years chasing this capricious wind, challenging herself to photograph the invisible. As she became sensitive to its rhythms and effects, Cobb realized the mistral was not just a weather phenomenon; it was an integral part of the fabric of Proven al life. It was everywhere, yet always unseen.

Mistral captures this invisible force of nature through its effects: a leaf caught in flight, a bride tangled in her veil, spider webs oriented to withstand the wind and grapes lashed by powerful gusts ("You can taste the wine better when the mistral blows," a Ch teauneuf-du-Pape winemaker says). Writers have also tried their hand at conjuring this ungraspable phenomenon. Excerpts from writings by Paul Auster, Lawrence Durrell, Jean Giono and Fr d ric Mistral are included in this volume, a luminous evocation of nature's unseen power.

Malcolm Daniel is the Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He joined the MFAH in December 2013 after 23 years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art including 10 as senior curator or head of the department of photographs. Although his scholarly work has concentrated on the first 75 years of the medium, Daniel oversees the museum’s acquisitions and exhibitions spanning the full history of photography from its birth to the present day. His recent exhibitions and installations at the MFAH have included monographic presentations of Vera Lutter, Helen Levitt, Dawoud Bey, Fazal Sheikh, and David Levinthal as well as an ongoing series, A History of Photography, selected from the museum’s permanent collection.