Christian Caujolle, Founder of Agence VU and A Defining Voice in French Photography, Dies at 72 — Blind Journal

On Monday, October 20, 2025, Christian Caujolle handed away in Tarbes on the age of 72, after an extended sickness. Founder of Agence VU and Galerie VU, former photograph editor at newspaper Libération, curator, critic, and instructor, he leaves behind an mental and humanist legacy that formed modern images in France. “There is no difference between reportage and artistic work,” he stated in 2022. “Photography is a way of being in the world.”

Born on February 16, 1953, in Sissonne, in northern France, Caujolle grew up on a distant farm in Ariège, surrounded by modest means however early drawn to books and light-weight. His youth was formed by literature — he usually cited Romain Rolland and Kafka as early influences on his method of seeing: “They taught me that one can think differently.” After finding out on the École Normale Supérieure of Saint-Cloud, he ready to develop into a instructor of Spanish, till an opportunity discovery in Toulouse modified his path: “Paris de nuit” (Paris by night time) by Brassaï. “For the first time, I saw photographs framed on a wall.” That revelation set the course of his life: for him, a picture was by no means ornament — it was thought made seen.

Revolutionizing press images

In 1978, Caujolle joined French day by day Libération, first as a journalist, after which shortly turned head of the photograph division. The newspaper, beneath Serge July, gave him free rein, and he launched a brand new strategy to photojournalism — one which was each narrative and reflective. Images have been now not mere illustration: they turned language. He introduced in voices reminiscent of Raymond Depardon, Sebastião Salgado, and Sarah Moon, and established a distinctly subjective editorial aesthetic.

“A photographer must ask himself: am I showing the world attentively?” he as soon as stated. Under his course, Libération turned an area of visible experimentation, the place images and textual content held equal weight — a mannequin that may profoundly affect European photojournalism.

The VU journey

In 1986, he left Libération to discovered Agence VU with Zina Rouabah. His concept was easy: to carry collectively photojournalists, artists, and visible authors beneath one roof, and defend their independence. “To say ‘I am a photographer’ must once again be a choice,” he declared.

Under his steering, VU turned a laboratory of photos, house to photographers reminiscent of Michael Ackerman, Antoine d’Agata, Isabel Muñoz, and Denis Darzacq. In 1998, he opened Galerie VU on the Hôtel Paul-Delaroche in Paris, offering a bodily house for these singular voices. Together, the company and gallery redefined images’s place — an writer’s artwork rooted in the true.

Caujolle went on to curate main exhibitions on the Rencontres d’Arles, the Musée de l’Élysée, and the Jeu de Paume, and to conceive retrospectives dedicated to Salgado, Mapplethorpe, and Sarah Moon. In 2008, he based the Photo Phnom Penh Festival, the primary worldwide platform devoted to modern images in Southeast Asia.

Accompanying photographers

Alongside his curatorial work, he taught on the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles, the University of Paris VIII, and the journalism grasp’s program at ESJ Lille. His instructing was direct, typically demanding. “Photography, he taught me, doesn’t explain anything. It shows — and that’s enough,” recalled one among his former college students.

For Caujolle, images was each mental and visceral. In the collective e book Things as They Are – Photojournalism in Context (Aperture, 2005), he wrote: “Photography has taught me to doubt — myself, representation, and the world.” That fertile doubt — between imaginative and prescient and evaluation — turned his signature.

He rejected inflexible classes, shifting simply between reportage, set up, criticism, instructing, and publishing. “I am only interested in those photographs that move me without knowing why,” he as soon as stated. The line turned emblematic of his strategy — a gaze that doesn’t decide however accompanies, questions, and doubts.

Caujolle’s dying, first reported by Le Monde, leaves a deep void on the earth of images. His profession was marked by passionate engagement — but in addition controversy. In 2024, a criticism was filed in opposition to him for sexual assault referring to alleged incidents from years earlier, casting a shadow over the ultimate chapter of his life. The investigation stays ongoing.

For many, that darkness doesn’t erase his position as a mentor and visionary. From the press to modern artwork, he helped a era of photographers assume in another way about their observe. His affect can nonetheless be felt in festivals, colleges, and newsrooms — within the enduring concept that images shouldn’t be a mirrored image of the world, however an expertise of its complexity.

Christian Caujolle leaves behind a whole bunch of texts, catalogues, and essays — some written for Blind — and a group of artists for whom he was a discreet however defining information. He confirmed {that a} photographer — or a curator — may very well be many issues without delay: a thinker, an activist, and a bridge between others. In a world saturated with photos, he additionally reminded us: “Our gaze, too, is being questioned.”