On Monday, October 20, 2025, Christian Caujolle passed away in Tarbes at the age of 72, after a long illness. Founder of Agence VU and Galerie VU, former photo editor at newspaper Libération, curator, critic, and teacher, he leaves behind an intellectual and humanist legacy that shaped contemporary photography in France.
Born on February 16, 1953, in Sissonne, in northern France, Caujolle grew up on a remote farm in Ariège, surrounded by modest means but early drawn to books and light. His youth was shaped by literature — he often cited Romain Rolland and Kafka as early influences on his way of seeing: “They taught me that one can think differently.” After studying at the École Normale Supérieure of Saint-Cloud, he prepared to become a teacher of Spanish, until a chance discovery in Toulouse changed his path: “Paris de nuit” (Paris by night) by Brassaï. “For the first time, I saw photographs framed on a wall.” That revelation set the course of his life: for him, an image was never decoration — it was thought made visible.
Revolutionizing press photography
In 1978, Caujolle joined French daily Libération, first as a journalist, and then shortly became head of the photo department. The newspaper, under Serge July, gave him free rein, and he introduced a new approach to photojournalism — one that was both narrative and reflective. Images were no longer mere illustration: they became language. He brought in voices such as 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 once said. Under his direction, Libération became a space of visual experimentation, where photography and text held equal weight — a model that would profoundly influence European photojournalism. And even today, if Libération gives so much importance and space to photography, with covers and images in full page that are often very artistic, it owes it in part to Christian Caujolle.
The VU adventure
In 1986, he left Libération to found Agence VU with Zina Rouabah. His idea was simple: to bring together photojournalists, artists, and visual authors under one roof, and defend their independence. “To say ‘I am a photographer’ must once again be a choice,” he declared.
Under his guidance, VU became a laboratory of images, home to photographers such as Michael Ackerman, Antoine d’Agata, Isabel Muñoz, and Denis Darzacq. In 1998, he opened Galerie VU at the Hôtel Paul-Delaroche in Paris, providing a physical space for these singular voices. Together, the agency and gallery redefined photography’s place — an author’s art rooted in the real. “There is no difference between reportage and artistic work,” he said in 2022. “Photography is a way of being in the world.”
Caujolle went on to curate major exhibitions at the Rencontres d’Arles, the Musée de l’Élysée, and the Jeu de Paume, and to conceive retrospectives devoted to Salgado and Sarah Moon. In 2008, he founded the Photo Phnom Penh Festival, the first international platform dedicated to contemporary photography in Southeast Asia.
Accompanying photographers
Alongside his curatorial work, he taught at the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles, the University of Paris VIII, and the journalism master’s program at ESJ Lille. His teaching was direct, sometimes demanding. “Photography, he taught me, doesn’t explain anything. It shows — and that’s enough,” recalled one of his former students.
For Caujolle, photography was both intellectual and visceral. In the collective 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 vision and analysis — became his signature.
He rejected rigid categories, moving easily between reportage, installation, criticism, teaching, and publishing. “I am only interested in those photographs that move me without knowing why,” he once said. The line became emblematic of his approach — a gaze that does not judge but accompanies, questions, and doubts.
Caujolle’s death, first reported by Le Monde, leaves a deep void in the world of photography. His career was marked by passionate engagement — but also controversy. In 2024, a complaint was filed against him for sexual assault relating to alleged incidents from years earlier, casting a shadow over the final chapter of his life. The investigation remains ongoing.
For many, that darkness does not erase his role as a mentor and visionary. From the press to contemporary art, he helped a generation of photographers think differently about their practice. His influence can still be felt in festivals, schools, and newsrooms — in the enduring idea that photography is not a reflection of the world, but an experience of its complexity.
Christian Caujolle leaves behind hundreds of texts, catalogues, and essays — some written for Blind — and a community of artists for whom he was a discreet but defining guide. He showed that a photographer — or a curator — could be many things at once: a thinker, an activist, and a messenger. In a world saturated with images, he also reminded us: “Our gaze, too, is being questioned.”
Cover photograph by Philong Sovan.
