Alexis Desgagnés - Ciel variable Magazine

André Barrette, Fin de Siglo – Alexis Desgagnés, Fin de siècle in Cuba

Ciel variable 107 - RUINS | Portfolios
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés | Artists: André Barrette

[Fall 2017] By Alexis Desgagnés [Excerpt] André Barrette likely never wanted his art in the spotlight. That is why, outside of the community of artist-run centres in Quebec City, relatively little is known about his discreet but important contribution to Quebec photography landscape in recent decades. Yet, from his obvious affection for cultural manifestations that […]

Gabor Szilasi, A Portrait in Interiors – Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 103 - NATURE | Interviews
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés | Artists: Benoit Aquin, Gabor Szilasi

[Spring-Summer 2016] An interview by Alexis Desgagnés Photographs by Benoit Aquin [Excerpt] Eighty-eight years old. Decorum would have us qualify this age as venerable. Anyone who divides this number into decades will better measure the span of a lifetime devoted almost entirely to photography. We know about the immense contribution of Gabor Szilasi, who was […]

New and Worthy – Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 102 - FAR AWAY, SO CLOSE | Book Reviews
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés

[Winter 2016] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. par Alexis Desgagnés Download this article (Free of Charge)

New and Worthy – Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 101 - STRATA | Book Reviews
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés

New and Worthy Thierry Gervais (avec la collaboration de Gaëlle Morel), La fabrique de l’information visuelle. Photographies et magazines d’actualité, Paris, Éditions Textuel, 2015, 240 p., ill., fr. Hilde Van Gelder, ed., Allan Sekula: Ship of Fools/The Dockers’ Museum. Louvain: Leuven University Press, 2015, 240 pp. ill., Eng. Jean Lagacé, Essais photographiques = Photographic Essays, […]

Guillaume Lafleur, Pratiques minoritaires Fragments d’une histoire méconnue du cinéma québécois (1937-1973) – Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 101 - STRATA | Book Reviews
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés

[Fall 2015] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Pratiques minoritaires Fragments d’une histoire méconnue du cinéma québécois (1937-1973) Guillaume Lafleur Montréal, Éditions Nota Bene, 2015, 166 p., ill. Par Alexis Desgagnés (French only) Purchase this article

Strates | Strata

Ciel variable 101 - STRATA | Portfolios
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés | Artists: Adam Broomberg, Marc-Antoine K. Phaneuf, Moyra Davey, Oliver Chanarin

In geology, the concept of stratification refers to a process during which sediments accumulate in layers, which eventually form more or less heterogeneous sedimentary ensembles but nevertheless remain distinct units of meaning. We often find such ensembles on the edges of paths or roads; they offer the possibility of a simultaneous reading of many strata […]

New and Worthy – Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 100 - REPLAY | Book Reviews
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés

Antonio Dominguez Leiva, YouTube théorie. Un vertige néobaroque, Montréal, Les Éditions de ta mère, 2014, 112 p., fr. Ola Lanko, Brigiet van den Berg, Nikki Brörmann et al., Ed It: The Substantial System for Photographic Archive Maintenance, Amsterdam, ED, 2013, n. p., ill. + appendix, Eng. Jean-Nicolas Orhon et Nicolas Reeves, La maison, la ville […]

The Photobook : A History Volume III – Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 100 - REPLAY | Book Reviews
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés

[Spring-Summer 2015] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. The Photobook: A History Volume III Martin Parr et Gerry Badger Londres et New York, Phaidon, 2014, 320 p., ill. Par Alexis Desgagnés (French only) Purchase this article

New and Worthy – Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 99 - HABITAT | Book Reviews
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés

New and Worthy Donigan Cumming, The Stage, New York, Errata Editions, 2014, 132 pp., Eng. Catherine Tremblay et Véronique Béland, Elles collectionnent des mondes, Montréal, Les Éditions du renard, 2014, 116 p., fr. ; Aislinn Leggett, Walter & Willow, Montréal, Les Éditions du renard, 2014, 88 p., fr. Geoffrey James, Inside Kingston Penitentiary (1835–2013), London, […]

Habitat

Ciel variable 99 - HABITAT | Portfolios
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés | Artists: Allison Tweedie, Normand Rajotte, Stephen Gill, Steve Veilleux

So, here we are, humans and animals (the same thing, really), perforce engaged in the concrete and naked fact of existing. We are – the verb says it with the force of law – sunk into being like a foundation is sunk into the ground. For as long as the few hours, days, or decades […]

The Quebec Photobook, Thoughts on a History to Be Uncovered – Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 97 - PORTRAIT GALLERY | Essays
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés, Marcel Cognac

I discovered Marcel Cognac by chance – a chance presented to those who know how to wait for it, to those who want to understand something about their culture and their country. When I came across a copy of his book Visages du Québec, published in 1964, with text by Jean-Charles Harvey, I didn’t yet […]

John Gossage, The Photobook: Reflections on Several Recent Projects – Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 95 – CYBER / ESPACE / PUBLIC | Essays
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés | Artists: John Gossage

May 16, 2018 [originally published in CV95 in Fall 2013] — If there is one category that seems to have escaped the crisis in the book-publishing sector engendered by the rise of digital publishing, it is photobooks, which are currently appearing at such a rate that it is legitimate to think they will eventually supplant exhibitions as the main means of dissemination of photography and, especially, photographic creativity…

Mikhael Subotzky, Retinal Shift – Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 94 – PUBLIC ART | Book Reviews
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés

February 5, 2018 [originally published in French in CV94 in Spring 2013] — You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.

Joan Fontcuberta, Photography in the Era of Meteorites – Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 93 – FORENSICS | Interviews
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés, Joan Fontcuberta | Artists: Joan Fontcuberta

November 6, 2017 [originally published in CV93 in Winter 2013] — After forty years of international recognition and numerous exhibitions, today catalonian artist Joan Fontcuberta is a major voice in the discourse on photographic issues in the era of Web 2.0. In 2011, he was co-curator of the controversial exhibition “From Here On,” presented at the rencontres d’Arles…

Paul Graham : In the Present – Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 92 – TRUE NORTH | Essays
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés | Artists: Paul Graham

October 12, 2017 [originally published in French in CV92 in Fall 2012] — This spring, the Pace Gallery in New York, a temple to photography since the early 1980s, had a show of recent works by English photographer Paul Graham in one of its locations in the Chelsea neighbourhood. The Present, the works which have also been published in a book by the English publisher MACK, is the third part of a photographic trilogy begun at the turn of the century with American Night (1998–2002), followed by the ambitious series A Shimmer of Possibility (2004–06)…

Steichen. Glamour, mode et célébrités – Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 91 – OUR WORLD | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés | Artists: Edward Steichen

July 31, 2017 [originally published in CV91 in Spring 2012] — You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.

Making Light: The Emergence of Modernist Photography in Quebec Revealed – Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 89 - PLACES | Essays
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés | Artists: Albert Dumouchel, Conrad Tremblay, Gordon Webber, Guy Borremans, Jauran, Jean-Paul Mousseau, Jean-Pierre Beaudin, Omer Parent, Rodolphe de Repentigny

March 16, 2017 [originally published in CV89 in Fall 2011] — There are still many gaps in our knowledge of the history of Quebec photography. I realized this after seeing “Photographes rebelles à l’époque de la Grande Noirceur (1937-1961),” which was held at Maison Hamel-Bruneau in Quebec City. Devoted to photography during the Duplessis era, the exhibition comprised about eighty works…