Ciel variable 48 – QUEBEC PHOTO, THE 90S | Essays
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Élène Tremblay
[Fall 1999] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.
Ciel variable 47 - AFFECTION | Editorial
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle
[Summer 1999] by Jennifer Couëlle It serves sometimes friendship, sometimes love. It is synonymous with both tenderness and desire. It conveys kindness and can lead to passion, but also subsists in simple pleasure. For affection, above all, means interest: in a person, a place, a climate, a phenomenon, and – why not? – an object. […]
Ciel variable 45 - (OFF CAMERA) | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Lynne Marsh, Sandra Haar
[Winter 1998-1999] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. La Centrale, Montréal Du 3 octobre au 8 novembre 1998
Ciel variable 45 - (OFF CAMERA) | Portfolios
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Yan Giguère
[Winter 1998-1999] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary It has never been the aim of art photography to provide simple testimony to the unfurling of daily life – at least, not of its substance, its insipid ordinariness. The […]
Ciel variable 44 - THEATER OF REALITIES | Portfolios
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Duane Michals
This article was originally published only in French. No translation is available Summary We think of him when we think of photographic mise en scène – and of narrative sequences, and of the integration of handwriting into photographs. When Duane Michals made his first photographic fictions in the mid-sixties, the practice was not entirely without […]
Ciel variable 42 - AUTHENTICITY 3 | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Emmanuel Galland
[Spring 1998] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal 17 octobre 1997 – 4 janvier 1998
Ciel variable 41 - AUTHENTICITY 2 | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle
[Winter 1997-1998] Centre des arts Saidye Bronfman, Montréal Du 11 septembre au 26 octobre 1997 Nobuyoshi Araki, Krass Clement, Donigan Cumming, Hans Danuser, Sue Fox, Leslie Hakim-Dowek, Louis Jammes, Maxime Jourdan, Rudolf Schäfer, Bastienne Schmidt, Andres Serrano, Clare Strand, Annet van der Voort, Nick Waplington, Belinda Whiting, Neil Winokur, Thomas Wrede, Franco Zecchin et Xavier […]
Ciel Variable 40 - THE UPCOMING GENERATION | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Jean-Luc Moulène
[Fall 1997] Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris April 25–June 22, 1997 “The historian, like the camera, always lies.” In discussing history’s inevitable inaccuracies, historian Norman Davies recalls how the impossible task of the historian has been likened to that of the photographer. The former must collate as many sources as possible in […]
Ciel Variable 40 - THE UPCOMING GENERATION | Essays
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle
[Fall 1997] by Jennifer Couëlle An exhibition whose objective is to present the work of young and not so young, but above all relatively unknown artists raises expectations – if not particularly with regard to specifics of the works presented, then certainly with regard to what we could call trends. It is an exercise not […]
Ciel variable 39 - AUTHENTICITY 1 | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Sally Mann
[Summer 1997] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal Du 6 mars au 1er juin 1997
Ciel variable 39 - AUTHENTICITY 1 | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Richard Baillargeon
[Summer 1997] Dazibao, Montreal, January 16–February 23 Maison de la culture Côte-des-Neiges, Montreal, January 23–February 23 While images, whether photographic or other, necessarily give us something to look at, only some remind us that we are looking. And in the case of photography, with its inherent potential for the voyeuristic “gaze,” the sense of sight […]
Ciel variable 38 - DESIRE | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle
[Spring 1997] Dazibao, Montreal November 14 – December 15, 1996 Photographic images have more to do with ideas and impressions than with their material contingencies. Truism? At this point in time, yes. Nonetheless, the notion of photography as thought, as opposed to document, was served up as one of the main discourses in the second […]
Ciel variable 37 - THE PLACE | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Chuck Samuels
[Winter 1996-1997] Centre international d’art contemporain de Montréal October 5–November 24, 1996 How about a crash course in the history of the female nude in photography? How about replacing the female models with Adam himself? That, in a nutshell, is what Montreal photographer Chuck Samuels’s Before the Camera is about. Presented as part of CIAC’s […]
Ciel variable 37 - THE PLACE | Portfolios
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: André Jasinski
[Hiver 1996-1997] There is the moon, the darkness, the ghost of industry. André Jasinski photographs urban remains at night. He highlights their grandeur and lonely poetry. And he sniffs out the scourges that shaped them. by Jennifer Couëlle Although the city and its structure were signs of modern dynamism and faith in machines, celebrated for […]
Ciel variable 36 -"POETIC" PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Geoffrey James
[Fall 1996] Centre international d’art contemporain de Montréal May 2–July 28, 1996 From Homer’s Odyssey to Kerouac’s On the Road and beyond, travel has provided inspiration for countless tales. Part of the attraction lies in breaking boundaries, in widening the realm of the imaginary. Then there is what Voltaire’s nomadic characters Candide and Cacambo recognized […]
Ciel variable 35 - DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: David Rasmus
[Summer 1996] Galerie Dazibao, Montreal April 6–May 5, 1996 Issues of ethnic, racial, and gender identity have been riding high on the “top ten” of exhibition themes for quite some time now. As a result, art has increasingly adopted the documentary form to varying degrees. But in this cacophony of artistic commentary on the politics […]
Ciel variable 34 - UNTITLED | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Simon Glass
[Spring 1996] Galerie Vox, Montreal January 11–February 11, 1996 With his recent exhibition Yahweh!, Toronto-based photographer Simon Glass virtually transforms the rather small and narrow space of Galerie Vox into a shrine bringing to mind, of course, the perennial analogy between museums and cathedrals or, in this case, between gallery and temple. Four different groups […]
Ciel variable 33 - 001100110110001111001011 | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Luis Molina-Pantin
[Winter 1995-1996] Quartier Éphémère, Montreal September 12 – October 22, 1995 In his recent exhibition at Montreal’s Quartier Éphémère, Ana hotel series, San Francisco, Ca., the young San Francisco-based photographer Luis Molina-Pantin surveys the grandeur, emptiness, and sterile beauty of hotel interior. Five medium-to large-scale colour photographs reveal studied and Spartan compositions, in which a […]
Ciel variable 33 - 001100110110001111001011 | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Doreen Lindsay
[Winter 1995-1996] Espace Trois, Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, Montreal October 18-31, 1995 With the blatant exception of the human figure, it would be difficult to outweigh nature on the artistic agenda of recurring muses. Whether represented as a simple point of reference, romantically celebrated for its beauty and drama, or, of late, politically […]
Ciel variable 32 - UNTITLED + SUPPLEMENT | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Michael Flomen
[Fall 1995] Galerie Vox, Montreal May 27 to June 25 1995 Elegance is what first comes to mind when crossing the threshold of Galerie Vox where Montreal artist Michael Flomen has exhibited a series of twelve black-and-white photographs under the title Imminent Ground. The type of elegance that comes from assurance, from the combination of […]
Ciel variable 31 - UNTITLED | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Angela Grauerholz
[Summer 1995] Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal January 27 to April 23, 1995 Expectations arc necessarily high for internationally recognized artists like Angela Grauerholz. High, and not always easy to meet. While the body of work of an artist should not be judged by any single exhibition, retrospectives excepted, certain exhibitions can be of disservice […]
Ciel variable 31 - UNTITLED | Portfolios
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Pierre Blache
[Summer 1995] by Jennifer Couëlle At times, it seems that the most haunting images are those that, at first glance, appear to be innocuous – the very type that one would least expect to re-envision repeatedly, as a disturbing dream quietly recurring. Blatantly dramatic imagery is easier to identify and, therefore, to classify and be […]
Ciel variable 29 - UNTITLED | Portfolios
Authors: Jennifer Couëlle | Artists: Sylvie Readman
[Winter 1994-1995] by Manon Gosselin “… imagine!… whole body like gone… just the mouth… lips… cheeks… aws… never- …what?… tongue?… yes… lips… heeks… aws… tongue… never still a second… outh on fire… stream of words… in her ear… radically in her ear…not catching the half… not the quarter… no idea what she’s saying… imagine!…” ⎯ […]