Looking for Places that Speak to Us

Ciel variable 121 – WANDERINGS | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Justine Kurland, Pierre Blache

[Fall 2022] By Jacques Doyon Walking in the city, travelling down country roads, discovering the country, exploring foreign capitals – in short, getting moving – we confront different perspectives, contextualize or a rm our values, and take the measure of the world we live in. Such mobility, such constant travels, are the basis for the […]

Visible Everywhere

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Dana Claxton, Jeff Thomas, Meryl McMaster

[Summer 2022] By Jacques Doyon Indigenous peoples have been confined to reservations, cut off from their ancestral lands, subjected to forced assimilation in schools, and had their status denied as Métis or urban residents. They have been forbidden to display the signs of their cultures and were long condemned to invisibility. But the situation is […]

William A. Ewing, Photographs Are the Eyes of Our Civilization — Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Interviews
Authors: Jacques Doyon, William E. Ewing | Artists: Alejandro Cartagena, Francesco Zizola, Olivier Christinat

[Winter 2022] An interview by Jacques Doyon [Excerpt] Author, exhibition curator, professor, and longtime director of the Musée de l’Élysée (1996– 2010), in Lausanne, William A. Ewing began his career in Montreal; he was the founder of Optica, which he directed from 1972 to 1977. Ewing has been exploring the field of photography for some […]

Against Nature?

Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Winter 2022] Par Jacques Doyon The title might seem paradoxical, as the artists brought together for this issue’s thematic section are all defenders and lovers of nature and spend a good deal of time in it. But what their works reveal is a “naturality” thoroughly permeated by human activity and entirely shaped by it, implying […]

Exhibiting Photography to Talk about Global Changes

Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Fall 2021] By Jacques Doyon The thematic section in this issue presents three recent exhibitions that show how photography can actively contribute to shaping a vision of the world. The first, which features quantity and diversity of images, indicates how an accumulation of points of view and subjects addressed makes it possible to override the […]

What Is It Exactly about Human Life?

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Été 2021] By Jacques Doyon This issue features three artists, with three aesthetic positionings, who share an ironic distancing, sometimes barely perceptible, from themselves and from the world in which they live. One of them, taking a scholarly stance, constructs himself by literally embodying bits of art history; the second, in a more narrative vein, […]

Projecting Ourselves into the World Around Us — Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Winter 2021] By Jacques Doyon What do the most distant, wild, silent landscapes tell us? How do landscapes of our childhood, those that awoke us to the world, shape us? What reflections of our own future do we find in the chaos of urban sites? Landscapes are like mirrors, utterly shaped by human presence. The […]

Pandemic Vertigo — Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 115 - THE MARCH OF THE WORLD | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Summer 2020] By Jacques Doyon I’m writing this editorial at a time when, to general surprise, paralysis of a significant portion of human activity is gradually spreading across the globe (with some 2.5 billion people in confinement right now). Suddenly, the unthinkable has happened. The immutable rumble of economic activity spurred on by the desire […]

Gisele Amantea, Aleppo, Syria, December 17, 2016 — An interview by Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Portfolios
Authors: Gisele Amantea, Jacques Doyon | Artists: Gisele Amantea

[Winter 2020] An interview by Jacques Doyon [Excerpt] Jacques Doyon: What is the origin of the work Aleppo, Syria December 17, 2016? How did the idea emerge? Why Syria? And what prompted you to work from an existing image of a disaster? Gisele Amantea: I was invited by curator Emily Falvey to participate in the […]

The Aesthetics of the Political

Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Winter 2020] In the thematic section of this issue, we take a look at collective action in society. Against a background of social conflict and war, the artists evoke the impact of collective actions on the common good by scrutinizing multitudes of media images that help to form our relationship with the world. Through re-examination […]

Audrey Genois, MOMENTA 2019: Broadening the Field for the Biennale — Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Interviews
Authors: Audrey Genois, Jacques Doyon

[Fall 2019] An interview by Jacques Doyon [Excerpt] Audrey Genois has been the executive director of MOMENTA | Biennale de l’image (formerly Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal) since 2016. She was assistant curator at the Galerie de l’UQAM from 2002 to 2016. Over fifteen years, she organized more than sixty exhibitions and ten […]

Gender Boundaries

Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Fall 2019] By Jacques Doyon The artists brought together in this issue’s thematic section explore different issues related to the boundaries of sexual identity and their transgression. Personas, transvestism, and role mutations are core to these artists’ approaches, as they address various issues fundamental to establishing a society based on inclusion rather than on narrow […]

María Wills Londoño, MOMENTA 2019: The Life of Things — Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 112 - COLLECTIONS REVISITED | Interviews
Authors: Jacques Doyon, María Wills Londoño

October 9, 2019 [originally published in CV113 in Summer 2019] — María Wills Londoño (Colombia) is a researcher and exhibition curator whose principal areas of expertise are the unstable nature of the contemporary image and innovative points of view of the urban face of Latin America…

Assembling Images

Ciel variable 112 - COLLECTIONS REVISITED | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Summer 2019] By Jacques Doyon Three recent exhibitions, by two artists and one collector, offer a rare look at the act of collecting. The thematic section in this issue features different types of collections of images, all of which involve a rereading, a recontextualization: highlighting a way of working that traverses and structures an artist’s […]

The Materiality of Colour

Ciel variable 111 - THE SPACE OF COLOUR | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Winter 2019] By Jacques Doyon From the manipulation of light (through decomposition, combination of layers, or diffraction effects) to work on the supporting medium (film, photographic paper, walls) to searching out pictorial compositions on city streets, a space of exploration opens up for photography around the various manifestations of colour. The result is images that […]

Louise Déry. Hosting and Presenting the Exhibition Uprisings – Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 110 - MIGRATION | Interviews
Authors: Jacques Doyon, Louise Déry

May 10, 2022 [originally published in CV110 in Fall 2018 ] — An interview by Jacques Doyon. Louise Déry holds a PhD in art history and has been director of the Galerie de l’UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal) since 1997; previously, she was director of the Musée régional de Rimouski and curator of contemporary art at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts…

Crossing Borders

Ciel variable 110 - MIGRATION | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Fall 2018] By Jacques Doyon More than thresholds, borders have become a kind of non-place – extra-national zones – where migrants’ identities and statuses are examined and held in suspension for periods that are increasingly long and undetermined. In this issue, we examine certain aspects of the crossing of borders with works that explore how […]

Reactivated Memories

Ciel variable 109 - REVISIT | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

The works brought together in this issue look back at events in relatively recent history that have reverberated to the present day. These are prolific works, with multiple iterations, embodied in artistic forms and processes that reflect the complexity of their subjects: the mobility of fragments of the Berlin Wall, the exhibition at the Christian […]

Making visible

Ciel variable 108 - GOING PUBLIC | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Winter 2018] By Jacques Doyon This issue’s thematic section presents works that come from a wide variety of places and times, but all are marked by the notion of public visibility. These three bodies of work cover a wide spectrum of what defines the public space for artistic expression, ranging from the concrete civic and […]

Three Moments of Ruin

Ciel variable 107 - RUINS | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Fall 2017 ] — Editorial of Ciel variable 105 – Ruins

Metonymic Motifs

Ciel variable 106 - TREES, ICE, AND CLOUDS | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Alain Lefort, Denis Farley, Jocelyn Philibert

Each series of images in this issue presents, in a way, work on a motif – a live view of the landscape, in the tradition of landscape painters. Capturing the infinite variations of trees, icebergs, or clouds under different conditions certainly testifies to an interest in nature, but perhaps even more in how it is […]

Hélène Samson, Exhibiting Notman – Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 105 – MONTREALITIES | Interviews
Authors: Hélène Samson, Jacques Doyon | Artists: William Notman

March 18, 2020 [originally published in CV105 in Winter 2017] — Hélène Samson has been the curator of the photography collection at the McCord Museum since 2006. She is interested in collecting vernacular Canadian photographs and updating nineteenth-century photographic archives…

Montrealities

Ciel variable 105 – MONTREALITIES | Portfolios
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Claire Beaugrand-Champagne, Clara Gutsche, David Miller, Gabor Szilasi, Michel Campeau, Miki Gingras, Patrick Dionne, Robert Walker, Roger Charbonneau

[Winter 2017] Over the years, many photographers have explored Montreal and its neighbourhoods. Their images have captured portraits of residents, the colour and composition of the streets and commercial arteries, and the mixture of cultures that contribute to the quality and diversity of a city, as well as the commitment of residents who create the […]

Neighbourhood Lives

Ciel variable 105 – MONTREALITIES | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Winter 2017] It is particularly interesting to present the series of images that Robert Walker has made on the subject of the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighbourhood – where he was born and currently lives – in light of the festivities for Montreal’s 375th anniversary. The focus of these celebrations – optimistic and perhaps a bit facile – […]

Bénédicte Ramade, The Edge of the Earth, Climate Change in Photography and Video – An interview by Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 104 - FROM ANOTHER ANGLE | Essays, Interviews
Authors: Bénédicte Ramade, Jacques Doyon

March 3, 2020 [originally published in CV104 in Fall 2016] — The Edge of the Earth focuses on contributions by various artists and journalists to the recognition and consideration of issues linked to climate change, with a particular emphasis on the chal­lenges posed by recognition of the central role played by humans in the disruption of their environment in what is now known as the Anthropocene Era.

From Another Angle

Ciel variable 104 - FROM ANOTHER ANGLE | Portfolios
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Marisa Portolese, Yoanis Menge

[Fall 2016] With great sensitivity and remarkable image quality, the works brought together in this section offer a renewed gaze at discredited realities and experiences. They do this by showing us people in their living environments. And yet, it is not individuals that these works offer as much as a certain order of representation, certain […]

Another look at things

Ciel variable 104 - FROM ANOTHER ANGLE | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Marisa Portolese, Yoanis Menge

[Fall 2016] The works in this issue’s thematic section are anchored in realities diametrically opposed to each other – the seal hunt, social marginality, and representation of women – and are from different times. These works nevertheless come together in their challenging of prejudices and dominant thought systems. In fact, each proposes to portray people […]

This Nature that Is Our World

Ciel variable 103 - NATURE | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Geneviève Chevalier, Isabelle Hayeur, Jessica Auer

[Spring/Summer 2016] There are places where nature’s presence is more intensely felt, where the question of the city’s interrelations with its natural environment emerges more spontaneously. Certain circumstances are also conducive to raising such reflections – among them, sense of unfamiliarity experienced during a stay abroad, obvious deterioration in the equilibrium or beauty of a […]

Far Away, So Close

Ciel variable 102 - FAR AWAY, SO CLOSE | Portfolios
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Alejandro Cartagena, Julian Germain, Raymonde April

[Winter 2016]   Globalization is making us more aware of the realities of the entire planet through news, visits, and business travel. In addition, urbanization and consumer markets are tending to bring cultures and lifestyles ever closer to each other. Even so, and fortunately, diversity and differences remain. What is more, the most radical forms […]

Far Away, So Close…

Ciel variable 102 - FAR AWAY, SO CLOSE | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Alejandro Cartagena, Julian Germain, Raymonde April

[Winter 2016]   What can hold things together and forge intersections in universes as different as the ones gathered in these pages, if it is not that they address a few aspects of our common condition that is increasingly shaped by the current path of globalization? The opening of borders in the contemporary era, inaugurated […]