Michel Hardy-Vallée - Ciel variable Magazine

John Max, Line Leading through Photography — Michel Hardy-Vallée

Ciel variable 122 – NIGHT ROUNDS | Essays
Authors: Michel Hardy-Vallée | Artists: John Max

[Winter 2023] John Max, Line Leading through Photography By Michel Hardy-Vallée [Excerpt] To sum up an artist’s career apparently takes just a few major works, some biographical references, and several general remarks on how the artist’s work was received, all in chronological order. No need to write a novel. But to achieve such a level […]

Zone Eleven, by Mike Mandel, photographs by Ansel Adams

The Photobook
Authors: Michel Hardy-Vallée | Artists: Ansel Adams, Mike Mandel

[January 18, 2023] By Michel Hardy-Vallée. Fairy tales and novels of chivalry have the power to normalize royalty – a tenacious institution, despite revolutions and regicides. In photography, Ansel Adams is, in a way, royalty…

Ansel Adams, Mike Mandel

SCUMB Manifesto, by Justine Kurland – Michel Hardy-Vallée

The Photobook
Authors: Michel Hardy-Vallée | Artists: Justine Kurland

[November 29, 2022] By Michel Hardy-Vallée. So, let’s review: Valerie Solanas wrote the radical feminist SCUM Manifesto (SCUM stands for Society for Cutting Up Men) in 1967 to protest how men were leading the world (to failure) and then shot Andy Warhol in 1968 because he was controlling her life and had, in her view, plagiarized a play that she had written…

Justine Kurland

Zoë Tousignant, The Continuing History — Michel Hardy-Vallée

Ciel variable 121 – WANDERINGS | Interviews
Authors: Michel Hardy-Vallée, Zoë Tousignant

[Fall 2022] Zoë Tousignant, The Continuing History An interview by Michel Hardy-Vallée [Excerpt] Zoë Tousignant is the curator of photography at the McCord Museum. She holds a PhD in art history from Concordia University and an MA in museum studies from the University of Leeds. Her research focuses on twentieth-century and contemporary photography produced in […]

Pierre Blache, L’insolence des villes — Stay Home; Take a Walk, Michel Hardy-Vallée

Ciel variable 121 – WANDERINGS | Portfolios
Authors: Michel Hardy-Vallée | Artists: Pierre Blache

[Fall 2022] Stay Home; Take a Walk By Michel Hardy-Vallée [Excerpt] My memory of the early months of the pandemic remains blurry, but these two contradictory, yet simultaneous, injunctions issued at the beginning of lockdown have suddenly popped up in my mind. These imperatives, apparently banal – even apparently insignificant – were to change our […]

Le livre photographique: ses formes, ses raisons, ses enjeux

The Photobook
Authors: Jérôme Delgado, Louis Perreault, Michel Hardy-Vallée, Zoë Tousignant

[August 27, 2022] Round table discussion presented by Ciel Variable at the 2022 Papier Art Fair. The discussion was held in French.

Electronic Landscapes: Music, Space and Resistance in Detroit, by Isaac Diggs and Edward Hillel

The Photobook
Authors: Michel Hardy-Vallée | Artists: Edward Hillel, Isaac Diggs

[June 20, 2022] By Michel Hardy-Vallée. Outside of Detroit, it’s most likely that the symbols of this post-industrial city are its ruins: of houses, large and small; of automobile plants; of grandiose theatres…

Edward Hillel, Isaac Diggs

Prospectus for a Future History of Quebec Photography — Michel Hardy-Vallée

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Essays
Authors: Michel Hardy-Vallée

[Summer 2022] By Michel Hardy-Vallée [Excerpt] When we try to reach a better understanding of the history of photography in Quebec, we inevitably stumble into three common areas. The ﬁrst is absence: so, where is this reference book that everyone’s waiting for and no one has written yet? And yet, there are books on the […]

Et fili ? Cultural Transmission and the Quebec Photobook — Michel Hardy-Vallée

Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Essays
Authors: Michel Hardy-Vallée | Artists: Anne-Marie Proulx, Bertrand Carrière, Charles-Frédérick Ouellet, Donigan Cumming, Florence Le Blanc, Guillaume Simoneau, John Max, Matthieu Brouillard, Michel Campeau, Sylvain Cousineau

[Hiver 2022] By Michel Hardy-Vallée [Excerpt] It’s a lovely image: my father, who had been taking photographs since the 1960s, had given me his Beseler 23C II enlarger. I went to pick it up in order to flesh out my amateur darkroom, and I was thinking about transmission of culture. The caption might have quoted […]

Gabor, by Joannie Lafrenière

Authors: Michel Hardy-Vallée

[May 25 2022 — Exclusive Web Content] By Michel Hardy-Vallée. Surely, photographer Gabor Szilasi needs no introduction! He has worked in every genre, in addition to teaching and being involved in the community. He has made a huge and warm mark, and his images still have the power to move us…