Carol Sawyer, The Natalie Brettschneider Archive – Ariane Noël de Tilly, Between Fiction and Reality: How to Shed Light
on Artists Who Have Been Left in the Shadows

Ciel variable 109 - REVISIT | Portfolios
Authors: Ariane Noël de Tilly | Artists: Carol Sawyer

November 10, 2021 [originally published in CV109 in Summer 2018 ] — For twenty years, Vancouver artist Carol Sawyer has constructed a speculative history around her character Natalie Brettschneider, through whom she has introduced the art practices of a number of previously overlooked artists who developed within alternative circles…

Charles Gagnon | Emmanuelle Léonard, Le huitième jour – Pierre Dessureault, Expo 67: The Christian Pavilion and Le huitième jour

Ciel variable 109 - REVISIT | Portfolios
Authors: Pierre Dessureault | Artists: Charles Gagnon, Emmanuelle Léonard

November 17, 2021 [originally published in CV109 in Summer 2018 ] — At Expo 67, a huge celebration of human progress and great festival of the image in all of its technological and expressive possibilities, the Christian Pavilion designed by Charles Gagnon offered a counterpoint to the event’s sea of triumphant optimism….

Blake Fitzpatrick and Vid Ingelevics, Freedom Rocks: The Everyday Life of the Berlin Wall – Jill Glessing, The Mobile Ruin and The Labour of Commemoration

Ciel variable 109 - REVISIT | Portfolios
Authors: Jill Glessing | Artists: Blake Fitzpatrick, Vid Ingelevics

December 1, 2021 [originally published in CV109 in Summer 2018 ] — Movement is elemental to existence. Since we made our slow crawl from sea to land we’ve been “on the road” seeking better environments. But another force – territorialism – counters that drive and stems our free flow with walls, great and small…

Revisit

Ciel variable 109 - REVISIT | Portfolios

[Spring-Summer 2019] The works brought together in this issue look back at significant phenomena and events in recent history to bring them back to memory and assess their current relevance. These are prolific works, with multiple iterations, that take forms as complex as their subjects: an entire field of artistic practices, pioneering works and pivotal […]

Iran, Année 38, Rencontres d’Arles – Claudia Polledri, « Persian Letters »

Ciel variable 108 - GOING PUBLIC | Portfolios
Authors: Claudia Polledri | Artists: Abbas Kiarostami, Abbas Kowsari, Arash Khamooshi, Azadeh Akhlaghi, Azin Haghighi, Babak Kazemi, Behnam Zakeri, Gohar Dashti, Kaveh Kazemi, Morteza Niknahad, Newsha Tavakolian, Shadi Ghadirian, Sina Shiri, Solmaz Daryani

[Winter 2018] By Claudia Polledri Written in Farsi on a white box abandoned on the black asphalt of Pahlavi Avenue in Tehran, the day after the Islamic revolution prevailed – on February 11, 1979 – is “The nation is victorious.” This is the first image in the exhibition Iran, Année 38,1 presented at the most […]

Gabor Szilasi, The Art World in Montreal, 1960‒1980 – Zoë Tousignant, On Emotion and the Photographic Archive

Ciel variable 108 - GOING PUBLIC | Portfolios
Authors: Zoë Tousignant | Artists: Gabor Szilasi

June 29, 2021 [originally published in CV108 in Winter 2018] — Photographer Gabor Szilasi was born in Hungary in 1928 and immigrated to Canada in 1957. Soon after settling in Montreal, Szilasi began to photograph the many art openings that he and his wife, artist Doreen Lindsay, regularly attended…

Justin Wonnacott, Pictures of Art – Laurent Vernet, An Oblique Gaze at Artworks in Public Spaces

Ciel variable 108 - GOING PUBLIC | Portfolios
Authors: Laurent Vernet | Artists: Justin Wonnacott

July 6, 2021 [originally published in CV108 in Winter 2018] — “Obsession”: that’s the word that photographer Justin Wonnacott uses to explain his ambitious project Pictures of Art (Images d’art). The subject of this series, which numbers 350 images to date, is the artworks found in public spaces and sites (monuments, works of public art and works integrated with architecture, graffiti) in the National Capital Region….

Going Public

Ciel variable 108 - GOING PUBLIC | Portfolios

[Winter 2018] This issue’s thematic section shows 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 societal and cultural context that circumscribes […]

Joan Fontcuberta, Trauma – Sylvain Campeau, Autopsy of a Disappearance

Ciel variable 107 - RUINS | Portfolios
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Joan Fontcuberta

January 11, 2021 [originally published in CV107 in Fall 2017] — In his work, Joan Fontcuberta explores the effects of the real and the capacity for truth generated by the technological image, in order to denounce the authoritarian discourses regarding information and knowledge. His other subjects include nature and the functions of the image in digital culture.

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

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

January 18, 2021 [originally published in CV107 in Fall 2017] — 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.

Michel Campeau, The Donkey that Became a Zebra : histoires de chambre noire – Joan Fontcuberta, Fire, Prayers and the Place of Photography

Ciel variable 107 - RUINS | Portfolios
Authors: Joan Fontcuberta | Artists: Michel Campeau

January 25, 2021 [originally published in CV107 in Fall 2017] — Just when we thought we had all the answers to the enigma of our memory fixed in silver salts, life – without so much as a by-your-leave – changed the questions. Perhaps because life is not a problem to be solved, as Søren Kierkegaard said, but a reality to be experienced…

Ruins

Ciel variable 107 - RUINS | Portfolios
Artists: André Barrette, Joan Fontcuberta, Michel Campeau

[Fall 2017 ] — Thematic Introduction

Denis Farley, Espaces aériens – Daniel Fiset, Photographs Like Clouds

Ciel variable 106 - TREES, ICE, AND CLOUDS | Portfolios
Authors: Daniel Fiset | Artists: Denis Farley

September 1, 2020 [originally published in CV106 in Spring 2017] — Espaces aériens marks a turning point in Farley’s aesthetic, developed since the 1980s, of working mainly in documentation of landscape and architecture. In this series, he gradually abandons horizontal composition and aims his lens upward, letting layers of clouds dictate the composition and perturb the unified reading…

Alain Lefort, Eidôlon – Francine Paul, Hunting for Landscapes in the Spring of Glacial Figures

Ciel variable 106 - TREES, ICE, AND CLOUDS | Portfolios
Authors: Francine Paul | Artists: Alain Lefort

September 8, 2020 [originally published in CV106 in Spring 2017] — Since 2010, Lefort’s photographic series have evidenced his desire to go to increasingly remote regions alone to photograph natural phenomena; most recently, he has been intrigued by icebergs, huge in both dimensions and appeal…

Jocelyn Philibert, Arbres – Franck Michel, The Depths of the Landscape

Ciel variable 106 - TREES, ICE, AND CLOUDS | Portfolios
Authors: Franck Michel | Artists: Jocelyn Philibert

September 15, 2020 [originally published in CV106 in Spring 2017] — For more than ten years, Jocelyn Philibert has been photographing trees at night. This near-obsession was triggered during a summer spent in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, on the bank of the St. Lawrence River. Having just acquired a small digital camera, he decided to go out and explore the vicinity of his cottage, photographing everything around him, after the sun went down…

TREES, ICE, AND CLOUDS

Ciel variable 106 - TREES, ICE, AND CLOUDS | Portfolios
Artists: Alain Lefort, Denis Farley, Jocelyn Philibert

At first glance, the works presented here might seem to be simply about work on a motif. A more attentive look, however, shows that what is indicated here, in this focus on trees, or icebergs, or clouds, is the shaping of natural elements by human action on a landscape that has become an environment. Jocelyn […]

Images of Montreal. Some notable projects on Montreal neighbourhoods – Pierre Dessureault

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

May 12, 2020 [originally published in CV105 in Winter 2017] — Over the years, Montreal has been the subject of a number of major documentary projects. We might think of Gabor Szilasi’s prolific production – in particular, as he recorded development in the city, his photographs of St. Catherine Street (1977–79) in which he immortalized the configuration of the stores along the street…

Robert Walker, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Observations and Recollections – Pierre Dessureault, Looking at Hochelaga-Maisonneuve

Ciel variable 105 – MONTREALITIES | Portfolios
Authors: Pierre Dessureault | Artists: Robert Walker

February 5, 2020 [originally published in CV105 in Winter 2017] — For ten years, Robert Walker has been working on a project called Hochelaga-Maisonneuve: Observations and Recollections. The subtitle conveys the two aspects of his approach…

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 […]

Marisa Portolese, Belle de jour III: Dialogues with Notman’s Portraits of Women – James D. Campbell, More than Meets Her Eye: A Dimensional Portraiture

Ciel variable 104 - FROM ANOTHER ANGLE | Portfolios
Authors: James D. Campbell | Artists: Marisa Portolese

March 5, 2020 [originally published in CV104 in Fall 2016] — Montreal-based fine-art photographer Marisa Portolese has garnered well-deserved acclaim for the clarity and lush chromatic and emotional dimensionality of her images. The third instalment of her photographic series of portraits of women and girls titled Belle de jour marks something…

Outsiders: American Photography and Film, 1950s–1980s
 – Jill Glessing. Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin and a Few Others . . .

Ciel variable 104 - FROM ANOTHER ANGLE | Portfolios
Authors: Jill Glessing | Artists: Garry Winogrand

March 10, 2020 [originally published in CV104 in Fall 2016] — The title that brings together the wild and woolly works in Outsiders: American Photography and Film, 1950s–1980s1 is worthy of consideration. The word “outside” depends on its semiotic partner in crime – “inside.” . . .

Yoanis Menge, HAKAPIK – Mona Hakim, Countering the Negative Image

Ciel variable 104 - FROM ANOTHER ANGLE | Portfolios
Authors: Mona Hakim | Artists: Yoanis Menge

March 12, 2020 [originally published in CV104 in Fall 2016] — HAKAPIK did not go unnoticed during its presentation at Occurrence. The subject was an attention-grabber: a report on the seal hunt by Yoanis Menge, a photographer from Îles de la Madeleine who totally immersed himself in the lives of groups of hunters off the coast of the Canadian North…

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 […]

Isabelle Hayeur, Desert Shores (L’Amérique perdue) – Stephen Horne, Photographing In the Anthropocene

Ciel variable 103 - NATURE | Portfolios
Authors: Stephen Horne | Artists: Isabelle Hayeur

January 6, 2020 [originally published in CV103 in Spring 2016] — Dead trees, a few dried-up pigeons, some rotting fish, and broken-up cottages: what is the world that these make up? From the perspective of Montreal documentary photographer Isabelle Hayeur, this is a landscape – that is, a space inhabited with suburbs and industrial plants…

Geneviève Chevalier, Mon boisé, phase II – John K. Grande, My Woodland, or the Developers’?

Ciel variable 103 - NATURE | Portfolios
Authors: John K. Grande | Artists: Geneviève Chevalier

January 8, 2020 [originally published in CV103 in Spring 2016] — So pervasive have the interventions become that they challenge the stereotype of nature as an ongoing and seemingly inexhaustible eternal backdrop to all that we do. Our era is all about the intertwining of the human built landscape and the natural world…

Jessica Auer, January – James D. Campbell, Bluer than Blue

Ciel variable 103 - NATURE | Portfolios
Authors: James D. Campbell | Artists: Jessica Auer

January 13, 2020 [originally published in CV103 in Spring 2016] — Who better than a seasoned photographer to explore the phenomenology of light? Jessica Auer’s recent series January, created during a 2015 residency in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland, is a thematic work of great visual poetry…

Nature

Ciel variable 103 - NATURE | Portfolios
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 […]

Alejandro Cartagena, Carpoolers – Isa Tousignant, From the Northern to the Southern Suburbs

Ciel variable 102 - FAR AWAY, SO CLOSE | Portfolios
Authors: Isa Tousignant | Artists: Alejandro Cartagena

October 21, 2019 [originally published in CV102 in Winter 2016] — In the storybook that is Alejandro Cartagena’s oeuvre, Carpoolers is the chapter that comes between Suburbia Mexicana and What We Fight For. The artist, who works and lives in Monterrey, Mexico, has been researching and imaging urban sprawl and its impact for the last decade in photographs that mix a luscious kind of composed beauty with deep human interest…

Julian Germain, The Future is Ours, Classroom Portraits – Johanna Mizgala, Between Portraiture and the Documentary

Ciel variable 102 - FAR AWAY, SO CLOSE | Portfolios
Authors: Johanna Mizgala | Artists: Julian Germain

October 23, 2019 [originally published in CV102 in Winter 2016] — It started off in the northeast U.K., where I am based. I had received funding at the time to photograph in six particular schools. I realized pretty soon that it would be interesting to expand to other schools in different parts of the country, in that it was a way to make a portrait of the population…

Raymonde April, Near You No Cold – Charles Guilbert, To Photograph to Understand

Ciel variable 102 - FAR AWAY, SO CLOSE | Portfolios
Authors: Charles Guilbert | Artists: Raymonde April

October 28, 2019 [originally published in CV102 in Winter 2016] — For a Westerner travelling, it’s quite easy to take striking pictures of India. But what is being portrayed in these images is simply culture shock. One stays at a distance. Since I was in Mumbai to work, what was urgent for me was not so much to take pictures as to understand…