Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART

Gaëlle Morel : Guest Curator, Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal 2009 – Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Interviews
Authors: Gaëlle Morel, Jacques Doyon

[Summer 2009] Gaëlle Morel, guest curator for Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal 2009, is a member of the board of directors of the Société française de photographie and of the editorial committee of Études photographiques. She has published Le photoreportage d’auteur. L’institution culturelle de la photographie en France depuis les années 1970 (Paris: […]

Silvia Kolbowski, Rien et tout – Vincent Bonin

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Vincent Bonin | Artists: Silvia Kolbowski

[Summer 2009] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Galerie Leonard et Bina Ellen, Montréal 30 janvier au 7 mars 2009

Paul-Antoine Pichard, Trash Mines – John K. Grande

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Exhibition reviews
Authors: John K. Grande | Artists: Paul-Antoine Pichard

[Summer 2009] Galerie d’art du Centre Culturel Université de Sherbrooke January 12 to February 22, 2009 Previously exhibited at Cirque du Soleil’s TOHU Espace SSQ, Paul-Antoine Pichard’s photographs of people who live amid trash, in the scarred landscapes that they are a part of, reveal scarred, aged, disfigured victims of the conditions imposed on them […]

Carlos et Jason Sanchez, Œuvres choisies (2002-2007) – Sylvain Campeau

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Carlos & Jason Sanchez

[Summer 2009] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Maison des arts de Laval Du 27 septembre au 24 novembre 2008 Commissaire : Madeleine Therrien

Roger Ballen, Boarding House – Gary Michael Dault

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Gary Michael Dault | Artists: Roger Ballen

[Summer 2009] OCAD Professional Gallery, Toronto March 5 – May 31, 2009 Everything is decay in Roger Ballen’s photographs: floors, walls, toothless mouths, and lank, rancid hair. Their only “beauty” (as we warily call it) – purloined from painterly, graffiti-wired photographs of the past (Siskind, Brassai, etc.) – is inventively and mercilessly imposed, in the […]

Bas Jan Ader, Gravité – René Viau

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Exhibition reviews
Authors: René Viau | Artists: Bas Jan Ader

[Summer 2009] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Dazibao, centre de photographies actuelles, Montréal Du 8 janvier au 21 février 2009 Commissariat : France Choinière

Thomas Corriveau, Autofictions – James D. Campbell

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Exhibition reviews
Authors: James D. Campbell | Artists: Thomas Corriveau

[Summer 2009] Galerie Graff November 13 to December 20, 2008 We are living in a telematically attuned present tense. We are bombarded, even besieged, by endless streaming images and data feeds coming in from all sides, all the time. How we fend off the barrage or negotiate détente with it shapes the condition of our […]

Reno Salvail, Les rivières de feu – Sylvain Campeau

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Reno Salvail

[Summer 2009] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Centre VU Du 10 octobre au 9 novembre 2008

Steeling the Gaze: Portraits by Aboriginal Artists – Guy Sioui Durand

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Guy Sioui Durand | Artists: Arthur Renwick, Dana Claxton, Jeff Thomas, Shelley Niro

[Summer 2009] Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa October 31, 2008 – March 22, 2009 What if sacred masks and the geopolitical pomp of costumes had preceded posed portraits and scenes for the camera? Then, in the photographic gaze, not only would there be different works, but there would […]

In Defense of the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography – Martha Langford

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Essays
Authors: Martha Langford

[Summer 2009] The National Gallery of Canada (NGC), under the direction of Marc Mayer, has recently announced that the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (CMCP) will no longer occupy its building at 1 Rideau Canal. In fact, the building will no longer be a public space for the arts. It has been handed over to […]

Photography: Too Fragile for the Public Patrimony? – Stéphane Bouchard

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Essays
Authors: Stéphane Bouchard

[Summer 2009] by Stéphane Bouchard Of all the creative support programs, Quebec’s policy for the integration of the arts with architecture and the environment (commonly known as the 1 percent program) offers some of the best visibility, as well as terrific financial support, to artists. This program allots unequalled sums to bring contemporary art into […]

Negotiating the Collection in the Street : Reading the McCord Museum’s Outdoor Interventions – Johanna Mizgala

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Essays
Authors: Johanna Mizgala | Artists: Brian Merrett, David Miller, Laurie Kang, Louise Abbott, Nicholas Hoban, Notman & Sandham, William Notman, William Notman & Son, Zoe Yuristy

[Summer 2009] Relevance is a word that permeates discussions about the role of museums within the social fabric of community. As repositories, museums have a primary function of cultivation not only of objects but also of a public to engage with them. Museums amass, describe, preserve, and, ultimately, display facets of their contents, arranged and […]

At Play in the Frame – Stephen Horne

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Essays
Authors: Stephen Horne | Artists: Ken Lum, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Rebecca Belmore

[Summer 2009] In Montreal, as in many cities around the world, works of art have often been placed in “public” urban spaces. In some cases, the placement of works is accomplished through channels of bureaucratic control or corporate interest, while in other cases artists have thought of their actions as interventions in those spheres, even […]

The City: Always Already Photographic . . . – Suzanne Paquet

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Essays
Authors: Suzanne Paquet | Artists: Jean-François Cantin, Ken Lum, Michel Lemieux, Nicolas Baier, Thomas Kneubühler, Victor Pilon

[Summer 2009] The world identifies with the quintessence of photographs. This identification does not occur for no reason. For the world itself is composed of a photographic face. . . . the world has become the photographic present, and the photographic present is fully perpetuated. ⎯ Siegfried Kracauer, 19271 Although photographs are generally flat, they […]

Peter Gnass, La multitude déchue – Patrice Loubier, The Displaced Monument

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Portfolios
Authors: Patrice Loubier | Artists: Peter Gnass

[Summer 2009] Last autumn, Peter Gnass produced an intervention in the form of a temporary posting on the façades of a dozen Montreal cultural sites (galleries, museums, studios, art schools). The poster featured a long band of close-up pictures of ten statues, seen from the back, on which was superimposed a series of letters that […]

ATSA, FRAG on the Main – Bernard Vallée and Pierre Anctil

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Portfolios
Authors: Bernard Vallée, Pierre Anctil | Artists: ATSA

[Summer 2009] ATSA (Action terroriste socialement acceptable, or Socially Acceptable Terrorist Action), a collective founded in 1997 by artists Pierre Allard and Annie Roy, is well known for its public interventions. Every year since 1998, it has produced State of Emergency, an urban refugee camp for Montreal’s homeless. In general, the collective’s interventions question the […]

MAU, Plan large, MAP, Intégration – Jacques Doyon, Institutional Initiatives

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Portfolios
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Adad Hannah, Alexandre Castonguay, Carlos & Jason Sanchez, Christophe Beauregard, Clara Gutsche, Denis Farley, Éric Tabuchi, Florian Böhm, Geneviève Cadieux, Isabelle Hayeur, Jessica Auer, Josée Pedneault, Marie-Jeanne Musiol, Max Wright, Neil Budzinski, Raymonde April, Roberto Pellegrinuzzi, Ron Terada, Suzanne Opton

[Summer 2009] by Jacques Doyon For several decades, contemporary art has been on display in the public spaces of Quebec’s urban areas, thanks to the creation of public art programs. Photography was long excluded from these programs, and even today it has limited visibility. Some initiatives have been undertaken in recent years, however, that stand […]

Photography as Public Art

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Summer 2009] by Jacques Doyon This issue offers some preliminary observations on the presence of art photography in urban public art. When we think of “public art,” the governmental public art programs in effect in Quebec and Montreal for several decades immediately spring to mind. Photography, however, has not been well represented in these programs. […]

Ciel variable 82 – PUBLIC ART

[Summer 2009] Although it is rarely installed as permanent public art, photography nevertheless has a growing presence within the urban public space. More and more artistic and institutional initiatives are encroaching on the territory of advertising – posting in all its forms – to dispute this high-visibility space and offer alternative ways of looking at […]