By Article Type

Are you looking for interviews or an artist’s portfolios? Would you like to reread an exhibition or book review? In this section, you can access the content of archived Ciel variable issues by exploring different types of articles published in the magazine.

EDITORIAL

Benoît Aquin, Chinese “Dust Bowl” – William A. Ewing, Fire & Ice

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Portfolios
Authors: William E. Ewing | Artists: Benoit Aquin

[Spring 2009] In November 2008, Benoit Aquin won the prestigious Prix Pictet for his series on desertification and dust storms in China. One of the greatest environmental disasters of our time, the Chinese “Dust Bowl” is probably the largest conversion of productive land into sand anywhere in the world. In November 2008, Benoit Aquin won […]

Greg Girard, Phantom Shanghai – Amish Morrell, Accelerated Ruins

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Portfolios
Authors: Amish Morrell | Artists: Greg Girard

[Spring 2009] Until recently, a former resident of Shanghai from the 1930s or 1940s, returning to the city decades later, would have a good chance of being able to locate his or her old home since urban development for profit was suspended for nearly a half century. However, as Shanghai modernizes, entire neighbourhoods that were […]

Dusk, storm, flood

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Spring 2009] by Jacques Doyon In this issue, we bring together images testifying to the impacts of accelerated modernization in today’s China. The photographers who made them have varying degrees of professional experience linked to commissions for the media, corporations, or advertising. They have nevertheless cultivated a personal vision and produced photographic series based on […]

Ciel variable 81 – MADE IN CHINA

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA

[Spring 2009] This issue focuses on the side effects of the accelerated modernization of China: Shanghai is portrayed in an odd half-light that bespeaks the end of an era; landscapes discoloured by dust storms testify to a rapid desertification; a city that lives under water hints at vast tracts of land that have been submerged… […]

Angela Grauerholz, about Work + Play, an Internet Project – Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Interviews
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Angela Grauerholz

[Fall 2008] by Jacques Doyon Jacques Doyon : Over the course of a photographic practice spanning more than twenty years, you have shown consistent interest in the archival aspects of images and the architecture of their storage and display. You’ve also produced artist’s books and installations reflecting on museum practices. In 2000, you organized an […]

Next Floor, Court métrage de Denis Villeneuve – Virgine Doré Lemonde

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Virginie Doré Lemonde | Artists: Denis Villeneuve

[Fall 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Phi Group, Montréal

Imaging a Shattering Earth, Contemporary Photography and the Environmental Debate – John K. Grande

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: John K. Grande | Artists: David McMillan, John Ganis, Robert ParkeHarrison, Shana ParkeHarrison

[Fall 2008] National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa June 27–October 13, 2008 A more timely exhibition of photography there never was. And with a shock-primed title such as Imaging a Shattering Earth: Contemporary Photography and the Environmental Debate, one is put on edge from the beginning. Although the bias in the photographs is toward documentary and […]

Éliane Excoffier, Kiev – Norman F. Cornett

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Norman F. Cornett | Artists: Éliane Excoffier

[Fall 2008] Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal February 27 – March 29, 2008 Although we can still see the etymological relationship between the modern term “technology” and the ancient Greek word techne, nowadays we generally lose sight of its original meaning – art, craft, skill. Éliane Excoffier’s latest show at Galerie Simon Blais reminds us that […]

Yann Pocreau, Les dialogues acrobatiques – Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre | Artists: Yann Pocreau

[Fall 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Galerie Lilian Rodriguez, Montréal 19 avril au 24 mai 2008

Between Memory and History Contact Photography Festival – Jean-François Bélisle

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jean-François Bélisle | Artists: Luc Delahaye, Martin Parr, Robert Burley

[Fall 2008] Contact Photography Festival Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto May 1 – 31, 2008 On a bright Saturday morning back in early May, I came upon a strange sight on Queen Street West. In front of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MoCCA), and spilling onto the sidewalk, a considerable crowd had gathered […]

Rose-Marie E. Goulet avec la collaboration de Chantal Dumas, Point de fuite – Sylvie Lacerte

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Sylvie Lacerte | Artists: Rose-Marie E. Goulet

[Fall 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Voiture de métro de Montréal 24 septembre 2007 au 31 mars 2008

Emmanuelle Léonard, L’Annonciation – James D. Campbell

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: James D. Campbell | Artists: Emmanuelle Léonard

[Fall 2008] Donald Browne Galery, Montreal April 19–May 24, 2008 In her new exhibition at Galerie Donald Browne, Emmanuel Léonard made her consummately subversive voice heard from the outset. Her singular art of juxtaposition, theatricality, gathered “evidence,” and narrative layering once again adumbrated an environmental volume that radically exceeded the sum of its parts. The […]

Nelson Henricks, Le plan de la ville – Colette Tougas

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Colette Tougas | Artists: Nelson Henricks

[Fall 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Articule, Montréal 29 février au 30 mars 2008

Geoffrey James, Utopia/Dystopia – Johanna Mizgala

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Johanna Mizgala | Artists: Geoffrey James

[Fall 2008] National Gallery of Canada May 30 – October 19, 2008 Geoffrey James describes his photographs as the outcome of “walks with purpose.” His approach is both methodically and philosophically in opposition to the wanderings ascribed to other photographers interested in the landscape and in urban environments, who trust in happening upon inspiration in […]

Richard Baillargeon, Les marques de l’exsangue

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Richard Baillargeon

[Fall 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Galerie Expression, St-Hyacinthe 15 mars au 27 avril 2008 Commissaire : Lisanne Nadeau

Susan Meiselas, Intimate Strangers – Gary Michael Dault

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Gary Michael Dault | Artists: Susan Meiselas

[Fall 2008] Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto March 29 – April 26, 2008 Intimate Strangers could be seen as a revisitation and continuation of a world of documentary exploration that began thirty-five years ago for Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas, with her Carnival Strippers project. Carnival Strippers came about when Meiselas attached herself to a “girl show” […]

39e Rencontres d’Arles, Christian Lacroix et ses invités : un regard anthropologique sur la photographie de mode – Serge Allaire

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Essays
Authors: Serge Allaire

[Fall 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.

The weight of photographic history: THE YVES BEAUREGARD COLLECTION – Zoë Tousignant

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Essays
Authors: Zoë Tousignant | Artists: Yves Beauregard

[Fall 2008] by Zoë Tousignant From September 25, 2008, to January 4, 2009, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) is presenting Quebec City and its Photographers, 1850–1908: The Yves Beauregard Collection, the first extensive exhibition of early Quebec photography to be organized by the museum in over twenty years. Quebec City and its […]

From Image Bank to Morris/Trasov Archive – Vincent Bonin

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Essays
Authors: Vincent Bonin | Artists: General Idea, Marcel Duchamp, Pedro Friedeberg, Robert Filliou, Vincent Trasov

[Fall 2008] by Vincent Bonin In 1967, Jack Chambers of London, Ontario, received a letter from the National Gallery of Canada informing him that its staff was beginning to assemble a bank of two thousand slides on Canadian art and asking for his permission to reproduce the image of one of his works. He was […]

Luis Jacob, Album IV – James D. Campbell, I.O.U. (Intersubjectivity, Optimism, Utopia): Reflections on Luis Jacob’s Image Archive

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Portfolios
Authors: James D. Campbell | Artists: Luis Jacob

[Fall 2008] By juxtaposing images of people interacting, architectural facades, works of art, pieces of furniture, and other motifs, Jacobs has woven a microcosm of humanity at work and at play. This album is a living portrait of the world, at the heart of which he has placed inter-subjectivity, exploration, and inventiveness. This grouping of […]

George Legrady, Cell Tango et Pockets Full of Memories – Jean Gagnon, George Legrady’s Images in Transit

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Portfolios
Authors: Jean Gagnon | Artists: George Legrady

[Fall 2008] George Legrady’s recent Cell Tango project consists of a dynamically growing archive of cell-phone images, associated with indexical terms. When exhibited as a wall projection, the artwork unfolds a galaxy of images and the textual structure of their interaction. Pockets Full of Memories, Legrady’s previous project, had a similar structure. The project’s audience […]

Peter Piller, Bombs and Hunts – Cheryl Simon, Remembering, Repeating, and Reading Across the Surface of Things: Peter Piller’s Archive

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Portfolios
Authors: Cheryl Simon | Artists: Peter Piller

[Summer 2008] The Archive Peter Piller contains tens of thousands of press images that Piller started to collect while employed at an advertising agency. The numbing task of endlessly scanning publications day in and day out became engaging when Piller started to clip and organize images from the newspapers. His archive contain pictures that usually […]

Visual Literacy

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

by Jacques Doyon The image bank is an archive structured by selection, indexing, and thematic cross-referencing procedures that determine how it is used. Artists appropriate this mechanism to explore the issues in visual culture and the contemporary future of the “virtual museum” prefigured by Malraux. They plead fundamentally for an attentive reading of images and […]

Ciel variable 80 – IMAGE BANKS

Ciel variable 80 - IMAGE BANKS

[Fall 2008 – Winter 2009] The image bank is an archive based on modalities of selection, indexation and thematic grouping which condition its usage. This apparatus is appropriated by artists to explore the contextual conditions of the reading of images. Visual literacy and the future of the « virtual museum » imagined by Malraux […]

Chantal Pontbriand, On the situation of contemporary-art magazines – Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Entrevues, Interviews
Authors: Chantal Pontbriand, Jacques Doyon

[Summer 2008] For thirty years, Chantal Pontbriand has been the guiding light of the magazine Parachute. From the beginning, she positioned it among the internationally significant magazines. In parallel with its publishing activities, the magazine organized a series of events and conferences that were just as notable. In April 2007, Parachute announced a suspension of […]

Publications J’ai VU, Parutions récentes – Sylvain Campeau

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Book Reviews
Authors: Sylvain Campeau

[Summer 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.

Darkroom, Michel Campeau – Olivier Asselin

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Book Reviews
Authors: Olivier Asselin | Artists: Michel Campeau

[Summer 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Michel Campeau Martin Parr (ed.), Nazraeli Press, 2007, 80 pp.

Cheryl Pagurek, Ephemera – Petra Halkes

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Petra Halkes | Artists: Cheryl Pagurek

[Summer 2008] Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Ottawa, January 9 – February 3, 2008 Over the years, Cheryl Pagurek’s art practice has gradually shifted from sculpture and installations to printed photographs and, finally, in the present exhibition, to the ultimate Ephemera of moving digital imagery. The more fleeting her work becomes, however, the more strongly it shows […]

Lida Abdul – Sadira Rodrigues

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Sadira Rodrigues | Artists: Lida Abdul

[Summer 2008] Centre A & Western Front, Vancouver January 23 – March 1, 2008 Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1973, Lida Abdul lived in Germany and India as a refugee after being forced to leave her homeland following the Soviet invasion of 1980. This brief biography seems critical, as it is an integral subject in […]