Ydessa Hendeles, Collector and curator – John Bentley Mays, Archiving Contemporary Anxieties

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Portfolios
Authors: John Bentley Mays

[Spring 2008] The singularity of collections exists at the meeting point of the artists’ sensitivities and the collector’s philosophy. In the case of Ydessa Hendeles’s collection, this marriage of viewpoints results in a rich exploration of the pathologies, contradictions, and anxieties of contemporary Western societies. by John Bentley Mays Archiving Contemporary Anxieties Toronto collector Ydessa […]

A Few Case Studies

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Spring 2008] by Jacques Doyon Photography is becoming an increasingly important component of private collections. Recognition of the wealth and diversity of the photographic tradition, as well as a significant rise in the value of photographs on the art market, have accompanied this evolution. That is why we have chosen, for this issue, to highlight collections […]

Ciel variable 78 – COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY

  [Spring 2008] Why does one collect photographic images? What motivates an individual to select only a few printed images from among thousands and assemble them into a collection that says as much about that individual as about his or her environment? EDITORIAL PORTFOLIOS FOCUS EXHIBITIONS READINGS VOICES   Download this issue (Free of Charge)

Interview with Vik Muniz – Jean-François Bélisle

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Interviews
Authors: Jean-François Bélisle | Artists: Vik Muniz

[Fall 2007] Vik Muniz is a Brazilian artist whose major retrospective exhibition Reflex will be on view at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal from October 4th 2007 to January 6th 2008. Now living and working in New York City, Muniz produces extremely rich and intricate photo works that are based on models made with […]

Le flâneur et l’allégorie, Essai sur la photographie de Charles Gagnon – Elitza Dulguerova

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Book Reviews
Authors: Elitza Dulguerova, Olivier Asselin | Artists: Charles Gagnon

[Fall 2007] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Montréal, Dazibao, collection « Études », 2006, 134 p.

Documenta 12 – Petra Halkes

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Petra Halkes | Artists: Allan Sekula, CK Rajan, George Osodi, Luis Jacob, Zoe Leonard, Zofia Kulik

[Fall 2007] Kassel, Germany, June 16 – September 23, 2007 “The big exhibition has no form.” This statement, the first sentence of a preface to the catalogue by curators Roger M. Buergel and Ruth Noack, set the tone for this year’s Documenta. This exhibition was indeed formless, sprawling from the heights of the Cascades at […]

Ève K. Tremblay, Postures scientifiques – James D. Campbell

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: James D. Campbell | Artists: Eve K. Tremblay

[Fall 2007] Galerie Donald Browne, Montreal, April 7 – May 12, 2007 The photographic speculative fictions that Eve K. Tremblay exhibited at Galerie Donald Browne bore the same enigmatic hallmark as has all her earlier work. Set in some day-after-tomorrow but finally in an indeterminate tense, these works challenge the viewer, who must interpret what […]

Yan Giguère, Choisir – Sylvain Campeau

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Yan Giguère

[Fall 2007] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Occurrence, espace d’art et d’essai contemporains, du 17 mars au 21 avril 2007

Dubious Views, Subversive Souvenirs – David Garneau

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: David Garneau | Artists: Jin-Me Yoon, Mitch Robertson, Roger Minick

[Fall 2007] online exhibition by Gallery TPW, Toronto, ongoing The emerging phenomenon of the virtual exhibition is creating both tremendous possibilities and challenges, particularly for photographers. Virtual venues offer new ways to disseminate and consider pictures, but current formats tend to privilege the curatorial imaginary. Dubious Views houses two online exhibitions produced by Gallery TPW. […]

The Contact Photography Festival, The Constructed Image – Gary Michael Dault

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Gary Michael Dault | Artists: Gyorgy Kepes, Roger Ballen, Stan Denniston

[Fall 2007] Toronto, May 1 – 31, 2007 Every May, Toronto is almost entirely given over to photography, in the guise of the CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival. This past May was the festival’s eleventh annual incarnation. The theme this year was “The Constructed Image” – which, in my estimation, is more or less code for […]

Guy Ben-Ner, Treehouse Kit – Patrice Duhamel

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Patrice Duhamel | Artists: Guy Ben-Ner

[Fall 2007] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, 10 février – 22 avril 2007

David Goldblatt, Particulars – Cyril Thomas

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Cyril Thomas | Artists: David Goldblatt

[Fall 2007] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris, 4 mai – 16 juin 2007

TWENTY YEARS OF CIEL VARIABLE: Twenty Years of Photography – Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Essays
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Fall 2007] by Jacques Doyon This is the first part of our review of twenty years of Ciel variable. It offers an overview of the metamorphoses that the magazine has had over the years as photographic practices evolved, their field of application broadened, they were increasingly recognized by the art world, and their institutional environment […]

Photographic Projects for the Web: Site Recognition – Sylvie Parent

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Essays
Authors: Sylvie Parent | Artists: Charles Pratt, Dan Phiffer, Don Sinclair, Kati London, Marketa Bankova, Mushon Zer-Aviv, Ran Tao, Thomas Duc

[Fall 2007] by Sylvie Parent An awareness of geography has never been totally absent from the Web. At first, however, it tended to be obscured behind utopian discourses on planetary connectivity. As the early enthusiasm about the Internet developed, regional places and specificities tended to become blurred. In recent years, though, free, user-friendly cartography tools […]

Jessica Auer, Re-creational Spaces – Michelle Kasprzak, Ways Out of the Labyrinth: The Works of Jessica Auer

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Portfolios
Authors: Michelle Kasprzak | Artists: Jessica Auer

[Fall 2007] Popular sites and tourism fascinate Jessica Auer. She has produced a series of photographic works that were shot in North and South America in which landscapes and architecture have been preserved, renovated, altered, or built from scratch for the benefit of tourism. Through novel perspectives and intriguing details, she invites viewers to appreciate […]

Jana Sterbak, Waiting for High Water – Alain Laframboise, Jana Sterbak, Trompe-l’œil in Venice

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Portfolios
Authors: Alain Laframboise | Artists: Jana Sterbak

[Fall 2007] Produced in 2005–06, Waiting For High Water is the latest instalment of Jana Sterbak’s video projects with Stanley as camera-dog. Through a canine view of Venice, this work suggests a completely new perspective on this pre-eminent tourist destination. Exhibited as a triptych video projection, the edited video that resulted from the dog’s view […]

Antoni Muntadas, On Translation: I Giardini – Reesa Greenberg, The Currency of Time : Muntadas and I Giardini

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Portfolios
Authors: Reesa Greenberg | Artists: Antoni Muntadas, I Giardini

[Fall 2007] On Translation is an all-encompassing site-specific series of projects that Spanish artist Antoni Muntadas has been exhibiting since 1995. The 2005 instalment of the project – On Translation: I Giardini – was composed of a central interactive installation work, as well as photographic, video, and Web-based components. Produced on the occasion of Muntadas’s selection […]

A redesign of the magazine for its twenty years

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Fall 2007] by Jacques Doyon Ciel variable is twenty years old! Over the years, the magazine has undergone several metamorphoses in order to better reflect the evolution in photographic practice, the broadening of its field of application, its recognition by the art world, and changes in its institutional environment. As the only bilingual photography magazine […]

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM

Ciel variable 77 – CULTURAL TOURISM

[Winter 2007] Today’s global tourism industry has developed a cultural structure that orients how we see. The works presented here address various aspects of that structure and offer new perspectives on a global phenomenon. The subjects approached range from the political nature of the Venice Biennale to the recently acquired monumental status of certain sites. […]

Recent Publications – Jean-François Bélisle

Ciel variable 76 - MAPPING | Book Reviews
Authors: Jean-François Bélisle

[Summer 2007] Image and Inscription: An Anthology of Contemporary Canadian Photography [Robert Bean, ed.] (essays by Marie-Josée Jean, Blake Fitzparick, Robin Metcalfe, Carol Williams, Robert Enright, Vid Ingelevics, Lynne Bell, Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher, Stephen Horne, and Robert Bean). Toronto: Gallery 44 and yyz Books, 2005. English texts. 232 pp., 121 colour and 37 […]

Jeff Wall – Stephanie Gibson

Ciel variable 76 - MAPPING | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Stephanie Gibson | Artists: Jeff Wall

[Summer 2007] Museum of Modern Art, New York February 25 – May 14, 2007 It is fitting that the Jeff Wall retrospective should be displayed on the sixth and top floor of the MoMA. For decades, photography collections had been relegated to the basement of museums. Photography, it was supposed, did not fit within the seamless narrative […]

Michel Lamothe – Sylvain Campeau

Ciel variable 76 - MAPPING | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Michel Lamothe

[Summer 2007] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Galerie Occurrence, Montréal du 20 janvier au 3 mars 2007

Lynne Cohen and Denis Farley, Access Points – James D. Campbell

Ciel variable 76 - MAPPING | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: James D. Campbell | Artists: Denis Farley, Lynne Cohen

[Summer 2007] Parisian Laundry, Montréal January 12 – February 24, 2007 This welcome, timely, and provocative exhibition of photographic works by Lynne Cohen and Denis Farley shed considerable light on their respective oeuvres in a truly dialogical fashion. Lynne Cohen’s photographs have never looked more seductive and unsettling than they do in the present exhibition. […]

Du statique au dynamique, projets photographiques pour le Web – Sylvie Parent

Ciel variable 76 - MAPPING | Essays
Authors: Sylvie Parent | Artists: Isabelle Hayeur, Karen Trask

This article was originally published only in French. No translation is available. Summary In this essay, the author looks into photographic practices of recent years that use the fluid space of the World Wide Web as their production and exhibition medium, forgoing the static quality of printed images. The text presents a selection of works […]

Bill Vazan, Itinéraires urbains 1960-1970 – Serge Bérard, Du concept au Cosmos, perspectivisme chez Bill Vazan

Ciel variable 76 - MAPPING | Portfolios
Authors: Serge Bérard | Artists: Bill Vazan

[Summer 2007] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary Since the end of the 1960s, Bill Vazan has been producing conceptual works in the form of urban itineraries for which he uses various modes of transportation (walking, driving, riding […]

Bill Vazan, Itinéraires urbains 1960-1970 – Henry Lehmann, Tangible and Intangible lines

Ciel variable 76 - MAPPING | Portfolios
Authors: Henry Lehmann | Artists: Bill Vazan

[Summer 2007] by Henry Lehmann The title was as brief and streamlined as the piece itself, called simply Worldline. With this unearthly 1971 project, based on the ultimate invisibility of pure line and on its infinite conceptual reach, Montreal artist Bill Vazan truly launched his career. Of course, most of this line, tangibly linked up […]

David Maisel, Black Maps – John K. Grande, Tapping topographies, An interview with David Maisel

Ciel variable 76 - MAPPING | Portfolios
Authors: John K. Grande | Artists: David Maisel

[Summer 2007] David Maisel’s recent body of works, Black Maps, is composed of five series of aerial photographs, the subject of which is the undoing of the natural world by wide-scale human interventions. The latest of these series, Terminal Mirages – reproduced here – was shot from a helicopter flying above Great Salt Lake in Utah. In an […]

Joan Fontcuberta, Datascapes – Sylvain Campeau, Sutures et traitements numériques

Ciel variable 76 - MAPPING | Portfolios
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Joan Fontcuberta

[Summer 2007] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Joan Fontctuberta’s latest body of work, Datascape, is composed of two series: Orogenesis and Googlegrams. The first series was produced with software intended to produce photorealistic perspectives from topographical maps and […]

Conceptual Mapping

Ciel variable 76 - MAPPING | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Summer 2007] by Jacques Doyon The works presented in this issue form conceptual mappings of territories in the midst of redefinition: the Internet, the natural environment, and circulation hubs. There is no cartography in the literal sense here; rather, these metaphorical mappings use the tools of cartography for investigations and approaches that examine our relationship […]

Ciel variable 76 – MAPPING

Ciel variable 76 - MAPPING

[Summer 2007]

Portfolios : JOAN FONTCUBERTA, DAVID MAISEL, BIL VAZAN.
Focus : Projets photographiques pour le web / Photographic Projects for the Web.
Reviews : Lynne Cohen, Denis Farley, Michel Lamothe, Jeff Wall, New and Worthy.
Authors : Jacques Doyon, Sylvain Campeau, John K. Grande, Henry Lehmann, Serge Bérard, Sylvie Parent, James D. Campbell, Stephanie Gibson, Jean-François Bélisle.