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

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 […]

Antoni Muntadas, The Construction of Fear – Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Interviews
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Antoni Muntadas

[Spring 2009] The internationally known artist Antoni Muntadas will present a new exhibition titled The Construction of Fear at Galerie SBC art contemporain in Montreal, from 28 February to 18 April 2009. Muntadas is interested in social, political, and communications issues, the relationship between public and private space within social frameworks, and the ways that channels […]

SAGAMIE, Éditions d’art – Céline Dion

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Book Reviews
Authors: Céline Dion

[Spring 2009] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.

Tim Clark, Reading the Limits. Works 1975–2003 – Cheryl Simon

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Cheryl Simon | Artists: Tim Clark

[Spring 2009] Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery Concordia University, Montreal October 23–November 29, 2008 Curator: David Tomas, with the collaboration of Michèle Thériault and Eduardo Ralickas The commingling of academia and art in Tim Clark’s conceptual practice is announced at the outset of his recent retrospective exhibition with the installation of a small shelf […]

Un capitalisme sentimental d’Olivier Asselin – Virginie Doré Lemonde

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Virginie Doré Lemonde | Artists: Olivier Asselin

[Spring 2009] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.

Molly Landreth, Embodiment: A Portrait of Queer Life in America – Erin Silver

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Erin Silver | Artists: Molly Landreth

IPS gallery, Montreal November 1 – December 20, 2008 From Barack Obama’s gay-inclusive acceptance speech to the controversial passing of the Prop. 8 ban on gay marriage, the lives of gay Americans are, for better or for worse, on the public radar in the United States. Molly Landreth moves beyond party platforms and ballot boxes, embarking on […]

Life on Mars, 55th Carnegie International – Jacob Korczynski

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Jacob Korczynski | Artists: Rivane Neuenschwander, Sharon Lockhart, Wolfgang Tillmans

[Spring 2009] Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 3, 2008–January 11, 2009 Despite fulfilling several different roles during its century-plus history, the Carnegie International exists today as a quadrennial exhibition of international contemporary art. This second-oldest exhibition of its kind opened just months after the first edition of the Venice Biennale, but today the Carnegie International is only […]

Signals in the Dark, La pratique artistique à l’ombre de la guerre – Elitza Dulguerova

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Elitza Dulguerova | Artists: Johan Grimonprez, Köken Ergun

[Spring 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, Université Concordia 29 août au 11 octobre 2008 Commissaire : Séamus Kealy (Blackwood Gallery, Université de Toronto / Mississauga)

Richard Misrach, On the Beach – Johanna Mizgala

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Johanna Mizgala | Artists: Richard Misrach

[Spring 2009] Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington 11 October 2008 – 18 January 2009 Over the past three decades, Richard Misrach has created a body of work that attempts to reconcile his two lifelong passions: a socio-political activism forged during his student days at Berkeley in the late 1960s and an affinity for images of […]

6* Émissaires, Québec réinventée par la photographie actuelle – Sylvain Campeau

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Isabelle Hayeur, Ivan Binet, Mathieu Beauséjour, Patrick Altman

[Spring 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, Québec 19 juin au 10 août 2008

The Private Photo Albums of Hugh Le Caine – Alexandre Robertson

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Essays
Authors: Alexandre Robertson | Artists: Hughes Le Caine

[Spring 2009] “… a change in time is enough to re-create the world and ourselves.” — Marcel ProustDespite his pioneering role in the development of musique concrète, Hugh Le Caine (1914–77), a well-known physicist, inventor of electronic musical instruments, and self-taught composer, remains a relatively obscure figure: information about him is limited almost exclusively to […]

Remains and Disappearances The Work of Oscar Muñoz – Elizabeth Matheson

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Essays
Authors: Elizabeth Matheson | Artists: Oscar Muñoz

[Spring 2009] We live in an age of disappearances, a time of loss and change, with mass extinctions and vanishing eco-regions. These profound, sinister planetary transformations remind us of the intimate link between ourselves and our actions in the visible world. Yet it seems as if this rapid unravelling has left us dumb with dread and […]

Yang li, Uprooted – Sylvain Campeau, Art and Submersion, Memories of a Chinese Dream

Ciel variable 81 - MADE IN CHINA | Portfolios
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Yang Yi

[Spring 2009] In 2009, the Three Gorges Dam will have flooded hundreds of square kilometres in central China. Chinese artist Yang Yi will see his hometown, Kaixian, being submerged during the last phase of the project. Employing mastery of both photography and digital techniques, Yi shows us ghost towns engulfed by water whose inhabitants, fitted out […]

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 […]

Clara Gutsche & David Miller, Retour de Rome – Julie-Ann Latulippe

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Julie-Ann Latulippe | Artists: Clara Gutsche, David Miller

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

Charles Gagnon – James D. Campbell

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: James D. Campbell | Artists: Charles Gagnon

[Summer 2008] Galerie Roger Bellemare, Montreal October 6 – October 27, 2007 The stark elegance of Charles Gagnon’s photographic oeuvre is one of its defining characteristics. It is always, however, underscored by powerfully enigmatic markers. Those indexical markers are like fingers pointing to unseen presences – or a transcendent reality. Gagnon was always a champion […]

Alain Laframboise, Parcours – Sylvain Campeau

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Alain Laframboise

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

Made in Tehran – Six Women’s Views – Maria Zimmermann Brendel

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Maria Zimmermann Brendel | Artists: Mehraneh Atashi, Shadi Ghadirian

[Summer 2008] Cicero Galerie for Political Photography, Berlin, Germany November 20, 2007 – January 18, 2008 The interest in the exhibition Made in Tehran: Six Women’s Views was immense. This is not surprising with photography by artists who call themselves “the children of the [Islamic] Revolution.” They are the next generation, after Shirin Neshat, and […]

ReConstitutions – Jean-François Bélisle

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Jean-François Bélisle | Artists: Kerry Tribe, Nancy Davenport

[Summer 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. DHC – Art, Montréal, 22 février – 25 mai 2008

Pascal Grandmaison, Le grand jour – Johanna Mizgala

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Johanna Mizgala | Artists: Pascal Grandmaison

[Summer 2008] Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa January 14 – April 13, 2008 A rupture occurs when an action is played out in its conventional sequence and then witnessed in reverse. The action’s asynchronous interconnection serves as a narrative and visual conceit; time runs forwards and backwards in a rearward déjà vu. In static form, […]

Gilles Mahé – Vincent Bonin

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Vincent Bonin | Artists: Gilles Mahé

[SUmmer 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. VOX, centre de l’image, Montréal 26 janvier – 15 mars, 2007

Archive Fever – Maria Antonella Pelizzari

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Maria Antonella Pelizzari | Artists: Fazal Sheikh, Tacita Dean

[Summer 2008] International Center of Photography, New York, January 18 – May 4, 2008 An overall sense of clutter and discomfort pervades the installation of Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art, the current exhibition at the International Center of Photography (ICP) curated by Okui Enwenzor and modlelled on Jacques Derrida’s seminal essay […]

Preservation of Artworks in the Era of Obsolescence – Jean Gagnon

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Essays
Authors: Jean Gagnon | Artists: Gary Hill, Jim Campbell, Nam June Paik

[Summer 2008] by Jean Gagnon My father, like many in his generation,1 was a big fan of family photographs. Anything and everything was an excuse to take “slides,” as he called them. We were living in Quebec City, and, aside from the pictures taken at Christmas and on summer trips to Maine, he amassed good documentation […]

Photographic Projects for the Web, Digital Photo Albums – Sylvie Parent

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Essays
Authors: Sylvie Parent | Artists: Beat Brogle, Ethan Ham, Marika Dermineur, Philippe Zimmermann, Reynald Drouhin, Stéphane Degoutin, Timothé Rolin

[Summer 2008] by Sylvie Parent Thanks to the growing popularity of digital cameras, with their direct connectivity to computers, the number of images sent by e-mail and of photographs published on the network has been growing exponentially. The rapid appropriation of these technologies by the public has given rise to increasingly widespread activities such as […]

Fred Herzog, The City’s Fabric – Helga Pakasaar, Free Observer

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Portfolios
Authors: Helga Pakasaar | Artists: Fred Herzog

[Summer 2008] For more than fifty years, Fred Herzog has roamed the streets of Vancouver. His camera dwells on the raw fabric of the city: second-hand stores, restaurants, storefront windows, barbershops, and vacant lots, and the people using those spaces. The selection of images presented here stems from a body of work that comprises hundreds […]

Robert Walker, Mediascapes: New York, Montreal, Warsaw – Pierre Dessureault, Mercantile Labyrinths

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Portfolios
Authors: Pierre Dessureault | Artists: Robert Walker

[Summer 2008] In today’s world, the blurring between the urban landscape and the mediascape increasingly typifies our experience of our environment. Robert Walker’s body of work illustrates this blurring in a remarkable manner. The images presented in this portfolio span multiple continents and decades. Over the years, illusionary compositions and vibrant colours have become trademarks […]

Zoe Leonard, Analogue – Petra Halkes, Objects and merchandise

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Portfolios
Authors: Petra Halkes | Artists: Zoe Leonard

[Summer 2008] In her most recent series of photographic works, Zoe Leonard focuses her square viewfinder on small shops and businesses on three continents. This series, titled Analogue (1997–2007), documents discount stores, repair shops, second-hand stores, restaurants, and flea markets that are separated by thousands of miles. Yet, they share a common consumerism vocabulary and […]

Contemporary Flâneurs

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Summer 2008] by Jacques Doyon Photographing the street, over time, to record the evolution of the city and how it is used is a strategy that remains current. In these pages, it reveals the survival of small businesses in the era of globalization of markets, it allows us to follow the radical transformation of a […]

Ciel variable 79 – COLOURS OF THE CITY

Ciel variable 79 - COLOURS OF THE CITY

[Summer 2008] Photographing the street, over time, to record the evolution of the city and how it is used is a strategy that remains current. In these pages, it reveals the survival of small businesses in the era of globalization of markets, it allows us to follow the radical transformation of a city centre, and […]

From One Image to the Next: A Conversation with Harun Farocki – André Habib, Pavel Pavlov

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Interviews
Authors: André Habib, Pavel Pavlov | Artists: Harun Farocki

[Spring 2008] Montreal – October 20, 2007 The video installation Deep Play, discussed here, will be presented at the DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art in Montreal from February 21 to May 25, 2008.The video installation Deep Play, discussed here, will be presented at the DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art in Montreal from February 21 to […]

Martha Langford, Scissors, Paper, Stone: Expressions of Memory in Contemporary Photographic Art – Niki Lambros

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Book Reviews
Authors: Martha Langford, Niki Lambros

[Fall 2008] by Niki Lambros The experience of reading the latest book by Martha Langford is strangely medieval; it’s a Cappelanasian compendium, an Ars Memoriae Contemporaria Photographia. Beckett is found on a single page with philosopher Avishai Margalit and St. Augustine; Benjamin, Penelope, and Proust in the same sentence. Drawing from literature, art history and […]

Susan Bozic, The Dating Portfolio – James D. Campbell

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: James D. Campbell | Artists: Susan Bozic

[Spring 2008] Galerie Art Mur, Montreal August 18 – September 22, 2007 Susan Bozic’s latest series, The Dating Portfolio, elicits easy, involuntary smiles but poses a serious question or two that leave the viewer in an interrogatory frame of mind. Bozic appears in each of these medium-to-large-scale photographs in the company of a plastic (clothed) […]

Jocelyn Philibert, Surréel – Jean-Pierre Vidal

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Jean-Pierre Vidal | Artists: Jocelyn Philibert

[Fall 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Centre Sagamie, Alma 23 août – 21 septembre

Greg Girard, New Works – Andrea Carson

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Andrea Carson | Artists: Greg Girard

[Fall 2008] Monte Clark Gallery, Toronto September 20 – November 18, 2007 Like those of many of his Vancouver contemporaries, Greg Girard’s photographs – melancholy, colour-drenched images of Shanghai – are very large, which has the effect of enticing the viewer into a direct relationship with the city’s grand architecture and intimate interiors. The images in the […]

Jeanne Dunning, VOX, image contemporaine – Patrice Duhamel

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Patrice Duhamel | Artists: Jeanne Dunning

[Fall 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. VOX, image contemporaine, Montréal 3 novembre – 15 décembre 2007

Outlooks, Accumulated Outlook and Outlook Express(ed) – Jessica Wyman

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Jessica Wyman | Artists: Gellman & Leslie Peters, Susan Collins

[Fall 2008] Oakville Galleries, Oakville June 29 – August 26, 2007 In a world in which “Outlook” is perhaps recognized more immediately as the name of a software program than as a word meaning “approach to life”, it seems fitting that this pair of exhibitions takes as its starting point the premise of using technology […]

Naoya Hatakeyama, Échelles – Manon Gosselin

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Manon Gosselin | Artists: Naoya Hatakeyama

[Fall 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Centre canadien d’architecture, Montréal 27 septembre 2007 – 3 février 2008

Roy Arden, Vancouver Art Gallery – John K. Grande

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: John K. Grande | Artists: Roy Arden

[Spring 2008] Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver October 20, 2007 – January 20, 2008 A landmark showing of the work of Vancouver School photographer Roy Arden should not go unnoticed! In his long career investigating the interrupted zones of society, Arden has chronicled not only a landscape in transition but a social and visual field. Against […]

Bamako 2007, 7es Rencontres Africaines de la photographie – Erika Nimis

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Erika Nimis | Artists: Emmanuel Bakari Daou, Fouad Maazouz, Nabil Boutros, Serge Emmanuel Jongué

[Spring 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Bamako 2007 7es Rencontres Africaines de la photographie, Bamako 22 novembre – 10 décembre 2007

Harun Farocki, One Image Doesn’t Take the Place of the Previous One – Cheryl Simon

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Cheryl Simon | Artists: Harun Farocki

[Spring 2008] Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montreal October 19 – December 1, 2007 Harun Farocki: One Image Doesn’t Take the Place of the Previous One, at Concordia University’s Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery last fall, brought the German artist to Montreal for the first time. Although he has made over ninety film […]

Le Mois de la photo à Montréal – Sylvain Campeau

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sylvain Campeau

[Spring 2008] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Explorations narratives, Montréal 6 septembre – 21 octobre 2007

Twenty Years of Ciel variable – Part Two – Jacques Doyon

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

[Spring 2008] To complement the first part of our look back at the first twenty years of the magazine, published in our last issue, we want here to emphasize two relatively obscure aspects of our history. The first one is the contribution of photographers to the very first version of the magazine, when its mandate […]

Montreal Collects, Contemporary Photography: The LaRochelle and Taillefer collections – James Campbell

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Essays
Authors: James D. Campbell | Artists: Carlos & Jason Sanchez, Edward Burtynsky, Geoffrey James, Janita Eyre, Loretta Lux, Louis Joncas, Marion Landry, Matthieu Brouillard, Mitch Epstein, Nan Goldin, Pablo Ferrer, Pablo Zutela Zahr, Pascal Grandmaison, Richard Misrach, Roberto Pellegrinuzzi, Rodney Graham, Sarah Morris, Scott McFarland, Stephanie Schneider, William Christenberry

[Spring 2008] by James Campbell Interest in contemporary photography has reached a fever pitch. In 2006, at Sotheby’s in New York, a huge colour print by Andreas Gursky (dating from 1999) went on the block and sold for $2,256,000. Six months earlier, Richard Prince’s seminal work Untitled (Cowboy), a 1989 Ektacolor print of the Marlboro man, […]

Lazare, Portraits et paysages, la collection Lazare – René Viau, Singular Introspections

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Portfolios
Authors: René Viau | Artists: Angela Grauerholz, Carlos & Jason Sanchez, Chuck Close, Edward Burtynsky, Julia Margaret Cameron, Michal Rovner, Nan Goldin, Pablo Picasso, Paul Strand, Raymonde April, Sally Mann, Sarah Moon

[Spring 2008] Following a first purchase, a work by Julia Margaret Cameron (United Kingdom, nineteenth century), the Lazare family has moulded the photographic content of it’s collection over the past twenty-five years to form what is a mainly contemporary ensemble of emotionally rich portraits and nostalgic landscapes. Whether it is a poetic photograph of the […]

W. M. Hunt, Collection Dancing Bear, Vernacular images – Maria-Antonella Pelizzari, Hide and seek in a photograph collection

Ciel variable 78 - COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY | Portfolios
Authors: Maria Antonella Pelizzari

[Spring 2008] For thirty years, W. H. Hunt has been building a photography collection that brings together 1,200 works marked by the absence of sight in the photographed subjects. Composed of classical and contemporary works by renowned artists, as well as documentary images and snapshots by amateur photographers, this collection spans the entire history of […]

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.

Alain Paiement, Expansible – Mosaïques fluides – Yam Lau

Ciel variable 75 - MUTATIONS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Yam Lau | Artists: Alain Paiement

[Fall 2007] Biological Sciences Building, UQÀM, Montréal, inaugurated on December 6, 2006. A new public work by Alain Paiement was recently installed at the Université du Québec à Montréal. I met Paiement a few years ago. Since then, I have came to appreciate his photographic practice as being somewhat apart from the norm, from that […]

Fischli & Weiss, Flowers and Questions. A Retrospective – John K. Grande

Ciel variable 75 - MUTATIONS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: John K. Grande | Artists: Fischli & Weiss

[Fall 2007] Tate Modern, London October 11, 2006 – January 14, 2007 Replicating the real, the Swiss duo of Fischli and Weiss play around with it all like so much spice cake. Since the 1970s, they have collaborated on numerous projects, and they have received their due recognition with this retrospective. Most often they fabricate meanings, or […]

Michael Schreier, Tears for an Empty Desert: The Interiors – Petra Halkes

Ciel variable 75 - MUTATIONS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Petra Halkes | Artists: Michael Schreier

[Fall 2007] Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Ottawa October 2 – 26, 2006 A key image in Michael Schreier’s recent photo exhibition shows tourists jostling for space in front of Michelangelo’s Pieta. The famous sculpture is bathed in a golden light and clearly visible above the frantic crowd, which could not be more at odds with this emblem of […]

Chris Marker, The Hollow Men – Niki Lambros

Ciel variable 75 - MUTATIONS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Niki Lambros | Artists: Chris Marker

[Fall 2007] Dazibao, Montréal November 16 – December 14, 2006 What becomes history most? A credible witness. Even if the observer stands on the opposite shore, across an ocean of time, it is still possible to see into ruins and bear witness to a probable course of events for those who have long since become dust. Mnemosyne, […]

Acting the Part: Photography as Theatre – Judith Parker

Ciel variable 75 - MUTATIONS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Judith Parker | Artists: Gregory Crewdson, Michael Snow, Paul Outerbridge Jr., Yasumasa Morimura

[Fall 2007] National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa June 16 – October 1, 2006 The exhibition’s introductory panel included the statement, “In the last 20 years the staged photograph has occupied a prominent place in the broader world of contemporary art, straddling the borders that traditionally separated photography from other media.” Accordingly, Acting the Part: Photography as Theatre […]

Rodney Graham – Marie-Josée Jean

Ciel variable 75 - MUTATIONS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Marie-Josée Jean | Artists: Rodney Graham

[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 du 7 octobre 2006 au 7 janvier 2007

ECOTOPIA: Allegories of Disaster – Maria Antonella Pelizzari

Ciel variable 75 - MUTATIONS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Maria Antonella Pelizzari | Artists: Adam Broomberg, Carlos & Jason Sanchez, Oliver Chanarin, Robert Adams

[Fall 2007] International Center of Photography, New York September 14, 2006–January 7, 2007 The debate over the effect of technology on the land has always been central to American photography and culture. In the nineteenth century, it was about the optimistic arrival of railroad tracks in the wilderness; in the early twentieth century, it was […]

Alain Declercq, Embedded versus Wildcat – Sylvain Campeau

Ciel variable 75 - MUTATIONS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Alain Declercq

[Fall 2007] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Centre Vox, Montréal du 9 septembre au 21 octobre 2006

Paul Litherland, Absolutely Fabulous – Dayna McLeod, Straight queerness and Alternative Models for Manhood

Ciel variable 75 - MUTATIONS | Portfolios
Authors: Dayna McLeod | Artists: Paul Litherland

[Fall 2007] In Absolutely Fabulous, Paul Litherland playfully constructs stereotypical gender identities in himself, only to deconstruct them and raise his viewers’ awareness of cultural biases. The ten works that constitute this series evolved from a 1993 performance, Souvenirs. Each work is a self-portrait in which gendered clothing articles and props are used. In their […]

Orlan, Pre-Columbian self-Hybridations – Maxime Coulombe, Le visage comme tableau

Ciel variable 75 - MUTATIONS | Portfolios
Authors: Maxime Coulombe | Artists: Orlan

[Fall 2007] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Abstract The author argues that in order to fully understand Orlan’s Self-Hybridations series, one must return to her highly controversial series of performances, The Reincarnation of Sainte-Orlan. In this earlier series, […]

Rafael Goldchain, Familial Ground – Martha Langford, The varieties of Goldchain experience

Ciel variable 75 - MUTATIONS | Portfolios
Authors: Martha Langford | Artists: Rafael Goldchain

[Fall 2007] Familial Ground is the product of a process that started several years ago when Rafael Goldchain’s son was born. Goldchain gradually realized that his new role as parent included the responsibility to pass on a familial and cultural inheritance. Familial Ground is an autobiographical installation work that includes digitally altered self-portrait photographs, reproductions […]