[Fall 2022]
A Look Back at the Disraeli Adventure
By Pierre Dessureault
[Extract]
1972–2022. A half-century has passed since an adventure called Disraeli – une expérience humaine en photographie (Disraeli – A Human Experiment in Photography) took place.1 By no means is it my intention here to commemorate or eulogize this pivotal moment in the early history of photography in Quebec; rather, I describe the context that drew its contours, through the intersected gazes of the people involved with it and the institutions that disseminated it.
The sudden arrival on the scene of the Groupe d’action photographique (GAP) in 1972 would have a lasting effect on the early history of Quebec photography. Gilles Toupin, critic at La Presse, went so far as to proclaim, “Quebec photography is born.”2 For this group of photographers in their twenties, carried along by the excitement of Expo 67, which was opening Quebec to the world and highlighting images of every variation, the practice of art was naturally inscribed within a deep and quickly evolving societal renewal. In October 1971, three Montreal photographers, Michel Campeau, Roger Charbonneau, and Serge Laurin, created GAP; they were joined by Claire Beaugrand-Champagne, Gabor Szilasi, and Pierre Gaudard in February 1972. Their credo was succinct: “The Photographic Action Group is the meeting of six photographers having a common photographic ideology: we wish that by our images the man of today may manifest himself and express the conditions of his existence.”3…
[ Complete issue, in print and digital version, available here: Ciel variable 120 – FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION ]
[ Complete article and more images, in digital version, available here: Disraeli – une expérience humaine en photographie — Pierre Dessureault, A Look Back at the Disraeli Adventure ]