[Summer 2023]

The intimate is where we first experiment and affirm our own identity – an existential issue that plays out essentially between self and self. At the same time, such identification can occur only in interrelation with people with whom one has strong affinities. Identity is also a relationship with the other: what we discover, who we choose; those in whom we recognize ourselves and those onto whom we project ourselves. And identity is also difference: what we are not, the norms that we reject, the otherness that we claim, the distance that we take from certain ways of life. It is not a rejection – the other exists in its own right – but it is simply not who we are; it does not resonate in our private world.

EVERGON
Théâtres de l’intime

Throughout his body of work, Evergon deploys a highly personal theatre of intimate relationships, desires, and impulses that an entire community values. Constant experimentation with the photographic medium, plays on persona, and a reinterpretation of the canons of art history are combined in an aesthetic that presents an other lived experience and gaze. Large allegorical tableaux, self-portraits, landscapes, collages of fragments and images, and striking portrayals of the artist’s mother construct a phantasmagorical universe that highlights and explores all the nuances and richness of gay culture.
with an essay by Nathalie Côté

RAYMONDE APRIL
Traversée

Traversée offers an opportunity to look back at the very beginning of Raymonde April’s career, when the premises of an aesthetic engage- ment that have continued throughout her life were established. Viewers are immersed in a multitude of images that relate early aesthetic research, new friendships, first engagements based on deep affinities, and positionings that were to determine her artistic direction. The studio, domestic scenes, and landscapes serve as backgrounds for an aesthetic and relational journey that has taken April from Rivière-du-Loup to Mumbai, via Quebec City, Montreal, and many other places.
with an essay by Pierre Dessureault

MICHÈLE PEARSON CLARKE
Black Queer Masculinity

Two diametrically opposed works by Michèle Pearson Clarke join in the performance of a single state of vulnerability regarding the assumption of queer masculinity. The series of large self-portraits displays this identity in a way that is both affirmative and playful. Signs of femininity and masculinity are juxtaposed, testifying to the ambiguity and private discord that must be faced within the self. In contrast, choral harmonies recorded in a video allow Pearson Clarke to reflect on her own reality, blunt her vulnerability, and develop the strength to hear her own voice.
with an essay by Dayna McLeod

[ Complete issue, in print and digital version, available here: Ciel variable 123 – THE POWER OF INTIMACY ]
[ Complete article, in digital version, available here: The Power of Intimacy ]