[Spring 1997]

by Franck Michel

For CVphoto, 1997 promises to be a very exciting year. With promotional and subscription campaigns, partnerships, launches, and lectures, we are putting forth our energy and openness in an effort to increase our visibility in Quebec, Canada, and abroad.

Our first “operation” will be a random draw among new subscribers for a work by Quebec photographer Bertrand Carrière (look for details in this issue); it’s a unique opportunity to own an original print by a well-known artist. In June, keep an eye out, because CVphoto will be in the streets, visible on the walls of major Canadian cities. But we won’t get to specifics for the moment – a few surprises are in store! Even though CVphoto has reached maturity, it still has many development possibilities, and we’re counting on the support of you, our readers.

This issue of CVphoto deals with the idea of desire in its various forms. For Anne Arden McDonald, Diana Thorneycroft, and Anne-Marie Zeppetelli, three strongly creative artists, photography is far from being simply a representation of the world. Rather, it is a means of transcending the real: with photography, these artists form a world where they can give free rein to their desires and fantasies. The photographic image becomes a site where reality and fiction collide, a space of possibilities. Accompanying the portfolios are texts by Sylvain Campeau, Annie Molin Vasseur, and Céline Mayrand interpreting the often disturbing images. We also invited author and psychoanalyst Serge Tisseron to write the “Point de vue” column, in which he reflects on the links between the subconscious and photography.

I would like to write a few words on the current place of photography in contemporary-art distribution networks (as well as in history and art musems). Notably, for some time photography has held a privileged position in galleries and museums. From this point of view, the current season, featuring a number of interesting photography exhibitions, is particularly eloquent. At a time when some are predicting the death of photography, this situation seems paradoxical (I shall return to this point in a future issue). Is today’s infatuation due to nostalgia for an archaic procedure that is being threatened by the new image technologies? Is it the forerunner of a slow, agonizing death? In any case, at the moment we can rejoice that there are so many spaces dedicating their wall space to photography, historical or contemporary, classical, visual, or hybrid: something to please both amateurs and experts. And this is just the beginning; in September, photography will be taking over all of Montreal!