Jean Gagnon, Vidéocaméléon — Sylvain Campeau

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Book Reviews
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Jean Gagnon

[Summer 2022] By Sylvain Campeau Vidéocaméléon. Chroniques de l’art vidéo au Québec Montréal, Éditions Somme toute, 2021, 239 p. [Excerpt] Let’s start by saying it straight out, without splitting hairs: this book will be highly useful to everyone interested in the visual arts in Canada, and particularly in the emergence of video art in Quebec. […]

Matt Johnston, Photobooks & — Louis Perreault

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Book Reviews
Authors: Louis Perreault | Artists: Matt Johnston

[Summer 2022] By Louis Perreault Photobooks & A critical companion to the contemporary medium Onomatopee, Eindhoven, Pays-Bas, 2021, 210 p. [Excerpt] Much has been written about the effervescence of the photobook as a medium since the early 2000s. The importance of books that retrace the history of the medium – celebrating the genre’s classics and […]

Sarah Moon, At the Still Point — Ariane Noël de Tilly

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Ariane Noël de Tilly | Artists: Sarah Moon

[Summer 2022] By Ariane Noël de Tilly Fotografiska, New York 15.10.2021— 6.02.2022 [Excerpt] It was La robe à pois (1996), a large-format photograph placed at the entrance to the exhibition, that invited visitors to immerse themselves in the enigmatic universe, sometimes in colour but usually in black and white, of French photographer Sarah Moon. In […]

Myriam Yates, Parcs. Playgrounds — Josianne Poirier

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Josianne Poirier | Artists: Myriam Yates

[Summer 2022] By Josianne Poirier Optica, Montréal 6.11.2021 — 18.12.2021 [Excerpt] For the series of photographs and videos comprising the exhibition Parcs. Playgrounds, Myriam Yates aimed her camera at deserted playgrounds. The facilities that she documented in different New York neighbourhoods in 2018 nevertheless bear the traces of past use and suggest bodies in gymnastic […]

Sorel Cohen, Métaphores conceptuelles — Johanne Sloan

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Johanne Sloan | Artists: Sorel Cohen

[Summer 2022] By Johanne Sloan VOX – Centre de l’image contemporaine, Montréal 18.11.2021 — 19.02.2022 [Excerpt] The wit, energy, and experimental spirit of Sorel Cohen’s work is as inspiring as ever in an exhibition at VOX, which brings together selected pieces from the 1970s to the 2000s. Cohen’s art practice flourished at the intersection of […]

Emmanuel Galland, « Mes Dates / Close Friends » — Sophie Bertrand

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Sophie Bertrand | Artists: Emmanuel Galland

[Summer 2022] By Sophie Bertrand HANGAR 7826, Montréal 6.11.2021 — 28.11.2021 [Excerpt] Max, Brad, Tyler, John, Diego, Erik. These disembodied names, crowded together on the walls of the small gallery HANGAR 7826, wordlessly welcome us to the most recent exhibition by Emmanuel Galland, « Mes Dates / Close Friends ». At first glance, the grouping […]

Taysir Batniji, Quelques bribes arrachées au vide qui se creuse — Érika Nimis

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Erika Nimis | Artists: Taysir Batniji

[Summer 2022] By Érika Nimis MAC VAL Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine 6.06.2021 — 9.01.2022 [Excerpt] The Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne devoted a solo exhibition to Taysir Batniji, retracing with rare coherence more than twenty-five years of his art career in some fifty works: paintings, drawings, photographs, videos, installations, performances. Born in Gaza […]

Taysir Batniji, Quelques bribes arrachées au vide qui se creuse — Érika Nimis

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Critiques d'expositions

[Été 2022] Par Daniel Roy MAC VAL Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine 6.06.2021 — 9.01.2022 [Extrait]

Sanaz Sohrabi, Hiding in Plain Sight: Archives of Oil — Emmanuelle Choquette

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Emmanuelle Choquette | Artists: Sanaz Sohrabi

[Summer 2022] By Emmanuelle Choquette Centre d’art et de diffusion Clark, Montréal 28.10.2021 — 27.11.2021 [Excerpt] In her practice, Sanaz Sohrabi probes the political structure, the trajectory, and the circulation of the image. She addresses these issues through the prism of the archive as site of representation and as tool of construction of dominant narratives. […]

Michel Boulanger, Dans ces rangs de lignes pressées — Daniel Roy

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Daniel Roy | Artists: Michel Boulanger

[Summer 2022] By Daniel Roy Occurrence, espace d’art et d’essai contemporains, Montréal 14.01.2022 — 19.02.2022 [Excerpt] Through his art practice, Michel Boulanger has developed a specific interest in industrial technologies and how they transform the agrarian landscape. His most recent animation video, Dans ces rangs de lignes pressées, presented at Occurrence, portrays the anxieties and […]

Luther Konadu, Portraiture en gestuelles — Nicolas Mavrikakis

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Nicolas Mavrikakis | Artists: Luther Konadu

[Summer 2022] By Nicolas Mavrikakis SBC galerie d’art contemporain, Montréal 4.11.2021 — 18.12.2021 [Excerpt] Whatever one might do or say, many people continue to see photography as having an aura of truth. Its authoritative status with regard to the potential to capture reality, a historical construction inherited from the nineteenth century, is a persistent cliché. […]

Michel Saint-Jean. When Documentary Takes a Side— Pierre Dessureault

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Essays
Authors: Pierre Dessureault

[Summer 2022] By Pierre Dessureault [Excerpt] In the 1960s and 1970s, Quebec was experiencing a radical revision of all kinds of models that had previously been seen as immutable. This major transformation swept away obsolete institutions and fossilized ways of thinking inherited from the Great Darkness of the Duplessis period and laid claim to a […]

Terror Contagion. Surveilling the Surveillance — Edward Pérez-González

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Essays
Authors: Edward Pérez-González

[Summer 2022] By Edward Pérez-González [Excerpt] It was with my head full of the rave reviews I’d read in the local press – “a show that sends shivers down your spine,” “a blood-curdling exhibition” – that I went to the temporary site of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC), in Place Ville Marie, to […]

Prospectus for a Future History of Quebec Photography — Michel Hardy-Vallée

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Essays
Authors: Michel Hardy-Vallée

[Summer 2022] By Michel Hardy-Vallée [Excerpt] When we try to reach a better understanding of the history of photography in Quebec, we inevitably stumble into three common areas. The first is absence: so, where is this reference book that everyone’s waiting for and no one has written yet? And yet, there are books on the […]

Meryl Mcmaster, As Immense as the Sky — Lori Beavis, The Beginning of Something New

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Portfolios
Authors: Lori Beavis | Artists: Meryl McMaster

[Summer 2022] By Lori Beavis [Excerpt] I want to plunge into the storage space where Meryl McMaster stores the habiliments that she has created for her performative photographic practice. While there I could closely investigate the cloaks, patterned coats, feathered armbands, hand wraps, plumed plant material, and bird-festooned headwear. Over the past fifteen years, McMaster […]

Jeff Thomas, Indians on Tour — Carolyn Hickey, The Indigenous Map Maker’s Room

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Portfolios
Authors: Carolyn Hickey | Artists: Jeff Thomas

[Summer 2022] An interview conducted by Carolyn Hickey [Extrait] The exhibition The Indigenous Map Maker’s Room at the Latcham Art Centre1 resurfaced Jeff Thomas’s series Indians on Tour, which he began some twenty years ago. The series has continued to evolve and has generated other, parallel series. In this interview conducted by Carolyn Hickey, the […]

Dana Claxton, Portraits & Regalia — Skeena Reece, It’s Love or a Photograph

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Portfolios
Authors: Skeena Reece | Artists: Dana Claxton

[Summer 2022] It’s Love or a Photograph – Depends on How You See It By Skeena Reece [Excerpt] The Mustang Suite is a series about more than mobility. Though that’s a great place to start, to introduce you to Dana Claxton’s works; images that include literal modes of transportation are a part of the photographs’ […]

Figures of Affirmation

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Portfolios
Artists: Dana Claxton, Jeff Thomas, Meryl McMaster

[Summer 2022] Indigenous culture has long been oppressed in this country, but strong proud voices are now speaking out in public and are increasingly being heard. Here, we present three of these voices: they stand out for their use of photography as a central vehicle of their approach. Together, they offer a renewed vision of […]

Visible Everywhere

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Dana Claxton, Jeff Thomas, Meryl McMaster

[Summer 2022] By Jacques Doyon Indigenous peoples have been confined to reservations, cut off from their ancestral lands, subjected to forced assimilation in schools, and had their status denied as Métis or urban residents. They have been forbidden to display the signs of their cultures and were long condemned to invisibility. But the situation is […]

Ciel variable 120 – Figures of Affirmation

Ciel variable 120 - FIGURES OF AFFIRMATION

[Summer 2022]

Indigenous culture has long been oppressed in this country, but strong proud voices are now speaking out in public and are increasingly being heard. Here, we present three of these voices: they stand out for their use of photography as a central vehicle of their approach. Together, they offer a renewed vision of Indigenous identity, drawing on both tradition and contemporary realities and stamping a presence everywhere in the territory.

Gregory Halpern, ZZYZX – Louis Perreault

Ciel variable 105 – MONTREALITIES | Book Reviews
Authors: Louis Perreault | Artists: Gregory Halpern

May 18, 2022 [originally published in CV105 in Winter 2017] — In the photography world, the book continues to play an essential role of dissemination. Yet, beyond simply being a tool for promotion of a photographer’s work, the book is seen by many as a creative space on its own…

William A. Ewing, Photographs Are the Eyes of Our Civilization — Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Interviews
Authors: Jacques Doyon, William E. Ewing | Artists: Alejandro Cartagena, Francesco Zizola, Olivier Christinat

[Winter 2022] An interview by Jacques Doyon [Excerpt] Author, exhibition curator, professor, and longtime director of the Musée de l’Élysée (1996– 2010), in Lausanne, William A. Ewing began his career in Montreal; he was the founder of Optica, which he directed from 1972 to 1977. Ewing has been exploring the field of photography for some […]

Valérian Mazataud, liwa mairin, la femme de l’eau — Serge Allaire

Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Book Reviews
Authors: Serge Allaire

[Winter 2022] Montréal, à compte d’auteur, 2021, non paginé By Serge Allaire [Excerpt] Valérian Mazataud’s most recent work takes us on an adventure to the island of Bobel, a huge rock rising out of the Caribbean Sea fifty kilometres off the coast of La Mosquita, one of the last untouched regions on the planet. The […]

Anne-Marie Proulx, Le Jardin d’après — Élisabeth Recurt

Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Book Reviews
Authors: Élisabeth Recurt | Artists: Anne-Marie Proulx

[Winter 2022] Paris, Éditions Loco, 2021, 192 p. By Élisabeth Recurt [Excerpt] Freely inspired by a novel by Anne Hébert,1 Anne-Marie Proulx’s photobook is composed of 125 black-and-white and colour photographs (taken on a 35 mm analogue camera and a cell phone), lines from plays (spoken by the protagonist of the novel, Flora Fontanges), and […]

Martin Désilets — Yannick Marcoux

Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Yannick Marcoux | Artists: Martin Désilets

[Winter 2022] Les tableaux réunis Musée d’art de Joliette 19.06.2021— 6.09.2021 By Yannick Marcoux [Excerpt] In a poem in his L’art poétique, Nicolas Boileau made a suggestion that has become famous: “Put your work twenty times on the anvil.” It seems that twenty times is not enough for the artist Martin Désilets, who, since 2017, […]

Carlos Ferrand Zavala — Alexis Desgagnés

Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés | Artists: Carlos Ferrand Zavala

[Winter 2022] SBC, galerie d’art contemporain, Montréal 4.09.2021 — 23.10.2021 By Alexis Desgagnés [Excerpt] Peruvian-born Montreal artist Carlos Ferrand Zavala, recipient of the Bourse de carrière Michel-Brault from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec in 2015, is known mainly as a director, screenwriter, and cinematographer. Among his latest films are 13, un […]

Catherine Bodmer — Emmanuelle Choquette

Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Emmanuelle Choquette | Artists: Catherine Bodmer

[Winter 2022] Galerie B-312, Montréal 7.05.2021 — 23.06.2021 By Emmanuelle Choquette [Excerpt] The exhibition Synonymes is an outcome of Catherine Bodmer’s long-term research conducted during residencies in Mexico City between 2010 and 2018. Pairing photography and text, the body of work on display in Galerie B-312’s two exhibition spaces addresses Bodmer’s relationship, developed over time, […]

Françoise Sullivan — Didier Morelli

Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Didier Morelli | Artists: Françoise Sullivan

[Winter 2022] Galerie de l’UQAM, Montreal 14.05.2021 — 16.07.2021 By Didier Morelli [Excerpt] Even in her nineties, the seminal Quebec interdisciplinary artist Françoise Sullivan never ceases to inspire. Françoise Sullivan: The 1970s, organized by the Galerie de l’UQAM, delves into her experimentation five decades ago, with particular attention to her time in Italy. Filmed and […]

Lorenza Böttner — Fanny Bieth

Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Fanny Bieth | Artists: Lorenza Böttner

[Winter 2022] Galerie Leonard & Bina Ellen, Montréal 29.04.2021 — 19.06.2021 By Fanny Bieth [Excerpt] Lorenza Böttner: Requiem for the Norm is the first international retrospective exhibition for the Chilean-German artist Lorenza Böttner, a trans person who lost both arms as a child following an accident. Böttner’s practice and life embody, to use the words […]

Dawit L. Petros — Claudia Polledri

Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Claudia Polledri | Artists: Dawit L. Petros

[Winter 2022] Galerie Bradley Ertaskiran, Montréal 3.09.2021 — 30.10.2021 By Claudia Polledri [Excerpt] Gaps, holes, fissures, and frictions – the title defines the perimeter of the exhibition by Eritrean artist Dawit L. Petros, presented as part of the Momenta 2021 satellite program. In this show, composed of photographs and serigraphs on paper and canvas, Petros, […]