Exhibiting Photography to Talk about Global Changes

Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Fall 2021] By Jacques Doyon The thematic section in this issue presents three recent exhibitions that show how photography can actively contribute to shaping a vision of the world. The first, which features quantity and diversity of images, indicates how an accumulation of points of view and subjects addressed makes it possible to override the […]

Ciel variable 118 – EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY

Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY

[Fall 2021]

The thematic section in this issue presents three exhibitions that show how photography can contribute to shaping a critical vision of the world. The first sets out to offer an overall sense of the changes affecting global civilization. The second contrasts traditional photography with its mutant, digital, and interactive form. The third is the career of a photography critic whose vision is fed by the act of collecting.

Bertrand Carrière, Learning photography from books — Serge Allaire

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Interviews
Authors: Serge Allaire | Artists: Bertrand Carrière

[Summer 2021] Bertrand Carrière Learning photography from books An Interview by Serge Allaire Over the last forty years, Bertrand Carrière has produced a personal and varied body of photographic work. His photographs have been exhibited in Quebec, Canada, Europe, and China, and he is represented by Galerie Simon Blain Montreal and the Stephen Bulger Gallery […]

Ron Jude — Louis Perreault

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Book Reviews
Authors: Louis Perreault | Artists: Ron Jude

[Summer 2021] 12 Hz Ron Jude Londres, Mack Books, 2020, 128 p. Par Louis Perreault [Excerpt] Even before we open its cover, 12 Hz seems to vibrate on the table. As we plunge into the ice, rock, and powerful sea currents that mark out the pages of this book by American photographer Ron Jude, we […]

Une histoire mondiale des femmes photographes — Claudia Polledri

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Book Reviews
Authors: Claudia Polledri

[Summer 2021] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Histoire mondiale des femmes photographes Sous la direction de Luce Lebart et Marie Robert, Paris, Textuel, 2020, 506 p. Par Claudia Polledri (En français seulement)   See the magazine for the […]

Rejouer le vivant – Amélie Giguère

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Book Reviews
Authors: Amélie Giguère, Anne Bénichou

[Summer 2021] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Rejouer le vivant. Les reenactments, des pratiques culturelles et artistiques (in)actuelles Anne Bénichou Dijon, Les presses du réel, 2020, 421 p. Par Amélie Giguère (En français seulement)   See the magazine […]

Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens, Querelle entre deux puces pour savoir à qui appartient le chien sur lequel elles vivent — Noémie Fortin

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Noémie Fortin | Artists: Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens

[Summer 2021] Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens Querelle entre deux puces pour savoir à qui appartient le chien sur lequel elles vivent Fondation Grantham pour l’art et l’environnement, Saint-Edmond-de-Grantham 27.09.2020 — 26.06.2021 Par Noémie Fortin [Excerpt] Presented at the Grantham Foundation for the Arts and the Environment, the exhibition Querelle entre deux puces pour savoir […]

John Akomfrah, Vertigo Sea — Jill Glessing

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jill Glessing | Artists: John Akomfrah

[Summer 2021] John Akomfrah Vertigo Sea The Design Exchange Trading Floor, Nuit Blanche, Toronto 2.10.2016 Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal 10.02.2021 – 4.04.2021 By Jill Glessing [Excerpt] The sea, wild and wet, the womb that bore us, from which we slithered eons ago. We return to that birthplace – for crossings, sustenance, profit, and pleasure. […]

Sara A. Tremblay — Paule Mackrous

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Paule Mackrous | Artists: Sara A. Tremblay

[Summer 2021] Tout t’empêche Centre d’exposition de l’Université de Montréal, en ligne / online By Paule Mackrous While we are recluses in our regions, neighbourhoods, and homes, the pandemic has shrunk the parameters of our living environment, and we are constantly confronted with its limits. It’s what author Cristina Comencini has called “a test of […]

Gagnon-Forest, Séquence aérienne — Élisabeth Recurt

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Élisabeth Recurt | Artists: Gagnon-Forest

[Summer 2021] Maison de la culture Claude-Léveillée, Montréal 13.12.2020 — 14.02.2021 Par Élisabeth Recurt [Extrait] Here, the duo of Gagnon-Forest (Mathieu Gagnon and Mathilde Forest) presents a series of six large-format photographs (inkjet prints on film, backlit), articulated and paced by three dualities. Installed in the large windows on the lateral wall of Maison de […]

Stan Douglas, Penn Station’s Half Century — Stefan Zebrowski-Rubin

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Stefan Zebrowski-Rubin | Artists: Stan Douglas

February 19, 2022 [originally published in CV117 in Summer 2021 ] — Beams of light shine across an abandoned hall stacked with suitcases. Groups of men assemble at various points as a woman, clipboard in hand, takes inventory by the marble-cladded information desk. In the foreground, a Victorian-style lamppost lies on its side…

Isabelle Hayeur, (D)énoncer — Jean De Julio-Paquin

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jean De Julio-Paquin | Artists: Isabelle Hayeur

[Summer 2021] (D)énoncer Plein sud, centre d’exposition en art actuel, Longueuil 12.09.2020 — 27.02.2021 Salle Alfred-Pellan de la Maison des arts de Laval 13.09.2020 — 7.03.2021 Galerie d’art Antoine-Sirois de l’Université de Sherbrooke 28.10.2020 — 13.03.2021 By Jean De Julio-Paquin To begin with, the triple exhibition of work by multidisciplinary artist Isabelle Hayeur, (D)énoncer, was […]

Sandra Brewster — Érika Nimis

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Erika Nimis | Artists: Sandra Brewster

[Summer 2021] Works from series: Smith, Blur; Video: Walk on by Optica, un centre d’art contemporain, Montréal 16.02.2021 — 03.04.2021 By Érika Nimis After long months of forced restraint, what a pleasure it is to return to visiting visual arts venues in person! I tested out this pleasure by going to Optica to see Toronto […]

Judith Bellavance — Mona Hakim

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Mona Hakim | Artists: Judith Bellavance

[Summer 2021] Le goût de la durée Occurrence, espace d’art et d’essai contemporains, Montréal 15.09.2020 — 7.11.2020 Par Mona Hakim On the walls of the smallest room in Galerie Occurrence are intriguing photographs of a bare, dingy hall. Captured by photographer Judith Bellavance, the basement of a Gaspé village church seems frozen in time. Bellavance […]

Chih-Chien Wang. A Gift of Images — Sylvain Campeau

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Essays
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Chih-Chien Wang

[Summer 2021] Par Sylvain Campeau [Excerpt] Characteristic of Chih-Chien Wang’s art practice is his intertwined use of photography and videography, so it might seem incongruous to approach his work from the angle of the still life. Nevertheless, allusions to this genre constantly arise in his work, although analysts and critics have never thought to make […]

Évariste Desparois. A Disappearance Story — Sébastien Hudon

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Essays
Authors: Sébastien Hudon | Artists: Évariste Desparois

[Summer 2021] By Sébastien Hudon [Excerpt] For an exhibition by artist Guillaume Adjutor-Provost titled Belles eaux,1 I was invited to show and introduce three rare works (facsimiles) from an exceptional grouping that I had just discovered. Acquired at an auction held in France in October 2020, the grouping is composed of gelatin-bromide monotype photomontages on […]

Alessandra Sanguinetti, Alec Soth, Araki Nobuyoshi / Juergen Teller. Correspondence and Adventures in Book Form — Jérôme Delgado

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Essays
Authors: Jérôme Delgado | Artists: Alec Soth, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Araki Nobuyoshi, Juergen Teller

[Summer 2021] Par Jérôme Delgado [Excerpt] From the traditional exchange of letters to dialogue that’s more indirect, correspondence takes various forms, especially when, through words – or simply instead of them – photography is the object of the discussion. With its narrative nature, its poetic range, its multiple paths of reading, an image in itself […]

Franck Gérard, En l’état — Jacques Leenhardt, Franck Gérard’s Photographic Encounters

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Portfolios
Authors: Jacques Leenhardt | Artists: Franck Gérard

[Summer 2021] Par Jacques Leenhardt “I [the photographer] don’t invent anything. I imagine everything.” – Brassaï [Excerpt] Containing a “diary” written by Franck Gérard during his wanderings and an avalanche of photographs, En l’état1 is a book that is difficult to classify. This mélange refers to notebooks kept by travellers and characterized by stylistic hybridity. […]

Vincent Lafrance, Savoir vivre — Zoë Tousignant, The Artful Life (according to Vincent Lafrance)

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Portfolios
Authors: Zoë Tousignant | Artists: Vincent Lafrance

[Summer 2021] Par Zoë Tousignant [Extrait] Vincent Lafrance and I first met in 1996, when we were both young students in Cégep du Vieux-Montréal’s photography program. I decided early on that I liked his photographs – so much so that I purchased a selection of small prints that he had made for a class assignment: […]

Steve Giasson, Nouvelles Performances invisibles — Didier Morelli, The Artist’s Body, a Camera, and Various Performative Interactions

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Portfolios
Authors: Didier Morelli | Artists: Steve Giasson

[Summer 2021] Par Didier Morelli “The body art event needs the photograph to confirm its having happened; the photograph needs the body art event as an ontological ‘anchor’ of its indexicality.” — Amelia Jones Body Art: Performing the Subject (1998) [Excerpt] #SteveGiasson. You probably know Steve Giasson. You are likely to have seen his actions […]

Shifted

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Portfolios
Artists: Franck Gérard, Steve Giasson, Vincent Lafrance

[Summer 2021] This issue features three artists, with three aesthetic positionings, who share an ironic distancing. One, more scholarly, builds on strata of cultural history; the second, more narrative, fashions, with small strokes, a self-fiction with existential echoes; the last, more direct, affirms the subjectivity of a framing, a gaze. What is it exactly about […]

What Is It Exactly about Human Life?

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon

[Été 2021] By Jacques Doyon This issue features three artists, with three aesthetic positionings, who share an ironic distancing, sometimes barely perceptible, from themselves and from the world in which they live. One of them, taking a scholarly stance, constructs himself by literally embodying bits of art history; the second, in a more narrative vein, […]

Ciel variable 117 – SHIFTED

Ciel variable 117 - SHIFTED

[Summer 2021]

This issue features three artists, with three aesthetic positionings, who share an ironic distancing. One, more scholarly, builds on strata of cultural history; the second, more narrative, fashions, with small strokes, a self-fiction with existential echoes; the last, more direct, affirms the subjectivity of a framing, a gaze. What is it exactly about the visible and the invisible? What wisdom do we need to live better? And what do all these little things that are derailed say about the state of the world?

Chuck Samuels. Gales, nez qui coulent et défaillances de garde-robe — Chuck Samuels

Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Interviews
Authors: Chuck Samuels | Artists: Chuck Samuels

[Hiver 2021] An Interview by Chuck Samuels [Extrait] Chuck Samuels is an occasional freelance critic who lives and works in Montreal. This is the third in a series of interviews with Chuck Samuels appearing in Ciel variable. He has also published articles in such Canadian contemporary arts magazines as MIX, Fuse, and Vanguard (co-written with […]

Ouvrages à souligner — Jérôme Delgado

Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Book Reviews
Authors: Jérôme Delgado | Artists: Bertrand Carrière, Geneviève Cadieux, Isabelle Hayeur

[Hiver 2021] This article was originally published in French only. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Par Jérôme Delgado (En français seulement)   Suite de l’article et autres images dans le magazine : Ciel variable 116 – PAYSAGES MIROIRS  

Vikky Alexander, Nordic Rock — James D. Campbell

Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: James D. Campbell | Artists: Vikky Alexander

[Winter 2021] Nordic Rock Darling Foundry, Montreal February 27–August 29, 2020 By James D. Campbell [Excerpt] Vikky Alexander’s Nordic Rock is a rare extravaganza of the literal and the metaphorical, the real and the surreal. It provokes a counterpoint to and reappraisal of the massive scale of the imposing Darling Foundry Main Hall in which […]

Laurence Hervieux-Gosselin — Gabrielle Sarthou

Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Gabrielle Sarthou | Artists: Laurence Hervieux-Gosselin

[Winter 2021] This article was originally published in French only. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Fenêtre oubliée Galerie la Castiglione chez Produit Rien, Montréal Du 3 au 26 septembre 2020 By Gabrielle Sarthou (En français seulement)   See the magazine for the complete article and more […]

Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst — Érika Nimis

Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Erika Nimis

[Winter 2021] This article was originally published in French only. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Biennale de Berlin pour l’art contemporain Du 5 septembre au 1er novembre 2020 By Érika Nimis (En français seulement)   See the magazine for the complete article and more images: Ciel […]

Bertrand Carrière — Sylvain Campeau

Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Bertrand Carrière

[Winter 2021] This article was originally published in French only. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Dans les années – Photographies 1996–2019 Galerie d’art Antoine-Sirois de l’Université de Sherbrooke Du 8 septembre au 17 octobre 2020 By Sylvain Campeau (En français seulement)   See the magazine for […]

Photographie et société : L’Autre Amérique — Jérôme Delgado

Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Exhibition Reviews
Authors: Jérôme Delgado

[Winter 2021] This article was originally published in French only. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Photographie et société : L’Autre Amérique Maison de la culture Claude-Léveillée, Montréal Du 26 août au 4 octobre 2020 By Jérôme Delgado (En français seulement)   See the magazine for the […]