[Fall 2019]
The artists brought together in this issue’s thematic section explore different issues related to the boundaries of sexual identity and their transgression. Personas, transvestism, and role mutations are core to these artists’ approaches, as they address various issues fundamental to establishing a society based on inclusion rather than on narrow concepts of identities and, by extension, cultures…
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon
[Fall 2019] By Jacques Doyon The artists brought together in this issue’s thematic section explore different issues related to the boundaries of sexual identity and their transgression. Personas, transvestism, and role mutations are core to these artists’ approaches, as they address various issues fundamental to establishing a society based on inclusion rather than on narrow […]
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Portfolios
Artists: Erasmus Schröter, JJ Levine, Kent Monkman
[Fall 2019] The artists brought together in this issue’s thematic section explore different issues related to the boundaries of sexual identity and their transgression. Personas, transvestism, and role mutations are core to these artists’ approaches, as they address various issues fundamental to establishing a society based on inclusion rather than on narrow concepts of identities […]
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Portfolios
Authors: Dayna McLeod | Artists: Kent Monkman
October 25, 2023 [originally published in CV113 in Fall 2019] — By Dayna McLeod. Miss Chief Eagle Testickle is the muse and alter ego of Kent Monkman, a Cree artist who confronts the violent and systemic consequences of colonialism on Indigenous peoples in North America, with attention to Canada and Quebec.
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Portfolios
Authors: Charles Guilbert | Artists: JJ Levine
November 8, 2023 [originally published in CV113 in Fall 2019] — By Charles Guilbert. What strikes the eye in JJ Levine’s work is a unique way of challenging gender norms. But when we look more closely, we discover that Levine wants to erase many borders – in both photography practice and in addressing subjects such as family, time, and space…
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Portfolios
Artists: Erasmus Schröter
November 15, 2023 [originally published in CV113 in Fall 2019] — By Andreas Höll. Our image of the world has always been very fragile, and it has severely jolted on several occasions. Sigmund Freud, for example, cited the three insults to humanity that overturned our view of the world: Copernicus expected us to believe that we weren’t at the centre of the universe; Darwin proved we were descended from apes and warned us not to assume we were the pinnacle of creation; and Freud himself revealed that, following the discovery of the unconscious, we were no longer master even in our own house…
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Essays
Authors: Stephen Horne | Artists: Luigi Ghirri
February 6, 2024 [originally published in CV113 in Fall 2019] — By Stephen Horne. The Map and The Territory is a large and intricate exhibition of colour photographs by the late Italian artist Luigi Ghirri at the Jeu de Paume in Paris.1 No doubt the curator of the exhibition, James Lingwood, adopted this title following up on a note that Ghirri wrote in 1970 in which he explained that “his aim was not to make photographs, but rather charts and maps.”2…
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Essays
Authors: Pierre Dessureault
February 13, 2024 [originally published in CV113 in Fall 2019] — By Pierre Dessureault. In a body of work accumulated over more than sixty years, Dave Heath (1931–2016), a Canadian photographer born in the United States, challenged the qualities of the photographic medium and its techniques. He constantly probed, through images, Montaigne’s dictum that “every man carries the entire form of the human condition.”1…
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Essays
Authors: Jill Glessing | Artists: Carrie Mae Weems
February 28, 2023 [originally published in CV113 in Fall 2019] — By Jill Glessing. Violence runs through our lives, experienced directly or through media representations. We are subject to its power to varying degrees depending on our geographical location, race, class, gender, and access to high-speed internet. We are well acquainted with the variety of ways that humans inflict harm – whether physical, social, or psychological – upon one another…
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Essays
Authors: Sophie Bertrand | Artists: Martin Bureau
March 7, 2024 [originally published in CV113 in Fall 2019] — Par Sophie Bertrand. “The number of walls has tripled since the Cold War, and it has kept growing since 2001; it now consists of almost 30,000 km of armed borders.”1 This observation, made in 2013 by the researchers of the Chaire Raoul-Dandurand en études stratégiques et diplomatiques at the Université du Québec à Montréal, during a conference on issues around walled borders, conveys much more than a malaise inherited from history…
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Ariane Noël de Tilly | Artists: Ansley West Rivers
March 22, 2024 [originally published in CV113 in Fall 2019] — This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Charles Guilbert | Artists: Myriam Jacob-Allard
March 22, 2024 [originally published in CV113 in Fall 2019] — This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Erika Nimis | Artists: Guy Tillim
April 4, 2024 [originally published in CV113 in Fall 2019] — This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Clément Willer, Fanny Bieth | Artists: Denis Rioux
April 16, 2024 [originally published in CV113 in Fall 2019] — This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Exhibition reviews
Authors: James D. Campbell | Artists: Andrea Szilasi
April 23, 2024 [originally published in CV113 in Fall 2019] — By James D. Campbell. Intimate Portraits brought together works by four artists whose preoccupation with the human body is a longstanding one: Donigan Cumming, JJ Levine, George Steeves, and Andrea Szilasi. Their works interrogate the nature of portraiture itself…
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Michèle Cohen Hadria | Artists: Barbara Breitenfellner
April 30, 2024 [originally published in CV113 in Fall 2019] — This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Jean-Michel Quirion | Artists: Michelle Bui
[Fall 2019] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Parisian Laundry, Montréal Du 18 avril au 25 mai 2019 Par Jean-Michel Quirion (French only) [See the printed or digital version of the magazine for the complete article.] Purchase this issue
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Franck Michel | Artists: Steve Leroux
[Fall 2019] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Occurrence, centre d’art et d’essai, Montréal Du 9 mai au 15 juin 2019 Par Franck Michel (French only) [See the printed or digital version of the magazine for the complete article.] […]
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Book Reviews, Readings
Authors: Guillaume Tomasi | Artists: Birthe Piontek
[Fall 2019] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. New York, Gnomic Book 2019, 112 pages Par Guillaume Tomasi (French only) [See the printed or digital version of the magazine for the complete article.] Purchase this issue
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Book Reviews, Readings
[Fall 2019] [Excerpt] David McMillan, Growth and Decay, Göttingen, Steidl Verlag, 2019, 260 p. Guillaume Simoneau, Murder, Londres, Mack, 2019, 96 p. Greg Girard, Tokyo Yokusaka, 1976-1983, Toronto, Magenta Foundation, 2019, 160 p. Louis Perreault, Les affluents, Montréal/Québec, Les Éditions du renard/VU, 2019, 96 p. Kim Waldron, Une autre femme_ Another Woman, New York, Galerie […]
Ciel variable 113 - TRANS-IDENTITIES | Entrevues, Interviews
Authors: Audrey Genois, Jacques Doyon
[Fall 2019] An interview by Jacques Doyon Audrey Genois has been the executive director of MOMENTA | Biennale de l’image (formerly Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal) since 2016. She was assistant curator at the Galerie de l’UQAM from 2002 to 2016. Over fifteen years, she organized more than sixty exhibitions and ten national […]
[Winter 2020]
In this issue’s thematic section, we look at collective action in society. Against a background of social conflict and war, the artists evoke the impact of collective actions on the common good by re-examining and recontextualizing images plucked from the mass of media images that form our relationship with the world.
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon
[Winter 2020] In the thematic section of this issue, we take a look at collective action in society. Against a background of social conflict and war, the artists evoke the impact of collective actions on the common good by scrutinizing multitudes of media images that help to form our relationship with the world. Through re-examination […]
[Winter 2020] In this issue’s thematic section, we look at collective action in society. Against a background of social conflict and war, the artists evoke the impact of collective actions on the common good by re-examining and recontextualizing images plucked from the mass of media images that form our relationship with the world. DOMINIQUE BLAIN […]
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Portfolios
Authors: Louise Déry | Artists: Dominique Blain
[Winter 2020] By Louise Déry As Dominique Blain’s exhibition Déplacements was being presented in Paris,<sup>1</sup> Venice was suffering a flood so terrible that we were once again anguished about the possibility of seeing this incomparable treasure of world heritage disappear. Not so long ago, it was Notre-Dame de Paris that was severely damaged, this time […]
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Portfolios
Authors: Alain Paiement | Artists: Alain Paiement
[Winter 2020] Demonstrations. From Occupy Wall Street to Extinction Rebellion actions, popular resistance demonstrations have become an integral part of international news over the last decade. We are almost accustomed to seeing, over and over, spectacular images of uprisings against dictators, altercations among citizens, identity-related confrontations, movements of crowds in war and in desperate migrations. […]
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Portfolios
Authors: Gisele Amantea, Jacques Doyon | Artists: Gisele Amantea
[Winter 2020] An interview by Jacques Doyon Jacques Doyon: What is the origin of the work Aleppo, Syria December 17, 2016? How did the idea emerge? Why Syria? And what prompted you to work from an existing image of a disaster? Gisele Amantea: I was invited by curator Emily Falvey to participate in the group […]
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Portfolios
Authors: Claudia Polledri | Artists: Mélissa Pilon
[Winter 2020] By Claudia Polledri What is a crowd, and how can a photograph teach us about this protagonist of twentieth-century history? In her photobook Foules, Mélissa Pilon underlines the visual complexity of crowds as living organisms, casting an original gaze upon them. In this work, defined as photojournalism, Pilon aims to offer a new […]
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Essays
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés | Artists: Stephen Gill
[Winter 2020] Par Alexis Desgagnés On the threshold of my teenage years, my greatest passion was to observe birds. I spent countless hours, binoculars hung around my neck, prowling slowly, silently, through woods and meadows, looking out for a rare gem! When I was thirteen, a camera, a gift from my stepmother, replaced the binoculars, […]
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Essays
Authors: Laurie Milner | Artists: Geneviève Cadieux
[Winter 2020] Par Laurie Milner Is it the greyness of the April afternoon that makes the Rene Blouin Gallery seem so luminous as I enter Geneviève Cadieux’s exhibition Ghost Ranch?1 I had heard the buzz among artists and colleagues that this was a show to be seen – a virtuoso production by an august Montreal […]
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Essays
Authors: Erika Nimis | Artists: Babacar Traoré (Doli), Boubacar Touré Mandémory, Bouna Médoune Sèye, Élise Fitte-Duval, Fatou Kandé Senghor, Ibrahima Thiam, KhéraBaba, Mabeye Deme, Malick Welli
[Winter 2020] Par Erika Nimis Dakar, a cosmopolitan capital city and crossroads on the Atlantic coast, open to all creative currents, has grown under the gaze of its photographers. An independent field of professional photography emerged in the 1990s, and the institution of the Mois de la Photo has contributed to legitimizing an increasingly engaged […]
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sophie Guignard | Artists: Rebecca Belmore
[Winter 2020] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Braver le monumental Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal Commissaire : Wanda Nanibush Du 20 juin au 6 octobre 2019 Par Sophie Guignard (French only) [See the printed or digital version of […]
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Marie-Ève Leclerc-Parker | Artists: Janick Burn
[Winter 2020] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Plein sud, Longueuil Du 18 mai au 22 juin 2019 Par Marie-Ève Leclerc-Parker (French only) [See the printed or digital version of the magazine for the complete article. On sale throughout […]
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Stéphanie Hornstein | Artists: Yan Giguère
[Hiver 2020] Galerie La Castiglione May 15–June 15, 2019 By Stéphanie Hornstein The day that I first make it to Yan Giguère’s solo show at Galerie La Castiglione, Montreal’s construction season is in full swing. St. Catherine Street is a gaping trench and the jackhammer’s thrum hounds me all the way up four flights of […]
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Daniel Fiset | Artists: Isuma, Mari Katayama, Tamás Waliczky, Voluspa Jarpa, Zanele Muholi
[Winter 2020] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. May You Live in Interesting Times May 11 to November 24 2019 By Daniel Fiset Purchase this issue
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Alexia Pinto Ferretti | Artists: Michel Depatie
[Winter 2020] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Ashu-Takusseu : la traversée photographique Centre d’exposition de Val-David Du 22 juin au 8 septembre 2019 Par Alexia Pinto Ferretti (French only) Purchase this issue
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Christian Roy | Artists: Andreas Rutkauskas, Gagnon-Forest, Hua Jin
[Winter 2020] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Galerie La Castiglione, Montréal Du 28 août au 28 septembre 2019 Par Christian Roy (French only) Purchase this issue
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sophie Bertrand | Artists: André Kertész, Bruce Charlesworth, Ellen Carey, Kunihiro Shinohara, Paolo Gioli, Toshio Shibata
[Winter 2020] Le projet Polaroid – Art et technologie Musée McCord, Montréal Du 13 juin au 15 septembre 2019 Par Sophie Bertrand (French only) Purchase this issue
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Jill Glessing | Artists: Alfred Martin Duggan-Cronin, David Goldblatt, Guy Tillim, Jodi Bieber
[Winter 2020] Ryerson Image Centre, Guest curator: Sandrine Colard September 11–December 8, 2019 By Jill Glessing Photography extends the gaze, making material its spectrum of desires and subject positions – whether violence, control, submission, negotiation, or resistance. Once etched as image – on plate, print, or screen – the momentary exchange circulates and is entrenched […]
Ciel variable 114 - MASSES | MONUMENTS | Readings
Authors: James D. Campbell | Artists: Cy Twombly, Ewa Monika Zebrowski
August 11, 2022 [originally published in CV114 in Winter 2020] — By James D. Campbell. Since 2014, noted Canadian artist Ewa Monika Zebrowski has been exploring the universe of artist Cy Twombly on both sides of the Atlantic…
Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon
[Winter 2021] By Jacques Doyon What do the most distant, wild, silent landscapes tell us? How do landscapes of our childhood, those that awoke us to the world, shape us? What reflections of our own future do we find in the chaos of urban sites? Landscapes are like mirrors, utterly shaped by human presence. The […]
Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Portfolios
Artists: Alain Lefort, Chloé Beaulac, David K. Ross
[Winter 2021] What do the most distant, wild, silent landscapes tell us? How do landscapes of our childhood, those that awoke us to the world, shape us? What reflections of our own future do we find in the chaos of urban sites? Landscapes are like mirrors, utterly shaped by human presence. The city is a […]
Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Portfolios
Authors: Yannick Marcoux | Artists: Alain Lefort
[Winter 2021] Par Yannick Marcoux [Excerpt] Looking back upon our origins, it was a long time ago – a very long time, ten thousand years in fact – that the last ice age ended on Earth. What remains of that epoch seems to fascinate Alain Lefort, who, after making his series Eidolôn on drifting icebergs, […]
Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Portfolios
Authors: Dominique Sirois-Rouleau | Artists: Chloé Beaulac
[Winter 2021] Dominique Sirois-Rouleau [Excerpt] Chosen to take part in the Missions photographiques des Laurentides project,1 Chloé Beaulac set herself the objective of finding the family cottage that had been part of her childhood. This quest motivated the month-long residency, during which her recollections tied to the Laurentian landscape were confronted with reality. For days, […]
Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Portfolios
Authors: Jeanne Randolph | Artists: David K. Ross
[Winter 2021] By Jeanne Randolph [Excerpt] Vain Pillaging – I told him I was thinking, “Vain Pillaging.” – As in futile? my friend responded. – As in gall-darn hubris, I said. Any one of us can do what we want with names, even four-thousand-year old names. – And, said my friend, who is familiar with […]
Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Essays
Authors: Zoë Tousignant | Artists: Ewa Monika Zebrowski
[Winter 2021] By Zoë Tousignant [Excerpt] It stands to reason that much thought, time, and energy go into the making of a photobook. Fortunately, the work that it involves is usually shared by several individuals who, each expert in their own field, contribute to creating the end product. These individuals most often include a photographer, […]
Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Essays
Authors: Edward Pérez-González
[Winter 2021] Par Edward Pérez-González [Extrait] The Single and the Multiple. Briefly, multiplicity can be defined as a condition that amplifies things and phenomena; a state of abundance, of potentialities, that enables us to perceive and comprehend the world through different and heterogeneous dimensions – from another dimension. This mode of the single and the […]
Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Essays
Authors: Bruno Chalifour
[Winter 2021] By Bruno Chalifour [Excerpt] After months of a world pandemic, being surrounded by clouds may sound like a reprieve: fluffy, light, ethereal, and flying higher than the contemporary political discourse in the United States, clouds may provide temporary solace in our dark, sometimes ignorant, times. The exhibition Gathering Clouds, Photographs from the Nineteenth […]
Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Charles Guilbert | Artists: Rachel Echenberg
[Winter 2021] This article was originally published in French only. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Conversations avec ma famille Galerie B-312, Montréal Du 3 septembre au 3 octobre 2020 Par Charles Guilbert (En français seulement) See the magazine for the complete article and more images: […]
Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Nathalie Bachand | Artists: Virginie Laganière
[Winter 2021] This article was originally published in French only. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Derrière l’horizon Circa art actuel, Montréal Du 8 juillet au 22 août 2020 Par Nathalie Bachand (En français seulement) See the magazine for the complete article and more images: Ciel […]
Ciel variable 116 — LANDSCAPES AS MIRRORS
Authors: Alexis Desgagnés | Artists: Marc-Antoine K. Phaneuf
[Winter 2021] This article was originally published in French only. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Dédales d’almanachs Festival Art souterrain, Montréal Du 29 février au 22 mars 2020 Par Alexis Desgagnés (En français seulement) See the magazine for the complete article and more images: Ciel variable […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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
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 […]
[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?
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 | 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 […]
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 […]
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: […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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…
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
[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.
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 […]
[Fall 2021] The thematic section in this issue presents three exhibitions that show how photography can actively contribute to shaping a critical vision of the world. By bringing together a large number of images and points of view, the first sets out to offer an overall sense of the changes affecting global civilization. Inspired by […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Portfolios
Authors: Julie Martin | Artists: Massimo Vitali
[Fall 2021] By Julie Martin [Excerpt] As far back as the 1990s, American literary critic Fredric Jameson was noting that the world is non-narrative and unrepresentable.1 Drawing an analogy with the urban planner Kevin Lynch’s book The Image in the City, Jameson showed that because we, as urban dwellers, are incapable of situating our- selves […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Portfolios
Authors: Edward Pérez-González | Artists: Charlie Doyon
[Fall 2021] By Edward Pérez-González [Excerpt] The reflections on screens and on relations between image and reality offered by the philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1929– 2007) in his essay Écran total served as a framework for the staging of the exhibition of the same name, presented by the Centre de design at UQAM1 and organized by […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Portfolios
Authors: Zoë Tousignant | Artists: Donigan Cumming, Michel Campeau, Tom Gibson
[Fall 2021] By Zoë Tousignant [Excerpt] There are those of us who believe that what lies beyond the photographic frame is as interesting as what is contained within it. This is not founded on a sentiment that the photo graph alone is not enough. Quite the contrary: it comes from a place of such deep […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Essays
Authors: Nicolas Mavrikakis | Artists: Moyra Davey
[Fall 2021] By Nicolas Mavrikakis [Excerpt] Is there such a thing as left-wing extremism? In recent few months, various events have highlighted the growing hold on the left of can- cel culture – which should, rather, be called erasure or obliteration culture – a way of doing things associated with dictatorships (on the right and […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Essays
Authors: Vincent Bonin | Artists: David Tomas
[Fall 2021] By Vincent Bonin [Excerpt] Invited by Ciel variable to follow up on the reassessment of works by the artist and anthropologist David Tomas (1950–2019) started in the recent exhibition Moving Through Time and Space,1 Vincent Bonin offers a broader survey of Tomas’s intellectual trajectory and reflects on the presence of silence in some […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Essays
Authors: Nicole Gingras | Artists: Luc Bourdon
[Fall 2021] An Interview by Nicole Gingras [Excerpt] A major figure in video art and film in Canada, Luc Bourdon has worked with various independent organizations in Quebec, including Vidéographe, Productions Réalisations Indépendantes de Montréal, Cinéma Parallèle, and the Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal. Since the 1980s, he has produced some fifty works – […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Stéphanie Hornstein | Artists: Meryl McMaster
[Fall 2021] Occurrence, espace d’art et d’essai McCord Museum, Montreal April 2 — August 15, 2021 By Stéphanie Hornstein [Excerpt] Starlings have pride of place in Meryl McMaster’s heart. In 2013, she produced a photographic triptych, Murmur, that shows a young woman, the artist herself, gently twirling within a swarm of paper starlings. Grounded in […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Jean Gagnon | Artists: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
[Fall 2021] Arsenal art contemporain 17.03.2021 — 15.08.2021 By Jean Gagnon [Excerpt] It has long been possible to experience virtual reality works in Montreal,1 and in spring 2021 a “must-see”2 was Carne y Arena (Virtually Present, Physically Invisible) (2017) by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu.3 The presentation in Montreal was thanks to the efforts of […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: André Lavoie | Artists: Emanuel Licha
[Fall 2021] Film documentaire, 2021, 85 minutes, français et créole haïtien By André Lavoie [Excerpt] It is said that truth is the first casualty of war. That seems inevitable, as those who wage war often base their actions on lies and feed on propaganda to justify its necessity. War is also staged – hence the […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Reilley Bishop-Stall | Artists: Paul Walde
[Fall 2021] Requiem for a Glacier Montreal Museum of Fine Arts March 10, 2021–February 27, 2022 By Reilley Bishop-Stall [Excerpt] Paul Walde’s four movement oratorio Requiem for a Glacier was originally performed in July, 2013 on a glacier in British Columbia’s Jumbo Valley – or Qat’muk, as it is known by the Ktunaxa First Nation, […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Karen Henry
[Fall 2021] Capture Photography Festival 2021 Vancouver April 1–30, 2021 By Karen Henry [Excerpt] It’s impossible to review the Capture festival, a rambling aggregation of events in Vancouver that celebrate photography, as a whole. Here, I focus on public art billboards and the major festival commission. Billboards are of a scale to command attention in […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Chuck Samuels
[Fall 2021] Expression, centre d’exposition de Saint-Hyacinthe 27.02.2021 — 25.04.2021 Plein sud, centre d’exposition en art actuel à Longueuil 13.03.2021 — 24.04.2021 By Sylvain Campeau [Excerpt] A project deployed in two venues and one monograph, Becoming Photography brings together corpuses produced between 1991 and 2020. At Plein sud are series that have been exhibited before, […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Daniel Roy | Artists: Yann Pocreau
[Fall 2021] Les Impermanents Musée des beauxarts de Montréal 10.04.2021 — 1.08.2021 By Daniel Roy [Excerpt] Continuing his reflections on the materiality of light, Yann Pocreau presented a corpus of brand-new works at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the result of research conducted during residencies at the Fonderie Darling (2016–18) and the Mont-Mégantic Observatory […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Christian Roy | Artists: Érika Nimis
[Fall 2021] Mutants Centre des arts actuels Skol 6.03.2021 — 10.04.2021 By Christian Roy [Excerpt] Érika Nimis, a historian of Africa and its photographic tradition, which she has often covered in Ciel variable, also produces photographic essays about traces of places and abandoned objects. The body of work exhibited at Centre Skol results from an […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Book Reviews
Authors: Ariane Noël de Tilly
[Fall 2021] By Ariane Noël de Tilly [Excerpt] The image chosen to illustrate the cover of Women Street Photographers is certainly striking: a detail from Red Upsweep (2019) by B Jane Levine; the photograph is reproduced in its entirety inside the book. The centre of this truncated image is dominated by the head and shoulders […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Book Reviews
Authors: Dayna McLeod
[Fall 2021] Jean-François Prost Publication collaborative Québec, Éditions VU, 2021, 160 pages, français, anglais et portugais By Dayna McLeod [Excerpt] If you’ve missed in-real-life parties, being with people, and exhibitions during the pandemic, La Fête is a feast for the heart, head, and soul. The socially distanced isolation of the pandemic brings a chance to […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Book Reviews
Authors: Ève Dorais | Artists: Alexis Desgagnés
[Fall 2021] Montréal, Les Éditions du Renard, 2021, non paginé By Ève Dorais [Excerpt] In an article in an issue of the magazine Elephant devoted to photography,1 Robert Shore notes that in recent decades photography has striven to assert its own materiality. Indeed, artists have found all sorts of ploys to highlight the medium’s materiality […]
Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Interviews
Authors: Jérôme Delgado
[Fall 2021] An interview by Jérôme Delgado [Excerpt] After a wide variety of experiences; studying sociology, psychology, management, and art history; jobs in finance and communications; and a trip around the world – thirty countries in three years – MarieJosée Rousseau opened La Castiglione, the only Quebec gallery specializing in photography, in 2014. Through an […]
[Winter 2022]
The title Against Nature might seem paradoxical, as the artists brought together for this issue’s thematic section are all defenders and lovers of nature and spend a good deal of time in it. But what their works reveal is a “naturality” thoroughly permeated by human activity and entirely shaped by it, implying that its fate is entirely in our hands.
Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Editorial
Authors: Jacques Doyon
[Winter 2022] Par Jacques Doyon The title might seem paradoxical, as the artists brought together for this issue’s thematic section are all defenders and lovers of nature and spend a good deal of time in it. But what their works reveal is a “naturality” thoroughly permeated by human activity and entirely shaped by it, implying […]
Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Portfolios
Artists: Andreas Rutkauskas, Geneviève Chevalier, Thomas Kneubühler
[Winter 2022] The title might seem paradoxical, as the artists brought together for this issue’s thematic section are all defenders and lovers of nature and spend a good deal of time in it. But what their works reveal is a “naturality” thoroughly permeated by human activity and entirely shaped by it, implying that its fate […]
Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Portfolios
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Geneviève Chevalier
[Winter 2022] By Sylvain Campeau [Excerpt] Over the last few years, artist Geneviève Chevalier has become interested in places and methods of classification used in the natural sciences to inventory and analyze flora and fauna. Menageries were, in a way, the ancestors of museums. They contained both collections and live exotic animals, but as an […]
Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Portfolios
Authors: Louis Perreault | Artists: Thomas Kneubühler
[Winter 2022] By Louis Perreault [Excerpt] In the first photograph in Alpine Signals, the immaculate white of a horse’s mane offers a reminder of the clouds that overhang the distant mountains. The blue sky spreads above the shrubs positioned in the centre of the composition, which pick up the colour of the verdant nature in […]
Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Portfolios
Authors: Franck Michel | Artists: Andreas Rutkauskas
[Winter 2022] By Franck Michel The landscape enwraps, penetrates, it is not before one as an object. . . . It is an atmosphere, a sensory halo, and not simply a visual through-line. – DAVID LE BRETON [Excerpt] The history of landscape photography offers an incomparable source of information on the evolution of territories […]
Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Essays
Authors: Michel Hardy-Vallée | Artists: Anne-Marie Proulx, Bertrand Carrière, Charles-Frédérick Ouellet, Donigan Cumming, Florence Le Blanc, Guillaume Simoneau, John Max, Matthieu Brouillard, Michel Campeau, Sylvain Cousineau
[Hiver 2022] By Michel Hardy-Vallée [Excerpt] It’s a lovely image: my father, who had been taking photographs since the 1960s, had given me his Beseler 23C II enlarger. I went to pick it up in order to flesh out my amateur darkroom, and I was thinking about transmission of culture. The caption might have quoted […]
Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Essays
Authors: Pierre Dessureault | Artists: Renaud Philippe
[Winter 2022] By Pierre Dessureault [Excerpt] “We are not in front of the images; we are in the middle of them. Like they are in the middle of us. The question is how we circulate among them, how we make them circulate.”1 The life of images, constantly relaunched in various presentation contexts, is core to […]
Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Essays
Authors: Stephen Horne | Artists: James Coleman
[Winter 2022] By Stephen Horne “A being racing into the future passes a being racing into the past two footprints perpetually obliterating one another toe to heel, heel to toe.” – W. B. YEATS 1 [Excerpt] James Coleman´s complex cinematic installations disclose the beauty and pleasure of “looking.” The aesthetic experience to which I refer […]
Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Ariane Noël de Tilly | Artists: Dawoud Bey
[Winter 2022] Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 17.04.2021 — 3.10.2021 By Ariane Noël de Tilly [Excerpt] Since the very inception of his photographic career, Dawoud Bey has pointed his lens toward people and, especially, marginalized communities. The retrospective of his work presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art highlighted the ethical dimension […]
Ciel variable 119 - AGAINST NATURE | Exhibition reviews
Authors: Mona Hakim | Artists: Denis Rioux, Sylvie Readman
[Winter 2022] Galerie Laroche/Joncas, Montréal 8.09.2021 — 9.10.2021 By Mona Hakim [Excerpt] Presented in a single exhibition space and arranged facing each other, the photographs of Sylvie Readman and Denis Rioux highlight their common concern with the issues and properties of the photographic language within which the primary conditions of the visual and conceptual experience […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]