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 […]

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…

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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.

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 […]

Exhibiting Photography

Ciel variable 118 - EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHY | Portfolios

[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 […]

William A. Ewing et Holly Roussell, Civilization – Quelle époque ! — Julie Martin, A Photographic Mapping of the Twenty­First Century

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 […]

Amandine Alessandra, Marine Baudrillard, Carole Lévesque, Katharina Niemeyer et Magali Uhl, Écran total — Edward Pérez­-González, The Absence Machine

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 […]

Robert Graham, Three Montréal Photographers + — Zoë Tousignant, Robert Graham’s History of Photography in Montreal

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 […]

Moyra Davey. The Personal Narrative and the Art of Fragmented Anti-dogma Narration — Nicolas Mavrikakis

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 […]

David Tomas, Speech and silence — Vincent Bonin

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 […]

Luc Bourdon. Playing with Images and Sounds — Nicole Gingras

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 – […]

Meryl McMaster, There Once Was A Song — Stéphanie Hornstein

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 […]

Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Carne y Arena — Jean Gagnon

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 […]

Emanuel Licha, zo reken — André Lavoie

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 […]

Paul Walde, Requiem for a Glacier — Reilley Bishop-Stall

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, […]

Capture Photography Festival 2021 — Karen Henry

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 […]

Chuck Samuels, Becoming Photography — Sylvain Campeau

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, […]

Yann Pocreau, Impermanencies — Daniel Roy

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 […]

Érika Nimis, Mutants — Christian Roy

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 […]

Women Street Photographers — Ariane Noël de Tilly

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 […]

La fête : The People Came to Party — Dayna McLeod

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 […]

Alexis Desgagnés, Ammoniaque — Ève Dorais

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 […]