Olivier Christinat, Portraits et nus – Lyne Crevier, Dévisager

Ciel variable 58 - NUDES AND PORTRAITS | Portfolios
Authors: Lyne Crevier | Artists: Olivier Christinat

[Summer 2002] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Abstract Olivier Christinat’s spare mises en scène form the canvas for portraits or nudes of young women in a sort of intimate encounter between artist and model that seems to overstep […]

Marisa Portolese, Belle de jour – Dayna McLeod, Tattooed innocence with post-punk appeal

Ciel variable 58 - NUDES AND PORTRAITS | Portfolios
Authors: Dayna McLeod | Artists: Marisa Portolese

[Summer 2002] Self-possessed women of all shapes, sizes, and ages, each fills the frame with intense looks, confidence, sex appeal, and power as she looks head-on into the camera’s lens and past, to the viewer. Compellingly seductive, these subjects pose for themselves and for the camera with a confronting gaze that is just as powerful. […]

Evergon, Evergon, Margaret and I – Alain Laframboise, Le miroir d’Evergon

Ciel variable 58 - NUDES AND PORTRAITS | Portfolios
Authors: Alain Laframboise | Artists: Evergon

[Summer 2002] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Abstract The tradition of representing young women to emphasize the ephemeral nature of beauty is very old, as is that of showing older, physically worn women to encourage reflection on time’s […]

Isabelle Hayeur, Paysages incertains – Suzanne Paquet, Quelques fêlures

Ciel variable 57 – CONSTRUCTED LANDSCAPE | Portfolios
Authors: Suzanne Paquet | Artists: Isabelle Hayeur

[Spring 2002] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Abstract Isabelle Hayeur’s work points as much to the idea of “realism” in photography as to that of authenticity of the landscape(s). These are linked issues, since the landscape is probably […]

Manuel Piña, On Monuments – Petra Watson, The Photographs of Manuel Piña

Ciel variable 57 – CONSTRUCTED LANDSCAPE | Portfolios
Authors: Petra Watson | Artists: Manuel Piña

[Spring 2002] Unstable identities emerge in Manuel Piña’s mapping of place and historical past: memory assumes the form of the landscape itself. On Monuments comments on the rewriting of history, ideologies, and the obliteration of the past. Piña photographed sites where monuments were taken down during the 1959 Revolution. He presents these sites as discrete […]

Ivan Binet, Répertoire d’horizons – Sonia Pelletier, Nulle part chez nous

Ciel variable 57 – CONSTRUCTED LANDSCAPE | Portfolios
Authors: Sonia Pelletier | Artists: Ivan Binet

[Spring 2002] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Abstract Ivan Binet’s images are impossible panoramic views that retrace the wanderings of the photographer-walker in different regions of Quebec. First sketched out during the shooting, these panoramas truly take form […]

Ramona Ramlochand, Once Upon a Time . . . Ever After, a digital photographic panorama, 2001 – Ramona Ramlochand, Fragmentation

Ciel variable 56 - MAKING WORLDS | Portfolios
Authors: Ramona Ramlochand | Artists: Ramona Ramlochand

[Winter 2001-2002] Under the digital disney sky, the debris of contemporary life consolidates, piled together into a postcard from the edge. It is all sweetness and anxiety. The natural and unnatural, the real and the imagined, becoming one watery vista. By the falls I sat down and wept. This is my theme park. An MRI. […]

Veli Granö, Cosmologies tangibles – Veli Granö, Le collectionneur de collectionneurs « Des vies transformées en collection de photos »

Ciel variable 56 - MAKING WORLDS | Portfolios
Authors: Veli Granö | Artists: Veli Granö

[Winter 2001-2002] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary Today’s collector is of a new kind: a historian, a restorer of meaning. This figure, the expert collector, shows us where our past is hidden and how we can rediscover […]

Carl Zimmerman, Landmarks – Robin Metcalfe, The Aesthetics of Power

Ciel variable 56 - MAKING WORLDS | Portfolios
Authors: Robin Metcalfe | Artists: Carl Zimmerman

[Winter 2001-2002] Zimmerman attributes to his photographs “an essentially utopian aesthetic with ambivalent understandings.” Humour, nostalgia, and critical deconstruction coexist in his work, as they often do in our responses to totalitarian aesthetics. “Fascinating fascism” shares its allure with the less radically discredited, but equally utopian, architectures of socialism and New Deal social democracy. by […]

Shirin Neshat Film, Video and Photo Works – Christine Ross, Occidentaliser le spectateur : Shirin Neshat, la différence de la différence

Ciel variable 55 – BOUNDARIES | Portfolios
Authors: Christine Ross | Artists: Shirin Neshat

[Fall 2001] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary Imbued by the question of identity and addressing mainly Western viewers, Shirin Neshat’s production constantly negotiates the variety of perspectives (masculine, feminine, feminist, Middle Eastern, Western, Asian) that come together […]

Sophie Calle, L’erouv de Jérusalem

Ciel variable 55 – BOUNDARIES | Portfolios
Authors: Sophie Calle | Artists: Sophie Calle

[Fall 2001] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary According to Jewish law, complete rest is obligatory during Shabbat. The ban on working includes carrying any objects (keys, a book, a bag) outside the home. However, according to the […]

Jin-Me Yoon, Touring Home From Away – Shauna McCabe, Fissures

Ciel variable 55 – BOUNDARIES | Portfolios
Authors: Shauna McCabe | Artists: Jin-Me Yoon

[Fall 2001] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary A product of Yoon’s continuing engagement with landscapes characterized by “condensed” meanings and connotations, this project places representations of the tourist destination of Prince Edward Island and its associations of […]

Robin Collyer, The McCain Family Commission – Catherine Grout, Paysages

Ciel variable 54 - GARDENS-LANDSCAPES | Portfolios
Authors: Catherine Grout | Artists: Robin Collyer

[Spring 2001] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary A series of ten photographs made by Robin Collyer subtly responds to a private commission in memory of someone who has died. These views show various New Brunswick landscapes that […]

Michel Campeau, Arborescences – Robert Graham, Under a Campeau Blue Sky

Ciel variable 54 - GARDENS-LANDSCAPES | Portfolios
Authors: Robert Graham | Artists: Michel Campeau

[Spring 2001] . . . a late-summer bounty of natural and unnatural growth, the cultivated and the uncontrollable. For while this garden has its real-world aspect and can be found on a map, it serves for Campeau as the foliage in a narrative tour of an interior landscape, described in muted speech and in surroundings […]

Scott McFarland, Gardens, Vancouver- Christopher Brayshaw, Garden Optics

Ciel variable 54 - GARDENS-LANDSCAPES | Portfolios
Authors: Christopher Brayshaw | Artists: Scott McFarland

[Spring 2001] Scott McFarland’s recent photographs depict private gardens located in an exclusive Vancouver neighbourhood. The photographs, which include portrait studies of garden owners and workers, unpopulated landscapes, and images of security systems, make the private gardens built and maintained for their owners’ pleasure the subject of public contemplation and discussion. by Christopher Brayshaw The […]

Patrick Faigenbaum, Brême – Gregory Salzman, Realism with a Human Face

Ciel variable 53 - IDENTITIES | Portfolios
Authors: Gregory Salzman | Artists: Patrick Faigenbaum

[Winter 2000-2001] This project marks the first time that Faigenbaum photographed subjects with which he felt no special personal identification or emotional connection. The nature of the assignment and his lack of familiarity with the place prompted him to adopt a novel way of working that was more informal and impromptu than in previous works. […]

Alain Chagnon – Robert Graham, De villes en déserts: Alain Chagnon’s Recent Road Work

Ciel variable 51 – ELSEWERE… NOWHERE | Portfolios
Authors: Robert Graham | Artists: Alain Chagnon

[Summer 2000] by Robert Graham In June of 1998, fifty-year-old Quebec photographer Alain Chagnon undertook a journey. As a man and as a photographer, he was propelled in flight from the “here” of home in search of what must be found away and somewhere else. From this particular corner of the continent, he set out […]

Xavier Ribas, Un divertissement idéal

Ciel variable 51 – ELSEWERE… NOWHERE | Portfolios
Authors: Xavier Ribas | Artists: Xavier Ribas

[Summer 2000] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary Our leisure activities are less and less distinguishable from models of productivity. Organized leisure has tentacles. It is probably to escape this logic that people meet spontaneously in less domesticated […]

Wanda Koop – Robin Laurence, See Everything/See Nothing

Ciel variable 51 – ELSEWERE… NOWHERE | Portfolios
Authors: Robin Laurence | Artists: Wanda Koop

[Summer 2000] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary Best known as a painter, Wanda Koop is also a gifted videographer who produces scrolls of video stills as well as large-scale installations combining video projections and painting. Many of […]

Guy Lafontaine, Home Sweet Home – Suzie Larivée, Grandeur et misère du paysage urbain

Ciel variable 50 - APPROACHING THE PLACE | Portfolios
Authors: Suzie Larivée | Artists: Guy Lafontaine

[Spring 2000] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary Since 1995, Guy Lafontaine has been working on a series of photographs examining transitional zones on the border of residential and industrial districts, mainly in neighbourhoods on the outskirts of […]

Nicole Jolicoeur, Images d’une ville. Corps de l’image

Ciel variable 50 - APPROACHING THE PLACE | Portfolios
Authors: Nicole Jolicoeur | Artists: Nicole Jolicoeur

[Spring 2000] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.

Geoffrey James, The Lethbridge Project – Jacques Doyon

Ciel variable 50 - APPROACHING THE PLACE | Portfolios
Authors: Jacques Doyon | Artists: Geoffrey James

[Spring 2000] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary The Lethbridge Project looks at both the city and nature, and at their transformations. Geoffrey James evokes the way in which landscape, whether in the heart of the city or […]

Johanne Gagnon, Fonds culinaire, 1995-1998 – Jean-Émile Verdier, L’impasse de l’imaginaire

Ciel variable 49 - (THE OBJECT) | Portfolios
Authors: Jean-Émile Verdier | Artists: Johanne Gagnon

[Winter 1999-2000] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary Fonds culinaire is a photographic stock-taking of the physical congestion caused by kitchen objects. Since 1990, Johanne Gagnon has been working on creating a legitimate description of a kitchen from […]

Robert Pelletier, Curiosité – Le chercheur de trésor, 1989 – Michel Campeau et Bertrand Carrière, Les histoires intrigantes et sans paroles d’un curieux reliquaire

Ciel variable 49 - (THE OBJECT) | Portfolios
Authors: Bertrand Carrière, Michel Campeau | Artists: Robert Pelletier

[Winter 1999-2000] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary Intriguing, Wordless Stories from a Strange Reliquary The multi-paneled, serial works in Curiosité – Le Chercheur de trésor were the last made by Robert Pelleter before his death. They were […]

Robert ParkeHarrison – Sylvain Campeau, Écophilie

Ciel variable 49 - (THE OBJECT) | Portfolios
Authors: Sylvain Campeau | Artists: Robert ParkeHarrison

[Winter 1999-2000] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary Paradoxical: This is how Sylvain Campeau defines the works of Robert ParkeHarrison. It is a paradox of a Resurrection that cannot help but take part in the Apocalypse; the paradox […]

Bernard Plossu – Serge Tisseron, Une nouvelle mythologie familiale

Ciel variable 47 - AFFECTION | Portfolios
Authors: Serge Tisseron | Artists: Bernard Plossu

[Summer 1999] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary As we all know, the family is in crisis. Like a company that is running out of steam, it needs images to exalt its specificity. It is indisputable that affection […]

Laura Letinsky – Marie-Josée Jean, Petits écarts affectueux

Ciel variable 47 - AFFECTION | Portfolios
Authors: Marie-Josée Jean | Artists: Laura Letinsky

[Summer 1999] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary The author examines the expression and the modalities of communicating affection in a selection of Laura Letinsky’s works in which the complexity of the love relationships between men and women […]

Carl Bouchard – Mona Hakim

Ciel variable 47 - AFFECTION | Portfolios
Authors: Mona Hakim | Artists: Carl Bouchard

[Summer 1999] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page. Summary Carl Bouchard’s self-portraits are fictitious, emotional mises en scène, in which the laying bare of the body corresponds to the laying bare of feelings. Bouchard is a multi-disciplinary artist, and […]

Josef Wais, Krönungen – Leo Kandl

Ciel variable 46 - THE SUBJECT, THE AUTOPORTRAIT | Portfolios
Authors: Leo Kandl | Artists: Josef Wais

[Spring 1999] This article was originally published only in French. You can read it by switching over to the French version of this page.

Jeff Wall – Dot Tuer

Ciel variable 46 - THE SUBJECT, THE AUTOPORTRAIT | Portfolios
Authors: Dot Tuer | Artists: Jeff Wall

[Spring 1999] In Jeff Wall’s photographs, there is an attraction and deflection – a push and pull of ideological thrusts and formal repartées – that entraps the viewer. Standing in front of a large-scale back-lit Cibachrome, one is caught in the middle of an exquisitely choreographed duel between painting and photography. by Dot Tuer In […]