EDITORIAL - Photography as Public Art
By Jacques Doyon
This issue offers some preliminary observations on the presence of art photography in urban public art. When we think of “public art,” the governmental public art programs in effect in Quebec and Montreal for several decades immediately spring to mind.
PORTFOLIO - Institutional Initiatives
By Jacques Doyon
For several decades, contemporary art has been on display in the public spaces of Quebec’s urban areas, thanks to the creation of public art programs. Photography was long excluded from these programs, and even today it has limited visibility.
PORTFOLIO - ATSA, FRAG on the Main
By Bernard Vallée and Pierre Anctil
ATSA (Action terroriste socialement acceptable, or Socially Acceptable Terrorist Action), a collective founded in 1997 by artists Pierre Allard and Annie Roy, is well known for its public interventions.
PORTFOLIO - Peter Gnass : La multitude déchue
Last autumn, Peter Gnass produced an intervention in the form of a temporary posting on the façades of a dozen Montreal cultural sites (galleries, museums, studios, art schools). The poster featured a long band of close-up pictures of ten statues, seen from the back, on which was superimposed a series of letters that spelled out the artist’s name.
The Displaced Monument : On Peter Gnass’s La multitude déchue
Last autumn, copies of a poster featuring photographs of monuments in downtown Montreal appeared without warning on the façades of a dozen cultural sites in the city.
The City: Always Already Photographic . . .
The world identifies with the quintessence of photographs. This identification does not occur for no reason. For the world itself is composed of a photographic face. . . . the world has become the photographic present, and the photographic present is fully perpetuated.
— Siegfried Kracauer, 19271
At Play in the Frame
In Montreal, as in many cities around the world, works of art have often been placed in “public” urban spaces. In some cases, the placement of works is accomplished through channels of bureaucratic control or corporate interest,
Negotiating the Collection in the Street : Reading the McCord Museum’s Outdoor Interventions
Relevance is a word that permeates discussions about the role of museums within the social fabric of community. As repositories, museums have a primary function of cultivation not only of objects
Photography: Too Fragile for the Public Patrimony?
Of all the creative support programs, Quebec’s policy for the integration of the arts with architecture and the environment (commonly known as the 1 percent program) offers some of the best visibility, as well as terrific financial support, to artists.
VOICES - Gaëlle Morel : Guest Curator, Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal 2009
By Jacques Doyon
Gaëlle Morel, guest curator for Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal 2009, is a member of the board of directors of the Société française de photographie and of the editorial committee of Études photographiques.
