Spaces in Time

Abstract

LE MOIS DE LA PHOTO A MONTREAL Montreal September 10-October 11, 2009 biannual exploration of contemporary photography known as Le Mois de la Photo a Montreal, while slightly scaled down for this eleventh edition, remains an example of strong curatorial focus and international exhibition possibilities. Curator Gaelle Morel organized twenty-four individual exhibitions and space interventions of artwork from thirteen countries including Canada, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, France, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, and the United States. This year's theme was The Spaces of the Image, and work explored the issues of scenography, mechanisms and staging in contemporary photography, and more. Several of the artists engage in a process of appropriation or destruction (or what Morel terms withdrawal), questioning elements of photography as both space and history. Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige of Lebanon and Paris, for example, who exhibited several pieces, work in many media to explore the notion of latency. In Faces (2001), they redacted photographs taken from posters of martyrs in Lebanon. They restored parts of the faces of these men--weathered and diminished by time--returning an eye or a hint of a mouth, commenting on the public function of the gaze on private memory and forgetting. It is as if these men were fading in and out, sending a silent message from another world. In Circle of Confusion (2001), Hadjithomas and Joreige installed a large-format aerial view of Beirut in 3,000 fragments. Commenting on the lack of documentation of the history of the city, they invited gallery visitors to take one of the individual pieces, revealing a mirror behind, where those who are disassembling can see themselves taking part in the destruction. As the pieces are removed, the city becomes more fragmented and memory is challenged. Colombian artist Oscar Munoz's Aliento [Breath] (I996-2002) is a striking work also exploring the theme of disappearance, and also with the added dimension of interactivity. When viewers breathe on the metal disks mounted on the wall (which have been printed with a grease photo-silkscreen process), the faces of victims of political violence in Colombia (some named, some not) appear. These visages fade just as quickly, reminding us of the importance, and effort, of remembering Canadian Shelley Miller uses perishable materials to re-present vernacular objects. In Cargo (The Wealth of Some and the Ruin of Others) (2009), Miller recreated--in sugar--a motif of clipper ships using the aesthetic of traditional Portuguese blue-and-white ceramic tiles, referencing the sugar trade and slavery. After the piece, which won Contact Image People's Choice Award, melted as it weathered, it was replaced with a photograph that is scheduled to be on view until 2013. In Madone de Bentalha (2001-02), one of the most unique pieces on display. Pascal Convert of France transformed a photograph of a grieving woman taken after a massacre in Algiers in 1997 into a wax sculpture. A form of simulacra. Convert's life-size interpretation of what has been widely considered a modern Madonna image is accompanied by a video documentary explaining the history of the original image, exploring the nature of documentary truth in images of war and personal suffering. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In Sound of Silence (2006), Chile-born Alfredo Jaar creates an immersive video installation exploring the life and death of South African documentary photographer Kevin Carter, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of a starving young child in Sudan, a vulture hovering behind her. 8-minute video is text-based and silent, with Carter's shocking, singular image prefaced by a loud flash of light that critiques silence and personal and social culpability. As Jaar writes, No one knows what happened to that child but the image has a 12-digit reference number and is controlled by a large corporation owned by the richest man in the world. …