CV116 - Gathering Clouds. Photographs From The Nineteenth Century And Today — Bruno Chalifour
Ciel variable 116 - Landscapes as Mirrors (Winter 2021)
Focus (Single Article, Digital Version)
Gathering Clouds. Photographs From The Nineteenth Century And Today
Une histoire de la photographie à travers les nuages | A History of Photography Through Clouds
By Bruno Chalifour
An overview of the evolution of photography and the creative freedom of photographers, the exhibition Gathering Clouds was based on the motif of the cloud through centuries and genres. The choice of creating two very different sections, one devoted to the nineteenth century and the other to the present day, brought two curatorial choices into opposition. In his critique of the exhibition, in which he describes both sections, Bruno Chalifour concludes that between the collection of historical photographs and the grouping of recent works, only the former, the result of “depth, intelligence, and coherence,” is satisfactory. There is a certain imbalance, he notes, between the clearly stated educational and aesthetic content of the first gallery and the eclectic hodgepodge of the second gallery. This gap between expertise and entertainment, he argues, is a recurrent problem in museums caught up in the competition for audiences. A sign of the times, in Chalifour’s view, the exhibition is to be praised for its historical contributions but is disappointing in its superficiality.
Details
Language : French and English
Digital Version : PDF, 3.7 Mb
Bibliographical Reference
Bruno Chalifour, « Gathering Clouds. Photographs From The Nineteenth Century And Today. A History of Photography through Clouds », Ciel variable, no 116, Montréal, 2021, p. 62-69.