« RÉFLEXION » reviewed by Ed Janzen
Éric Boduc - Myriam Gaumond and M’hammed Kilito @ visual voice
Sept 27 to Oct 7 ~ 2007
ÉRIC BOLDUC
The colonizing white man wields a black magic, with which he casts political spells of containment upon his imperial subjects, securing his rule. Edward Said explored that magic and named it Orientalism — the chief achievement of imperial European race theory. But what happens when the white man turns the magic upon himself? Éric Bolduc turns these powerful, politicizing spells of mystification and representation upon his own, mirrored image, igniting moments of contradiction that crack through this dark enchantment.
A turban and loincloth are conjured from bath towels wrapped about the photographer’s head and waist. An interior of darkened earth tones, together with an ornate yet tawdry lamp, completes this Orientalist tableau. But towels are only towels — and not even the plastic fader lightswitch, making a jarring appearance in one photo, can dim the room enough to obscure the truth. Further, blurry double-images recall our attention to the fact that, in photographs, nothing is as it seems.
In a final image, Bolduc appears before the mirror dressed in western attire, positioning his camera while wearing rubber gloves. Something has become contaminated — but what? Does imaging taint the man, or man the images?
MYRIAM GAUMOND
Taking the train ain’t cheap anymore, and the result is a sort of social contradiction. The comfortable passenger gliding out of the station at Place Bonaventure turns her head to the window, looking out to confront the warehouses near Rue University; the clotheslines and spiral staircases of St-Henri’s backyards; and a seemingly endless terrain of industrial storage facilities, hydro pylons and nameless yards temporarily home to thousands of shipping containers: Maersk Sealand, K Line, Hanjin.
It’s miles before Montreal’s elite travelers will see field and farm (forget about forest). Today, a “room with a view” means an encounter with the global economy’s anonymous, monopolized underbelly. And if you find that troubling, just wait until the train reaches Oshawa-Ajax-Pickering-Scarborough-East York-Toronto.
In this regard, Myriam Gaumond’s photos of bleak, depopulated industrial landscapes take their place in the realm of the undying: namely, travel photography. Today’s insulated traveler will take comfort in the yellow-green tint of the shipping containers and loading bays, snapped through the carriage window — that thin line between destination and circumstance, vector and void. The reflections of other windows across the aisle evoke the presence of other passengers. The curious traveler wonders: We contemplate this Maersk Sealand container; do they contemplate Hanjin?
M’HAMMED KILITO
When man (or woman) invented glass, his understanding of how to possess the spirit took a great leap forward. So did his susceptibility to the same appropriationist forces. We know that mirrors are inversionary gateways to other realms; and halls of mirrors, haunted, super-inhabited portals of possibilities. Which could cause one to ask: Are we or are mannequins the better window shoppers? M’hammed Kilito’s photographs of shop-windows and their manifold reflections don’t answer this question — but they do ensure that we never again assume the quietude of these commercial simulacra.
Perhaps ironically, the exchange of money doesn’t even enter into it — except perhaps, like canvas, as a support. The passer-by intent upon his goal could not imagine that the mannequin’s studious visage has, through the magic of reflection, come to occupy his crisp, white shirt. The architect simply cannot know that a bridal gown on a dressmaker’s form had shouldered itself into the niche between the great buildings he designed. And another mannequin — did we ever imagine that she, her statuesque beauty secure in its clastic immunity to age, might look boldly, even insolently toward the sky while a rooftop weathervane indicated the four directions, the articulation of life’s potential?