Photo: Pierre Blache
Anne-Marie Ninacs is an independent researcher and curator, she was invited as guest curator for the 12th edition of Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal, one of the city’s most prestigious international visual art events. She brought together works by 25 artists worldwide under “Lucidity”, a theme very dear to her…
M-KOS: Anne-Marie Ninacs can you tell us about the process that led to your decision to act as commissioner for Le Mois de la Photo?
Anne-Marie Ninacs: Le Mois de la Photo usually proceeds with open submissions, from this I proposed a concept to the event director that I would be interested in pursuing for the next event, and which artists I would want to present. Things like that. So that’s what I did, and here I am.
M: And have you worked a lot with photography before this event? Is it part of a broader concern?
AMN: No, actually I’m not an expert in photography. I’ve always resisted to be a single discipline specialist, I was never interested to look at things from a disciplinary angle. To take on the role of curator of photography was something very new, and I think it’s beneficial for an event specializing in photography to be organized by people who are not coming in with fixed preconceptions or an informed vision. I do personally like this non-specialist position, that’s where we become most interesting, most alive, and I always try to put myself out of my comfort zone. This allowed me to learn a lot about photography, I think it also allowed me to provide other perspectives, to see photography in works that are not considered as such, as in the work of Douglas Gordon for example, or to bring forth propositions that may be more esthetic, or very sensitive to the visual aspect of works, such as the tinkerings of Augustin Rebetez, or even with Roger Ballen who is trained as a photographer but does offer a different perspective.
Another challenge I faced with Le Mois de la Photo is that, not only am I not a specialist of photography, but also that I usually enjoy curating shows that are very diverse. I can put together videos with abstract painting and Inuit sculpture all in one show. I always try to bring variations in the viewing experience for works to rub together in their materiality and their disciplines. I was a little worried at the beginning to find myself working only with 2D wall pieces, but in the end, I think I managed a spacial staging to present works in a comprehensive way, to vary the viewing experience as you go through the exhibition. I very much studied the architecture of the exhibition spaces, for example here at the Arsenal, to direct the path that visitors take within the exhibition.
M: Terrific. We now understand your preoccupations in terms of discipline, but what about its subject-matter, Lucidity, as the theme of Le Mois de la Photo?
AMN: This is a project, a question that I carried in my curator’s mind, I would say since about 2002-2003. It came from a project that I thought of setting up but then never emerged, and the idea stayed with me ever since. All the artists for that show were different with the exception of Douglas Gordon, which I thought of showing at the time. But the issue for that project stayed with me, it matured and became more precise over the years. The idea of working with light as a material, in photography this seemed like the ideal place to develop it. So when the call out for Le Mois de la Photo came around, working with light as a fabric was my topic of choice, light and shadow even, in the case of photography. And I tried to superimpose this with a reflection about light and shadows from within. So this way I thought there were a lots of exchanges to be made between concepts and content.
M: And regarding the Arsenal, this show is premiering an exhibition space that could redefine the effervescence of Montréal’s art scene, did that give you any extra pressure, how did that make you feel ?
AMN: I felt privileged to work in a new venue, to think the venue as I wanted it, because the gallery space was to be built from scratch. We built up all the walls from drawings I made, designing everything from the height of the walls, to how the audience would circulate. I felt very privileged to use this empty space as a tool, but no I didn’t feel pressured. Maybe from the venue organizers, the event director of Le Mois de la Photo, that’s perhaps where I felt a pressure to deliver. In other words, to offer a proposition that is relevant to viewers, for them to receive it well, to anticipate what they would think about it, that was what I was focused on. My desire for rigor, so that everything is perfect, I gave myself pressure. But on the contrary, working with the new Arsenal space carried me through, gave me a lot of support.
M: And what about the artists selection, how did you work that around the event theme ?
AMN: The difficulty with major events like this one is finding a theme under which you can fit several artists, but also to give it a specific direction. Very often we see a kind of one-size-fits-all theme that can include just about everyone, when I really wanted a channeled reflection on the theme. Channeled both in the sense of converging different types of questions and different creative approaches. I had artists already identified, I spoke of Douglas Gordon, Kimsooja was also already in my initial choices.
M: Lucidity can be interpreted in many ways, do you think all these are well represented at Le Mois de la Photo?
AMN: I would say this theme allows for many socio-political practices. The sort of lucidity that arises from a deep place within one’s self, to tie in all these basic fundamental questions is what interested me as a curator, as a writer. From one exhibition to the next, I always question the existential aspect of the work I curate, and especially in the case of Le Mois de la Photo I was motivated by this national event to find documentary photography which looked at difficult situations happening everywhere around the world, situations that the media are not talking about, I thought it was absolutely vital that we show these. On the other hand I kept doubting my convictions, asking myself: so what ? Now that I have seen these situations, what do I do, how does it concern me, how does it change my way of thinking ?
M: How does it engage me ?
AMN: Yes, and rather than condemning the people that have done wrong, rather than just feel sorry for the suffering people, I’m more interested to know how I’m participating in this violence happening all over in the world, how I participated in the injustice that I witnessed, and how do these events take shape. I’m not interested in facts and figures, such as finding out which country does IKEA manufacture its furniture, but rather in more subtle forms of violence. How do I talk to other people? What are my intentions? Do I want to gain something? Am I competing against someone? These are internal positionings that are far more subtle, but fully participate in our socio-political life. In this sense this project is also about introspection, to behold every ongoing battle, suffering and tyranny. But also I think we should pay more attention to all the beauty around and within us, we somehow don’t trust ourselves to believe in its potential forces, and we sometimes need introspection to regain that trust.
M: Did you find Montréal’s arts scene was lacking socio-political involvement, was it your intention to change this trend?
AMN: I wasn’t reacting in favor or against a trend, I would say that I tried to put together all the socio-political, photography-based exhibitions that I saw on a larger platform. I didn’t have a proper comment to make, it wasn’t a matter of positioning myself. However, I think that in pictures a lot is left unsaid, and that all these issues of awareness and creativity needed to be addressed and operated in light of all the possible variations within one exhibition catalog. So it was less about the trends, but rather to support and testify on something that I feel is really an important value in art. My responsibility as a curator and as an art historian is to relay what I see in artist studios, what I read in the works and to transmit this to society at large. In that sense I often speak of art works as a tools of existence, so I don’t like to present artists as role-models, and say look at these artists, they are the best and they are different from you, you will never get to their level. I would rather model ways of doing, of talking about the world that ideally enable viewers to read the world based on life experience.
M: Le Mois de la Photo is just opening its doors this week, what are the things you’re hoping to achieve to consider the event a success?
AMN: We can never know the shape of success in curating, these are bottles thrown at the sea. When an artist does an exhibition, it’s not like a TV show, or an entertainment spectacle, where viewing ratings will measure the show’s impact. Even then, it’s not because the house is full that we changed people’s lives. You never know. There are exhibitions I saw when I was young and non-initiated to this environment that absolutely changed my life. Now I’m meeting the people who made these exhibitions and I can tell them how much my life changed thanks to them, but there is ten years between observation and reaction, and art is like that. Art is like a leap of faith, an act of generosity and there is a desire to influence but you can never tell which of the things you throw will bounce back on which viewer. So you have to trust that when you give the best of yourself, and think with most rigor, and asks questions, that this will stimulates others around you. That’s my wager.◼︎
Interviewd by Oli Sorenson (originally in French)
Le Mois de la Photo Montréal
8 September – 9 October 2011
www.moisdelaphoto.com