A research residency on the photobook
Summer 2016
We are pleased to welcome historian of Quebec art and photography Serge Allaire as a research resident at Artexte. The primary goal of this research residency is to locate and identify photobooks in Artexte’s holdings and to propose a rigorous definition of this type of publication. A thorough description of the genre will be formulated in order to clearly identify such publications. The entire process will be done in collaboration with both national and international institutions as well as Artexte librarians. At the end of this research project, Allaire will provide a list of significant publications for the purpose of acquiring photobooks that will complete the collection.
Serge Allaire teaches the history of art and photography in the department of art history at UQAM, and is an independent curator and researcher on the history of contemporary photography. He has published articles on contemporary Quebec art history and photography. As a specialist of the 1960s, he has written catalogue essays for exhibitions presented as part of Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal, including: “Une tradition documentaire? Quelle tradition? Quel documentaire?” (Vox Populi, 1993); Michel Saint-Jean, photographe (Galerie de l’UQAM, 1997); Taller: objet-vêtement (Maison de la culture Maisonneuve, 2010); and Boarding Pass, a reprospective of Serge Emmanuel Jongué (Maison de la culture Côte-des-Neiges, 2011). Allaire has also collaborated on the following publications: Montréal au XXe siècle: Regards de photographes (Les Éditions de l’Homme, 1995); Les arts au Québec dans les années soixante, tome II (VLB éditeur, 1993); and John Max / Quelque chose suit son cours (Musée de la photographie à Charleroi, Charleroi, 1997). In 2015, he presented the event Le livre photographique au Québec: publications récentes at Formats bookstore in Montréal. In fall 2016, he will present a selection of Quebec photobooks in collaboration with the Polycopies fair (Paris) and les Photaumnales (Picardie). He is currently preparing an exhibition on the practice of Polaroid photography in Quebec.