About —
This exhibition of the artist Serge Emmanuel Jongué, who died last June, presents a series of colour photographs of Haida totem poles. In the tradition of the Northwest Coast Native People of Canada, the erection of totem poles serves to attribute emblems to different clans. Totem poles’ forms and symbols also record family history and preserve legends and past events. Serge Emmanuel Jongué was interested in the Haida culture’s ritual relationship with the totem pole and with nature.
Jongué was a self-taught photographer who held a degree in literature. He was always interested in the interconnections between image and text. However, in the late 1980s, his artistic work, which he pursued in parallel with his career as a photojournalist for more than twenty years, took a turn toward envisioning image and text as raw materials to be fused, rather than as simple means of communication. Jongué affixed “subtitles” to his photographs using masking tape. These captions anchored the image, becoming an integral part of the work.
The same system was to have been applied to Totem: American Icon, on which Jongué was working at the time of his death. Handwritten captions were to accompany each photograph in the series. Although this work remained unfinished, the artist’s creative process is nonetheless evident in the traces of his handwriting on the contact sheets, which are being included in the exhibition.
The exhibition, with financial support from Marie-José Lacour, was organized by the assistant curator of the Musée d’art de Joliette, Eve-Lyne Beaudry.
Biography —
Serge Emmanuel Jongué was born in 1951 in Aix-en-Provence, and lived and worked in Montreal from 1974 until his death in June 2006. Known in Quebec mostly for his documentary work, Jongué participated in important exhibitions, among them the 3rd Bamako Festival of African Photography, and his work can be found in Anthologie de la Photographie africaine et de l’océan Indien, a major anthology published by Revue Noire. His research into diversity in urban environments, as well as immigration and the world of work, were the roots of his artistic inspiration.
Curatorial Text —
Eve Lyne Beaudry holds a Bachelor’s degree in Art History and a Master’s in Museology from UQAM. Since 2003, she has collaborated in many art exhibitions and publications, including Peter Gnass. Couper/coller (2003), Jocelyn Robert, l’inclinaison du regard (2004), and the catalogue of the first edition of ORANGE, L’événement d’art actuel de Saint-Hyacinthe, which appeared in 2005. That same year, she was curator of the exhibition Espaces affectifs at the Musée régional de Rimouski. She also participated in the virtual exhibition La science dans l’art, organized by the Galerie de l’UQAM, which will be online in 2007 on the Virtual Museum of Canada site. In 2006, she co-directed the second edition of ORANGE, L’événement d’art actuel de Saint-Hyacinthe, with Marcel Blouin, as well as sharing curatorial duties.