When the 50th anniversary of a student protest occurred in 2019, long-buried archival photographs of affected buildings and streets in downtown Montreal had already begun to circulate – appearing in a documentary film and locally-organized activist programming, but also in the French art historian Georges Didi–Huberman51²è¹Ý¶ù touring exhibition Uprisings (2016-18) and the Belgian artist Vincent Meessen51²è¹Ý¶ù Blues Klair exhibition (2018), across town. With this activation of the archive and re-circulation of selected images, historical episodes that had been marginalized could be asserted and accorded a new centrality; the city51²è¹Ý¶ù modern identity could be re-narrativized. The city itself is thus regarded not as a fixed entity, but rather as an inherently unfinished oeuvre, to use Henri Lefebvre51²è¹Ý¶ù term. Equally important, though, is the question of how archival urban imagery gets redeployed. When such photographs of Montreal reappear in Warburgian artworks or assemblages, relational meanings are generated, and a number of questions arise – about urban temporality, historical context, and anachronism.Ìý
Johanne Sloan is a professor in the Department of Art History, Concordia University, Montreal. Her research often focuses on Montreal51²è¹Ý¶ù art and visual culture, from the 1960s to the present day. She is co-editor of the book Photogenic Montreal: Activisms and Archives in a Post-industrial City (McGill-Queen51²è¹Ý¶ù University Press, 2021).ÌýÌý
Organised by Professor David Peters Corbett (The Courtauld) and Dr Craig Moyes (King’s College London).Ìý
This is a collaborative event between the Centre for American Art (The Courtauld) and the Quebec and French Canada Research Network (King’s College London).Ìý
