Anonyme, Easter Greetings, about 1955. Collection de Michel Campeau
While in Montreal for a series of panels curated by HOLO magazine for the digital festival MUTEK, i felt the need (as i often do) to take a break from discussions about digital creativity. That’s how i ended up visiting the Michel Campeau retrospective at the McCord Museum. The title of the show was promising: Michel Campeau. Life Before Digital.
I wasn’t disappointed. Campeau is a wonderfully talented photographer with a strong interest for the history of photography and in particular the disappearance of analog tools and practices. Each of the series in the exhibition explores a material culture that used to suggest magic and craftmanship: the messy darkrooms with duct tape to fend off the light and wooden pegs to hang the images to dry; the colourful rolls of photo film and the iconic camera models; the amateur developer who gave way to the computer pixel specialist, etc.
Man in bow tie with woman looking at slide, c. 1955 (2015.) Series “Red Border Kodachrome”
Campeau’s homage to silver-based photography culture has a whiff of nostalgia but it’s one that’s never mushy nor mournful. The retrospective presents works executed between 2005 and 2017 as well as anonymous, amateur photographs from the 1950s and 60s. Shown together these images build a very moving, poetic and sometimes even humorous portrait of the rituals of pre-digital photography.
Industrial Splendour and Fetishism: The Bruce Anderson Collection. Sylvania Superflash Blue Dot 25 Flashbulb, Montreal Quebec, c. 1950. Photo via Eric Dupont gallery
Industrial Splendour and Fetishism : The Bruce Anderson Collection. Flash Canon, Tokyo, Japan / Flash Leitz, Wetzlar, Allemagne, c. 1950. Photo via Eric Dupont gallery
Industrial Splendour and Fetishism : The Bruce Anderson Collection. Sinclair Traveller Una, London, England, 1927. Photo via Eric Dupont gallery
Exhibition view of Michel Campeau. Life Before Digital. Photo: McCord Museum
Industrial Splendour and Fetishism are black room portraits of iconic cameras and accessories of the pre-digital era. The instruments look cumbersome, have a bit of a worn-out air but they remain beautifully engineered objects.
Exhibition view of Michel Campeau. Life Before Digital. Photo: McCord Museum
Brussels, Belgium, file no. 9845. Series “Darkroom”, 2005-2010
From the series “Darkroom”, 2005-2010
The Darkrooms is another tribute to analogue photography, this time focusing on spaces that are disappearing fast.
Campeau talks in details about the series in an interview with Ciel Variable. I like the following quote:
“One of the criticisms of the series is that I focused on the dilapidation and decrepitude of the places I photographed. I don’t see things this way; a very large part of the history of photography took place in similar places, and not in antiseptic digital laboratories.”
Other series in the exhibition establish Campeau as a keen collector of ‘found photography’:
Anonymous, Four Color Postcard [détail], about 1960. Collection of Michel Campeau
Anonymous, Four Color Postcard [détail], about 1960. Collection of Michel Campeau
The Monstreal-based artist hunted down colour postcards from the 1950s to the 1970s that show a person taking a photo. He then enlarged the detail featuring the photographer so as to lay bare the four-colour printing process.
Rudolph Edse, Autoportrait, about 1955. Collection of Michel Campeau
Rudolph Edse, An involuntary autobiography, about 1958. Collection of Michel Campeau
Edse was a German scientist who immigrated to the U.S. after 1945. One day, Campeau discovered on eBay his self-portraits which often showed him surrounded by photo instruments. Campeau acquired more photos authored by Edse. The collection is charming, they show a European family living the “American Dream”.
Anonymous, Photo Club, about 1955. Collection of Michel Campeau
Anonymous, Desired Moments, about 1955. Collection of Michel Campeau
Exhibition view of Michel Campeau. Life Before Digital. Photo: McCord Museum
Anonymous, Desired Moments, about 1955. Collection of Michel Campeau
The series Desired Instants compiles anonymous amateur photography from the 1950s that show, once again, amateur photographers holding or posing next to their instruments. They expose a real enthusiasm for a medium that is still intact 60 years later.
Exhibition view of Michel Campeau. Life Before Digital. Photo: McCord Museum
Anonymous, PAS-Foto, Copenhague, DNK, about 1956. Collection of Michel Campeau
Michel Campeau. Life Before Digital remains open at The McCord Museum in Montreal until the 6th of May 2018.