<em><span style="font-weight: 400">A History of an Object in 100 Years</span></em><i><span style="font-weight: 400"> [Une histoire d’un objet en 100 ans] par Juan Ortiz-Apuy</span></i>

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<span style="font-weight: 400">Avec son récent projet de recherche et de création intitulé </span><span style="font-weight: 400">A History of an Object in 100 Years</span><span style="font-weight: 400">, l’artiste montréalais Juan Ortiz-Apuy porte un regard critique sur l’histoire de la photographie à travers une analyse visuelle rigoureuse de la revue populaire </span><span style="font-weight: 400">National Geographic</span><span style="font-weight: 400">. Fondée en 1888, elle a largement influencé la conscience occidentale avec ses images ethnographiques et sa façon coloniale, souvent raciste, de cadrer et de façonner la perception du monde. </span>

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Ortiz-Apuy s’est d’abord procuré tous les numéros du magazine, couvrant l’ensemble du 20</span><span style="font-weight: 400">e</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> siècle, et s’est ensuite donné comme paramètre de sélectionner et de numériser chacune des images où figuraient des mains. Ces mains présentent ou tiennent des objets qui représentent, pour l’artiste, notre relation au monde matériel.  Révélant la structure de pouvoir en jeu, l’artiste met ainsi l’accent sur la blancheur de la perspective qu’adopte la revue lorsqu’elle véhicule des idées ou qu’elle montre des objets et des animaux tirés de leur contexte, arrachés à leur culture d’origine.</span>

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D’abord présentée sous forme d’exposition à Axenéo7 à Gatineau au printemps 2022, l’œuvre d’Ortiz-Apuy y constitue alors un diaporama organisé par séquences selon les gestes effectués par les mains et leur rapport aux objets ou aux espèces photographiées. Ce travail fera l’objet d’une seconde exposition individuelle, à la Plug In ICA à Winnipeg en septembre 2023. L’artiste y abordera la sombre histoire de la photographie à travers une installation qui déploiera tout le dispositif photographique de la revue </span><span style="font-weight: 400">National Geographic</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> de façon élargie.</span>

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<pre>Image ci-haut : Source: <em>National Geographic</em> Magazines</pre>
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<pre><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-10454" src="https://vuphoto.org/workspace/uploads/291.jpg" alt="" /></pre>
<pre>Source: <em>National Geographic</em> Magazines</pre>
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<pre><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-10441" src="https://vuphoto.org/workspace/uploads/350-copie.jpg" alt="" /></pre>
<pre>Source: <em>National Geographic</em> Magazines</pre>
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<pre><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-10443" src="https://vuphoto.org/workspace/uploads/377-copie.jpg" alt="" /></pre>
<pre>Source: <em>National Geographic</em> Magazines</pre>
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<pre><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-10456" src="https://vuphoto.org/workspace/uploads/427.jpg" alt="" /></pre>
<pre>Source: <em>National Geographic</em> Magazines</pre>
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<pre><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-10458" src="https://vuphoto.org/workspace/uploads/429.jpg" alt="" /></pre>
<pre>Source: <em>National Geographic</em> Magazines</pre>
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 	<li><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-10445" src="https://vuphoto.org/workspace/uploads/667-copie.jpg" alt="" />Source: <em>National Geographic</em> Magazines</li>
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<pre><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-10447" src="https://vuphoto.org/workspace/uploads/A_History1-copie.jpg" alt="" /></pre>
<div><em>A History of an Object in 100 Years</em>, 2022. Installation, dimensions variable.</div>
<pre>Automatic 35mm carousel projectors, images extracted from National Geographic 20th Century collection transferred to 35mm slides, darkroom safelight, powder-coated steel and aluminum. Special thanks to Joni Cheung, Cassie Paine, Mike Goldby, and Kristina Pedersen for their help in making this work possible.</pre>
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<pre><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-10451" src="https://vuphoto.org/workspace/uploads/HandsArms-copie.jpg" alt="" /></pre>
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 	<li><em>From hands to fingertips</em>, 2023. Inkjet print, 42x63</li>
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<pre><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-10449" src="https://vuphoto.org/workspace/uploads/Credits-copie.jpg" alt="" /></pre>
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 	<li><em>From hands to fingertips</em>, 2023. Inkjet print, 42x63</li>
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A History of an Object in 100 Years [Une histoire d’un objet en 100 ans] par Juan Ortiz-Apuy

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In his recent research-based art project <em>A History of an Object in 100 Years</em>, Montréal-based artist Juan Ortiz-Apuy takes a critical look at the history of photography by visually analyzing the well-known magazine <em>National Geographic</em>. Founded in 1888, the magazine has had a wide influence on Western ways of thinking through its ethnographic images and its colonial—often racist—framing and shaping of worldviews.

Ortiz-Apuy sourced every issue of the magazine published during the twentieth century, then selected and digitized each image in which hands appeared. These hands present or hold objects that embody, for the artist, our relationship to the material world. Revealing the power structure at play, the artist thus emphasizes the whiteness of the perspective adopted by the magazine when transmitting ideas or showing objects and animals that have been stripped of their context, taken from their culture of origin.

First presented as an exhibition at Axenéo7 in Gatineau in spring 2022, Ortiz-Apuy’s work was, at the time, composed of a slide show organized sequentially according to the gestures made by the hands and their relation to the objects and spaces photographed. This work will be the subject of a second solo show at the Plug In ICA in Winnipeg in September 2023. The artist will address photography’s dark history in an installation that will display <em>National Geographic</em>’s entire photographic layout in an expanded way.

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