Archi-féministes! : Performer l’archives

Olivia Boudreau

Sorel Cohen

Raphaëlle de Groot

Suzy Lake

Claire Savoie

Jana Sterbak

Sophie Bélair Clément

Vera Frenkel

Clara Gutsche

Emmanuelle Léonard

Clara Gutsche
Les collèges Series
Chromogenic print
38,1 x 48,3 cm (each)
Milton Park Series (1970-1973)
Gelatin silver prints
25,7 X 32,5 cm (each)
The Bedroom Series
Chromogenic prints
68,6 x 85,1 cm
The Natacha Martin Collection
© Clara Gutsche
Photo : Richard-Max Tremblay


Clara Gutsche
Les collèges Series
Juvénat Saint-Jean, Dolbeau, 1993
Chromogenic print
38,1 x 48,3 cm (each)
Courtesy of the artist



Clara Gutsche
The Bedroom Series
St-Denis-de-Kamouraska, 2001
Chromogenic print
68,6 x 85,1 cm (each)
The Natacha Martin Collection
© Clara Gutsche

Clara Gutsche’s approach to photography falls within the scope of documentary tradition and of the social import that marked that tradition in the 1970s, a time of identificatory self-affirmation in Quebec. Capturing the nobility of intimate moments, the series of Milton Park portraits is representative of her work. Smiling in a clean, tidy room, Miss Mary Sentenne, embodies a dignity typical of subjects, whether male or female, who identify with the order of their environment and of the objects around them, just as the young Janet Symmers, surrounded by posters of Québécois pop stars, proudly appears in a world of her own construction. In 1973, the artist (with David Miller) continues her work with the Destruction of Milton Park, a photo series the couple exhibited at OPTICA and that decries the destruction of a neighbourhood for benefit of real estate investments.








Les collèges Series
Collège Clarétain, Victoriaville, 1997
Juvénat Saint-Jean, Dolbeau, 1993
Collège Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption, Nicolet,
1996

Clara Gutsche’s series have many things in common, the most significant of which is showing spaces inhabited by characters who either mirror their environment or invest it with some of themselves. Even where they are absent, as in Juvénat Saint-Jean, Dolbeau, they hint at the prescribing rules and organization imposed by the institution, which may sometimes allow for spaces of freedom nonetheless. The two girls’ room in Collège Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption, Nicolet exemplifies a restricted but nonetheless replete space laden with idolized figures and images. Like her famous Convents series (1990-1998), Collège Clarétain, Victoriaville displays a spatial disposition of bodies and furniture that describes the intended harmony and modesty of structure and function in the host institution and the men and women found within it.














The Bedroom Series
St-Denis-de-Kamouraska, 2001

With Clara Gutsche, as in The Bedroom Series (1999-2001), uninhabited space is no less charged with the presence of absent occupants. In St-Denis-de-Kamouraska, the wall panelling material, the furniture carefully covered in newspapers, the green plastic bag placed on the bed and filled with indeterminate items, all contribute to lending the room a cold, inhuman atmosphere, yet charged with absent presences. Gutsche’s room scenes are telling of how the various elements of the photographic archive perform the suspended time of recognizable, yet evolving identities.