How to name what Clara Gutsche’s photographs make those who take the time to immerse themselves in them feel? We could say that his photos embody an intense and moving presence. As if the photographer and her subjects had decided to collaborate and use photography as a tool for encounter, and not just to leave a banal trace of the world of appearances. However, what people generally like in a photo is that it shows well and simply, with sharpness, the visible world. This is how we commonly discriminate between “good” and “bad” photos. This is what is called in a strange and misleading shorthand as photographic “realism”. As if the reality of beings resided in the visible world, the one that social conventions allow us to exhibit, on the facade.
Gutsche manages to use images to capture a sort of imprint of the interiority of beings, of their humanity. Like other photographers—for example, Gabor Szilasi—she doesn’t just take a picture of people like tourists might. Both Gutsche and Szilasi come into contact with their subject, immerse themselves in their universe before taking their photos. She says that very early in her life, she realized that her photos were better when she had a dialogue with her subjects and that she had therefore developed a connection with them. And in the images selected for this exhibition, which almost exclusively show children, the visitor will very well feel this intimacy with the beings represented.
Series The Cencic sisters developed over three years (1974-1976). It is created when Gutsche lived right next to these six girls, being around them almost every day, often sitting with them and their mother on a bench that David, Clara’s husband, had built on the common front porch. from their homes on Boulevard Saint-Joseph.
For the most recent series,Siblings and Singles, Gutsche asked children very close to them, members of her family or children of friends, above all not to take the “school smile” attitude that teachers and parents like so much. These children are not shown here as mere subjects of comfort for adults. These children are shown with a strong identity, their character, their stories, their sorrows, their happiness, their sometimes intense gazes, the closeness or the conflicts they have with their loved ones. In Gutsche’s most recent series, you’ll see, for example, an Alice wearing a T-shirt that reads ” Brother For Sale “, while next to her, Oliver sports a” Sister For Sale »…
Presence of history
From the first room at Optica, the images have indeed a je-ne-sais-quoi of increased tangibility. This is certainly due to the fact that they deal with the 1960s and 1970s, its activism, its community spirit, a period which has an additional aura. Does it influence our gaze? There was really, at that time, a desire to be in the here and now, to be in contact with others in order to change the socio-political situation. It shows in these images.
Curator Marie-Josée Lafortune wanted to include in this presentation photos showing a place, The Women’s Centre, 3694 Sainte–Street Family (1971), images taken from the famous series Milton Park by Gutsch. These images testify to the question of childbirth for women at a time when they did not really have the right to question their desire for motherhood. And, as Gutsche says, these images are ” [re]become terribly contemporary and no longer merely historical, due to the current threat to private rights in the United States”. The viewer will see among others Tamarack Verrall [voir encadré] advising and promoting birth control at a time when it was illegal.
Gutsche’s images also reveal an additional strength thanks to her knowledge of the history of photography with which she has woven many obvious or underground links. His black and white photos, sometimes verging on sepia, have affinities with daguerreotypes. Further on, certain other images evoke the work of Paul Strand or Emmet Gowin… With Gustche, photography has many deep stories to tell.