The CCA announces the launch of a long-term project spanning from 2023 to 2029 (the CCA’s 50th anniversary): a trilogy of research, publication and exhibition projects focusing on photography and new media held in, or to be acquired for, the CCA Collection and beyond, that will explore how they operate as works of art, documents, and research tools to investigate the built environment.
Co-curated by photographers Bas Princen and Stefano Graziani, “The Lives of Documents—Photography as Project” is the first episode in the project, and takes shape of an exhibition; a publication (Koenig Books/CCA, available June 2023); an oral history with participating authors in cinematographic form; a series of commissioned projects; a web issue; and public initiatives.
With works by: Lara Almarcegui; Lewis Baltz; Gabriele Basilico, Stefano Boeri; Bernd and Hilla Becher; Lynne Cohen; Luigi Ghirri; Dan Graham; Jan Groover; Guido Guidi; Naoya Hatakeyama; Takashi Homma; Roni Horn; Douglas Huebler; Annette Kelm; Gert Jan Kocken; Aglaia Konrad; Susanne Kriemann; Sol LeWitt; Armin Linke; Ari Marcopoulos; Gordon Matta-Clark; Richard Misrach; Marianne Mueller; Bruce Nauman; Michael Schmidt; Thomas Struth; Tokuko Ushioda; Jeff Wall; Marianne Wex.
“My praxis is like a stream of consciousness, a constant engagement
with the world without a defined purpose”.
—Marianne Mueller
While drawings provide evidence of architectural thinking, and publications disseminate architectural theory and criticism, photographs offer another fundamental means to investigate the built environment and understand architecture. Collecting photography at the CCA predates the formation of the institution. Beginning in 1974 and comprising around 65 000 images dating from the invention of the medium in 1839to the present, the CCA photography collection offers a research tool and a body of ideas against which the institution invites new readings and contexts to be tested.
With the launch of “The Lives of Documents—Photography as Project,” the CCA embarks on a long-term, institution-wide research program to prompt self-reflection on collecting practices, and to produce a lasting discursive, cultural, and institutional impact. The project, conceived by CCA Director Giovanna Borasi as a trilogy (2023–2026–2029) leading up to the CCA’s 50th anniversary, centres the study of the institution’s current photography collection and solicits new perspectives on its continuing development as a relevant resource for researchers and practitioners. Each episode of the trilogy is conceived by a team of guest curators, invited to expand the conversation around the collection with new viewpoints, new authors, new acquisitions, and new commissions.??
This first chapter is curated by Bas Princen and Stefano Graziani, two photographers trained as architects who have collaborated with the CCA over the past decade.
“Photographic projects in the CCA Collection aren’t single exhibition prints or samples but include several if not all prints in a series, photo books, and albums, and often additional material. In this way, the photography collection follows the general method pursued by the CCA to acquire complete archives from architecture offices. Everything that enters the CCA becomes a research tool.”
—Stefano Graziani
Conceived as a site for discussion and reflection, the project challenges the concept of the documentary in photography while incorporating the distinct personal positions of each author on reality and the built environment. As practitioners, Graziani and Princen are interested in the production and thought processes behind photographic projects, exploring the distinct methodological approaches that transform photographic works into visual arguments.
“Rather than by using words or by making a design proposal, as with architecture projects, photographers make their visual arguments by organizing images. How do they choose and combine images for a project? How does the form of display—in a book, album, printed as zines or postcards, on a wall—change the way an argument is understood by a viewer?”
—Bas Princen
To offer insight into the lives of documents, the exhibition presents a display of open research, where works of selected authors from the 1960s until today—in the CCA Collection and beyond—are exhibited alongside unpublished projects, books, publication mock-ups, interviews, and research documents. Since the selected authors often understand their work as an ongoing, open process, the co-curators chose to conduct studio visits and film conversations with artists in different parts of the world, investigating the complexity of artistic approaches, research methodologies, and understandings of the lives of photography projects. This series of oral histories directed by Jonas Spriestersbach will be part of the exhibition and published in parts in the accompanying book.
In Montreal, Princen and Graziani met with Lara Almarcegui, who contributes a newly commissioned project, Guide to the Wastelands: The Francon Quarry, Montréal, a publication about the Francon quarry, the largest space awaiting requalification in the city of Montréal. In Vancouver, they met with Jeff Wall, whose Dominus Winery Photograph was commissioned by the CCA in 1999 and challenges how architectural photography documents its surrounding landscape. In Italy, they spoke to Guido Guidi, who presents his series In Between Cities 1993–96 and reflects on how the photographer’s gaze can operate without a predetermined plan; and to Stefano Boeri about his collaboration with Gabriele Basilico on Sezioni del paesaggio italiano (Italy: Cross Sections of a Country) in 1996. In Germany, they spoke with Annette Kelm about two photographic projects entitled Big Prints (2007) and Prefabricated Copper Houses, Haifa, Israel, 1933–1935 (2009); Susanne Kriemann about her Library for Radioactive Afterlife project (2016); Armin Linke on 4Flight (2000); and Thomas Struth about his album Die Architektur der Strasse, New York City, 1977–78 held in the CCA Collection. In Switzerland, Bas and Princen met with Marianne Mueller in Switzerland to discuss her book STAIRS ETC (2014), inviting the artist to produce a new book dummy for the exhibition, titled “Stones” (2023); and traveled to meet Aglaia Konrad in Belgium to discuss her practice of making artist books such as Atlas (Vol. I and II) (2000) and the twelve booklets Copy Cities (2003–04). In Amsterdam, they spoke to Gert Jan Kocken about his ongoing project since 2009, Depictions. Princen and Graziani traveled to Japan to speak to; Naoya Hatakeyama about his ongoing work on the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake in Japan for the projects Kesengawa (2011) and Rikuzentakata (2011); to Takashi Homma about two ongoing projects New Waves (2000–) and Mushrooms From the Forest (2011–); and to Tokuko Ushioda about two related photographic series and book projects, Ice Box (1981–) and My Husband (1978–83). Finally, they virtually met with Roni Horn to discuss a series of books To Place (1990–2023); with Ari Marcopoulos to talk about his ongoing production of self-published photo books, booklets, fanzines, and publications since the 1990s; and with Richard Misrach about his book and photographs Destroy this Memory (2005, 2010) realized after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005.
“Through these visits, we began to trace the authors’ unique research methodologies more clearly: their distinct ways of working, researching, and thinking about their projects. They often shared unpublished materials or materials that clarified an earlier approach to existing projects. It was also important for us to offer photographers the option to add new works to their project, to ensure that institutions allow projects to stay alive.”
—Bas Princen
at Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal
until April 7, 2024