Melvin Charney

The Maison de l’architecture du Québec is proud to present an exclusive exhibition on the photographic work of Melvin Charney (1935-2012) , a leading figure of architecture in Montreal and recognized internationally. Take the time to look at these and to see not only what is in but also what is behind these images: the eye of Melvin Charney the photographer, his sensibility as an artist.

Born out of the offer of Ann Charney to consult the as yet untouched archives, the exhibition concentrates on 70 original prints from the 1950s to the 1980s selected by guest curator Alain Laforest and exhibited in an installation designed by Annie Lebel of in situ Atelier d’architecture. It is exceptional to see the intrinsic qualities of this photographic work in its own right and at the same time, to see that work exhibited in an installation intended to create an intimacy between the work and the visitor. Shade and hue, composition and atmosphere take us from port to faubourg, from the 1950s to the 1980s… Always present and in every format, the photo accompanied Melvin Charney throughout his artistic career. He started taking pictures at the age of ten and from the beginning it was, he said, “a way of assimilating the rapidly expanding urban and industrial world that was around me.” In making his selection, guest curator Alain Laforest (himself an architectural photographer) has chosen to emphasize Charney’s study of architecture and the city and his unmistakable interest for vernacular architecture in the period up until the end of the 1980s. Laforest writes : “ Despite their formalism, for me, these photos express a sensibility, a poetry that speaks to us of the human being. That human being is not often present in these images but is both author of and actor in the places photographed, in modest houses often in a state of near ruin, long abandoned, a disappearing world. These photos are strong and coherent, they speak of empty space, of spaces between things but also of the history behind the subjects, suggested by them. ‘’This sensibility evolves, concentrating itself over the years into a strength that expresses itself even in the simplicity of composition, frontal views of little houses where you sense not only life passing by and past, but also the importance of these modest structures and the people who built and lived in them. ” Or, to quote Melvin Charney, “ Photographs are things in themselves, autonomous and abstract. And what is “ there ” in the image is not what we see. ”