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Canwest News Service
This week Adobe released Photoshop for the iPhone, making tricks that were once doable only in a darkroom possible for those on sidewalks and subways. But analog shooting’s advantages still shine through in the work of old-school artists such as Gabor Szilasi, a senior Montreal photographer who just opened a major survey at the National Gallery of Canada. Here, in a long-distance phone chat, Szilasi tells Leah Sandals how the cumbersome and commonplace can still be cutting-edge.
Q Tell me about the title of your show, The Eloquence of the Everyday.
A The title actually came from my curator, David Harris. But it really is everyday life and ordinary people who interest me in photography. When someone has a great reputation, like Mick Jagger or Celine Dion, you can’t really take a bad picture of them. Also, I enjoy photographing people in the intimacy of their homes, where they don’t feel a need to put on an act. This title also reflects my interests in architecture and urban landscapes — I don’t look for very spectacular interiors or buildings, just ordinary ones.
Q If the everyday is so eloquent, why can’t most of us see it? Or, why is it that we can see it better in a photograph than in real life?
A Photography can have a surreal quality. In it, we’re able to reduce the world to an eight-by-ten-inch piece of paper. This allows us to really study the image or the subject. Usually when we meet someone, we don’t have time to really examine or listen to them. But a photograph permits us to reflect on the person and the objects that surround him or her — all these things describe a personal taste, a culture, even social classes, and that tells a lot about the subject.
Q You moved from Hungary to Quebec in the 1950s, and are famed for your photos of La Belle Province. Do you think photography helped you connect to your adopted home more easily?
A Yes. When I was in my early twenties I wanted to express myself through the arts, and since I couldn’t draw or paint it had to be photography. In Budapest I was really an urban person — I didn’t think about country life. But when I came here, I started working for the Office du film du Quebec, and that permitted me to travel in the countryside to do reportages. I was working with a large-format camera, a four-by-five-inch view camera, where you can see a lot more than in 35 mm. It allowed me to discover details that I otherwise wouldn’t have seen, and helped me to have a different view of Montreal and rural Quebec.
Q How do you think Quebec has changed in the time you’ve lived and worked there?
A When I started working in 1959, the Catholic church was still quite powerful in many Quebecers’ lives. Then in 1973, I visited the Beauce region, which was quite industrialized. Somehow, because of industrialization the presence of the Catholic church wasn’t as visible there as in other areas I had visited. I was quite fascinated by its mix of the religious and the profane, and tried to show it in my photographs. For example, in some interiors, you can see a crucifix on the wall as well as a television set.
Q Most photographers today work digitally. Have you made the shift too?
A I have two digital cameras, and I use them occasionally, but if I want to do anything serious it would still be with film. I’m not sure how long pixels will last, whereas we have negatives that have lasted 170 years [and are] still usable. The fact is that the moments you photograph — 125th of a second or so — are very precious. They will never come back, and they are already past once you take the photograph. I think they are worth preserving.
Q Do you still carry a camera when you walk around Montreal?
A No. I do still have shows coming up, but they’re mostly of unpublished work, like family photos and old Polaroids. I figure I’ve paid my dues — I’ll be 82 in March. I have noticed some artists continue on because they feel the public wants them not to stop, and then they come up with sort of mediocre work. I don’t want to do that. I still take pictures of things that capture my fancy. But I also like to go to the movies, and read, and listen to music. – Gabor Szilasi: The Eloquence of the Everyday continues to Jan. 17, 2010, at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. For more information, visit gallery.ca.
