The Montréal Museum of Fine Arts presents 11 photographers who have taken photographs since the 1970’s. Each photographer has his own space in the exhibition for approximately fifteen of his photographs, mainly in black and white framed with a light brown frame, realizing in a whole a retrospective of how society has changed in Quebec throughout the years. It conveys the photographers’ concerns and interests in the quality of urban lives. The photographers transmit a reflection of society, collectively, individually and creatively by the use of a keen critical sense, while respecting the subject in its environment. This exhibition will conduct the visitor to ask itself some questions, “Where are we going?” “What is reality?”. In fact, the role of the photographers in this exhibition is to present artistically, a documentary on the society with its diverse values and inhabitants.

In this exhibition Benoit Aquin’s photographs portray the after hours bars, between three and five in the morning, in the streets and nightlife places of Montreal. It is a look at the people living during the night, always having fun, detached from the daytime life and somehow perverted by society. The ideas of shock and surprise are present. It is a contrast with the other photographers, who have depicted residential areas and working class everyday life. Instead, Benoit Aquin shows the hidden side of a city, what citizens cannot see if they do not wander into the night.

We can observe in Benoit Aquin, Untitled – From the series “L’Odyssée”, 1997, print 2003, Ink-jet print, 1/5, Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, a man walking in the streets of Montreal at night, dressed up as a white angel, with a pair of wings and a wig. His face is covered with makeup, making us think of the Joker in Batman visualized as a psychopath, contrasting with the angel costume, certainly surprising the viewer and communicating a sense of unconventionality.
Furthermore, the angel man is walking willingly with his arms crossed and head up, a sense of movement. Indeed, the first idea coming to the viewer’s mind would be that the photograph has been taken at the right moment from a car window while this man was walking home, dreaming, after a long night partying in some sideline place in Montreal.

There are different stages while looking at the photograph. The man, main subject, has been taken entirely, with a facial angle and centered, where his black shoes are located on the top of the rear view mirror, set at one third of the photograph. Even though this mirror seems imposing on the bottom of the photograph in the foreground, the eye is still directly directed on the angel located in the middleground, capturing the entire attention.
Therefore, the viewer is at first looking from left to right, a horizontal focus, as if intrigued by where the man is going and where did he came from, discerning in the background, towards the continuity of the street, a couple dressed in black. This couple reinforces the idea of the costumed man being detached from the actual society, illustrating an idea of a parallel world versus the reality.
Besides, the photographer has left out the rest of the car, as it would have been pointless diverting the viewer’s focus. Yet, including the rear view mirror, gives an outlook of what is behind the car, increasing the perspective of the photograph.

Moreover, we observe a left to right symmetry with the tree and the lamppost, two vertical black lines but also with the tree and the sewers’ round shapes on the floor. Added with the rear view mirror under the subject’s feet, they create a frame in which the man is centered, increasing the eyes’ attraction upon him. Likewise, the pair of panels further above his head creates another symmetry.

The glow on the shops recalled by the light reflection in the rear car mirror illuminate the photograph, not making it as dark as the night is, emphasizing the contrast of shades. Finally, the illuminated round shapes shop’s sign can also draw attention by make us think of halos, off the angel’s head during nighttime, highlighting the idea of fantasy.

To conclude, Benoit Aquin takes photographs of what intrigues him, his will is to transmit the magical quality of the subject, it can be disturbing, shocking, still he will express the complexity of the issues which we have to deal with and show the quest of the “true self”. By this means he is challenging the viewer with different ideas of morality and transgression, generating numerous emotions.