MONTsurREAL: Through the Eyes of a Stranger
By Ludmila Rishkova
October 27, 2010
Living somewhere, wherever it may be, involves seeing our surroundings through a filter, a ‘taken-for-granted’ filter to be precise. It’s unavoidable, blinding, and can only be remedied through contact with an outsider who has not only a fresh eye, but also his own vision.
Two months ago, we published an article on New York photographer (and attorney) Ed Emrich, who has a unique approach to ‘special effects’ in an era laden with special effects. His approach is all about the natural play of movement, reflection and light. The effect is pure, unadulterated and compelling in its simplicity as discussed in the October article Ed Emrich’s World Without Rules.
I met Ed Emrich on the eve of his departure from Montreal. He was just a stranger, asking about nice locations to shoot pictures. Today, I have the pleasure and privilege to share these images with our readers to show them a glimpse of our hometown, and with Montrealers who forget, or fail to notice, the intriguing and diverse facets of our city. What Ed Emrich managed to capture is the diversity that makes Montreal one of the top fabulous cities in Canada. We’re not talking a post-card overview of the city. Those are numerous and widely available. In MONTsurREAL, Ed Emrich captures the details that construct the whole.
Street Vibe encapsulates the colourful cultural diversity of our population, the torturous one-way streets, the endless bus parades and the pedestrians that move in an incessant flow. As he puts it, there is “almost no room for empty space or tranquility”. It is all of Montreal crammed into a single shot seen through the reflection of a series of windows that is at once enchanted and very real. Comically enough, and perhaps without realizing it, he captures a detail that is central to every Montrealer’s daily routine at the heart of the image: the ever frustrating and at times absurd ‘No Turning Left’ sign. Even through the magic looking-glass, one can say that la réalité est de mise.
The Ladder of Success? is a stark contrast to Street Vibe and yet they have so much in common. Both are illusory and evasive, and yet we Montrealers abide by both. In the image, however, the Ladder of Success isn’t only difficult, but perhaps insuperable, as what appears to be solid and well-built is but a shadow on a wall, which makes the wall and the Ladder insurmountable. The symmetry is in contradiction with itself, and the brick pattern does not seem to agree on the East/West sides of the Ladder. This again is an unsuspecting comment on the continuing contest between the West-side English and the East-side French that has dominated Montreal for decades at the very least. Furthermore, the elusive shadow of the construction rig is a timely joke about our City’s construction problems as a source of political conflict between opposing parties: never-ending, never agreeing, without continuum, treading the same path repeatedly. We don’t know exactly when it all started, and neither do we know when it will end, just as the ladder seems to come from a bottomless pit before shooting up into infinity.
On a similar business-like note, Amped is the working aspect of Montreal. It is the high-voltage of Astral Media headquarters, Canada’s largest radio broadcaster and television mogul. As Ed puts it, “there is nothing ‘unplugged’ going on here”. The building seems to buzz with high voltage energy even when viewed through a reflection and you know that its wavelength is powerful and influential. It is perhaps the most evasive and elusive Ladder of Success, the one with the most promises, and highest degree of impossibility.
In a city like Montreal, the embrace of the Media is broad and influential. It’s trend-setting, whimsical and treacherous. Shot through and reflected by a store window, Movie Stars portrays just that. The mannequins are like Montreal’s pretty girls, who come in truck-loads and who do not always look all that different from one another, and yet their confidence and haughtiness, when present, is mind-bogglingly puzzling when put into perspective. In this case, the background plays an important role. It is the Banque Scotia Cinema, which offers no cheap thrills considering the price per movie, or worse per Pop-Corn. Angelina Jolie’s magnified face looking over their shoulders is a reminder that “it's up to the viewer to decide who the leading lady is and who is merely in the supporting cast”. And of course, somewhere at the bottom of all this is the Simon’s clothing store, accessible to every girl, but perhaps unworthy of the attention of true stars. Movie Stars is a coalition of Montrealers’ ambition, thirst for the spotlight and the everyday reality of not-having-quite-gotten-there-yet.
Seen through the eyes of a stranger, Montreal seems puzzling and marvellous, real and surreal, full of promises and routine difficulties that make one’s hopes so unattainable, and yet so persistently present in our minds, so much so, that we often forget to marvel at the beauty of our own hometown. Montreal is colourful and bland; it’s all about fashionista glamour and everyday work, symmetry and high-voltage irregularity. The city that we love so much is all about colourful combinations of contradictions, and that’s what makes it what it is.
Images mentioned in this article:
Ladder of Success?
Amped
Movie Stars
To get more information on Ed Emrich please visit his website. Visit our website on January 10th for our artist interview with this rising New York photographer.