Rediscovering Montreal with Gabor Szilasi’s Photographic Angle

Gabor Szilasi’s photos speak for themselves. You will likely hear their message for yourself if you pay a visit to Hinge Points; Gabor Szilasi’s Photographic Angle. There are bilingual guided tours of the exhibition available on April 16th and May 20th, 12 pm. Book your spot! The exhibition and tours are free and open to all.

Szilasi is a Hungarian-born photographer who left a deep impact on the photography world in Montreal. He immigrated to Canada in his 20s and quickly integrated into the art scene in Montreal in the 1960s, taking classes and meeting other artists. He built a distinguished career as a documentary photographer and a deeply influential teacher. 

Michelle MacLeod and I curated a selection of his photos from two of Szilasi’s series of works for this exhibition. It has been an absolute pleasure to spend time with these two series of photos. Spending time meant learning to see this city through Gabor Szilasi’s unusual angles and viewpoints. I approached these photos first as a Montrealer. I live in a neighbourhood of acute angles, unique building shapes, tiny balconies, unexpected doors, and an unmissable sense of the past. Szilasi’s photos provide a new way to see familiar sights in this city. Corners, intersections, and transitional points now make me pause, even though I have cycled past or walked right by them for the past 15 years since I adopted this city as my home.

Szilasi’s lens frames a storefront for me and I now pay attention to the shape of the shop windows on the blocks of St. Laurent near my home. I dwelt on his photos of the intersections of Rue Gilford and Saint Denis, and now I can see how different structures and shapes have been layered on top of each other, resulting in a mashup of old and new urban ideas.

Putting thought and research into the places these photos were taken provided a trip into the past to the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was a time of enormous change, of cultural evolution and infrastructure shifts. Digging into these places and tracing the stories and structures that shape the buildings and places Szilasi photographed has brought the past forward for me. I hope you take the time to dwell on these photos and to share stories of places that you recognize, details that you notice. To make this easier, we mapped out the places Szilasi photographed for this exhibition.

You can orient yourselves with the points on the map at the exhibition itself, (see the photo below) or better yet, take a walk with the digital version of the map to visit some of these places today and compare how these places have changed in the past 40 years. 

You can orient yourselves with the points on the map at the exhibition itself, (see the photo at left) or better yet, take a walk with the digital version of the map to visit some of these places today and compare how they have changed in the past 40 years. Stroll under the train tracks at Van Horne and Saint Laurent and put yourself in Szilasi’s shoes. Find the place where he set up his tripod in 1982. When I did this a few weeks ago, I found little changed in the intervening years; the cars are more compact, and they now share a lane with cyclists under the bridge. Pedestrians still frequent the sidewalks, the warehouse is largely unchanged, and cars are more compact, and they now share a lane with cyclists under the bridge. Pedestrians still frequent the sidewalks, the warehouse is largely unchanged, and the water tower still dominates the skyline, though it only just peeks out above the rooftop in Szilasi’s composition.

We’ve started a reading list as well if you want to dig into research on this point in Montreal’s history or further into Szilasi’s oeuvre and influence. Further questions about the Rare books prints and photograph collections can be addressed to my colleague Jennifer Garland, who curates this area of our collection, or to Michelle and myself.