Dans l’œil de l’autre (2013)

Dans l’œil de l’autre was a collaboration between Gabor Szilasi and Chuck Samuels.

Dans l’œil de l’autre was part of “Sitegeist,” a fund-raising initiative of Ciel variable magazine. This campaign was based on the idea of bringing together a collector and a photographer to create an original artwork on the theme “the spirit of a place” – a place interpreted by the artist. The exercise offered a unique opportunity for collectors to learn about an artist’s creative universe and to discuss how the artist would read and interpret the chosen site to integrate it into his or her creative world. This project offered collectors a chance to be active participants in a creative process.

Having known each other for at least 30 years, Gabor Szilasi and Chuck Samuels seized the opportunity to work together for the first time after being selected individually by Alexandre Taillefer and Debbie Zakaib for the “Sitegeist” project. Their aim was to produce two separate but linked works, each one issuing from their distinct approach to image-making and created to respond to the space in which the works would be installed; portions of the wall on either side of the collectors’ impressive fireplace.

Gabor’s photograph was made in Chuck’s home, with the artist posed just to right of his fireplace, next an 8×10 inch view camera and in front of his portrait of his father. As an environmental portrait, a central element in Gabor’s œuvre, it deals explicitly with Chuck’s space and is linked to the site where it would be situated: to the right of Alexandre Taillefer’s and Debbie Zakaib’s fireplace.

True to his primary interest in photography as subject matter and his frequent habit of using himself as a stand-in for photography, Chuck created a fictional and deliriously self-referential rendition of the space inside the camera at the very moment that Gabor’s photograph was made.

2013 Ciel variable, no. 94, Spring – Summer, 2013, p. 62 – 63

2013 The private collection of Alexandre Taillefer and Debbie Zakaib

Please contact Gabor Szilasi and/or Chuck Samuels.