Montreal artist JJ Levine\u2019s photographic work questions the roles traditionally associated with gender identity through an intimate exploration of queer domestic spaces. Family<\/em>, Levine\u2019s most recent project, concerns alternative family structures and, in his words, \u201cradically reimagining parenthood.\u201d Although certainly continuous with Switch<\/em> and Alone Time<\/em>, projects of his that use the performative body to explore gender construction and malleability, Family<\/em> is still aesthetically and conceptually more in line with Queer Portraits<\/em>. Woven around the artist\u2019s community and significant relationships in Montreal, Queer Portraits<\/em> brings together around a hundred portraits of friends, lovers, and relatives photographed over a nine-year period. With the birth of his child, Family<\/em> has become an opportunity for Levine to develop a project around the nucleus of his own queer family, challenging heteronormative nuclear and strictly biological conceptions of parentage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photographs and 16 mm and Super-8 film, historically used to build popular family archives, here serve as an artistic medium not only to capture images of the artist\u2019s family, but also to counter the invisibility of non-stereotypically conforming families in visual culture. Laden with quiet emotion, their colours saturated, these photographs feature various members of Levine\u2019s chosen family, including some of his friends, their faces neutral, wearing no forced smile, gazing straight into the lens. Among the highlights of the project are Harry Pregnant 2015<\/em>, which presents Levine\u2019s partner, pregnant, bare-chested, a hand on his belly; Harry and Joah<\/em> 2016<\/em>, in which Harry cradles their child; and Self-Portrait with Joah 2016<\/em>, which shows the artist feeding the baby. Like so many memories, these films of Joah\u2019s birth and of the family at the beach or during a party, with their vintage look and their imagery, fill a void in the recent past\u200a\u2014\u200athe absent snapshots of a queer family\u200a\u2014\u200awhile simultaneously conjuring the violence of this nonexistence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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$\"Levine,$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Levine,$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
JJ Levine<\/strong>
Harry and Joah 2016<\/em>, from the series Family<\/em>.
Photo: courtesy of the artist<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Self-Portrait with Joah 2016<\/em>, from the series Family<\/em>.
Photo: courtesy of the artist <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Levine_SWITCH\"$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Levine_SWITCH\"$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
JJ Levin<\/strong>e
Switch 6<\/em>, from the series Switch<\/em>, 2009.
Photos: courtesy of the artist <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Levine_SWITCH\"$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Levine_SWITCH\"$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
JJ Levin<\/strong>e
Switch <\/em>3, from the series Switch<\/em>, 2009.
Photos: courtesy of the artist <\/p>\n\n\n
Ariane De Blois, JJ Levine<\/div>
Ariane De Blois, JJ Levine<\/div>
Ariane De Blois, JJ Levine<\/div>
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