John Max

John Max (John Porchawka, 23 September 1936 – 5 May 2011) was a Canadian photojournalist, photography teacher, and art photographer. He is recognized for his use of the narrative sequence, his expressive portraiture, and his intensely personal, subjective approach to photography by a number of critics, curators, artists, and photographers in Canada and abroad. It has also been the source of a number of responses and homages. His work is represented by the Stephen Bulger Gallery, in Toronto, which also administers his Estate. Robert Frank said about him "When I think of Canadian photography, his name comes up first."

John Max (John Porchawka, 23 September 1936 – 5 May 2011) was a Canadian photojournalist, photography teacher, and art photographer. He is recognized for his use of the narrative sequence, his expressive portraiture, and his intensely personal, subjective approach to photography by a number of critics, curators, artists, and photographers in Canada and abroad. It has also been the source of a number of responses and homages. His work is represented by the Stephen Bulger Gallery, in Toronto, which also administers his Estate. Robert Frank said about him "When I think of Canadian photography, his name comes up first." ==Work== Max grew up in Montréal, where he participated in the visual arts scene of the city during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and published numerous photo essays for newspapers and magazines. He also maintained close ties to the American photography scene. Max was championed during the 1960s and 1970s by the National Film Board of Canada, through its Still Photography Division, and the National Gallery of Canada, through a variety of exhibition and publication projects. Gradually abandoning photojournalism during the 1960s, he focused his work on photographic art exhibitions and publications. His best-known work, Open Passport (exhibited 1972–1976; published 1973¹) is a long sequence that combined photographs from diverse sources shot over the span of a decade into a unified, poetical narrative. Following a long trip to Japan (1974–1979) that resulted in his deportation and the loss of many rolls of films, he became less visible than before on the arts scene in Canada. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, he benefitted from a regain of interest in his work, before his death in 2011. Finally, in 1972 the exhibition Open Passport = Un passeport infini opened at the Photo Gallery of the NFB in Ottawa. A sequence of 161 black and white photographs culled from Max's archives, some dating as early as 1960, Open Passport is widely considered his most important work. The photographs are mainly portraits, of Max's family (his wife and son) and friends, many of which were established artists and personalities. Among those portrayed are Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Sam Tata, François Dallegret, Vittorio Fiorucci, Guy Borremans, Sylvain P. [Henri] Cousineau, Lorraine Monk, Jean-Claude Germain, Moondog, Arthur Lipsett, Frank Zappa and Gail Zappa, Henry Zemel, Gordon Sheppard, Nina Raginsky, Judith Eglington, Charles Gagnon, Dennis Stock, Martin Lavut, Grace Slick, and Michio Kushi. Max unified the selection for Open Passport by organizing the images according to a narrative progression, by grouping images in grids, using repetitions and a variety of sequencing strategies that can recall large-scale photographic exhibitions such as The Family of Man. The underlying story is that of a couple confronting the arrival of a child: whilst the mother experiences an increasing toll on her sanity and her energy, the father confronts a dilemma between his artistic career and his family. The conflict is ultimately resolved by his departure, but this resolution is not considered a happy ending by those involved. Open Passport was accompanied by a slide show of the photographs at its opening in Ottawa and Montréal, and it traveled to multiple venues in Canada until 1976. It was printed as a photobook by the Toronto-based magazine IMPRESSIONS as its special issue No. 6 and 7 in late 1973. A.D. Coleman favourably reviewed it in The New York Times. In the late 1990s, through the efforts of the Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto, and VOX in Montréal, John Max exhibited photographs from Open Passport, from Japan, and from On the Wings of a Mosquito, this time to greater critical acclaim. The Musée de la Photographie à Charleroi, in Belgium, showed his photographs and printed a catalogue, Quelque chose suit son cours = Something is taking its place (1998). Max was also part of the 1999 edition of the Noorderlicht Fotofestival in Groningen, Netherlands, and four photographs from Open Passport were printed in the catalogue, Wonderland. During the early 2000s, his photos appeared in retrospective thematic group exhibitions of the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, and the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts. Two projects concurrently attempted to sketch a biography of Max, David Homel's essay Le monde est un document (2002), and Michel Lamothe's documentary film John Max: A Portrait (2010). Lamothe's movie was filmed around the time Max was being evicted from his house in 2003 and shows him in dire straits. The sale of a complete set of exhibition prints of the original Open Passport exhibition to the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography afforded Max some financial security, while the support of his friends—Lamothe, Gabor Szilasi, Claude Chamberland among others—allowed the emptying of his overstuffed house and the safeguard of his photographic materials. He lived in a Buddhist ashram for the final years of his life and died on 5 May 2011. 1970 Le soleil brilla toute la nuit = And the Sun It Shone White All Night Long, Société Française de Photographie, Paris 1972 Open Passport = Un passeport infini, The NFB Photo Gallery, Ottawa 1982 John Max: Images of Japan, 1974–79 Photographs, A.R. Encadrements, Montréal 1984 On the Wings of a Mosquito: The Nothing and The Everything, Dazibao, Montréal 1986 Strike up the Band!, The Art Workshop, Montréal 1997 Swallowing a Diamond, Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto 1997 Open Passport, VOX, Montréal 1967 Photography in Canada 1967 = Photographie au Canada 1967, NFB 1968 Other Places = Sous d'autres cieux, NFB 1969 Seeds of the spacefields = Cela commença par un rêve et ce fut la création, NFB 1969 Image 6: Photography in Canada 1969 = Photographie au Canada 1969, NFB 1969 Quatre photographes montréalais: Marc-André Gagné, Ronald Labelle, John Max, Michel Saint-Jean = Four Montreal Photographers, National Gallery of Canada 1999 Wonderland, Noorderlicht Photofestival 1999 Chiasson, Herménégilde, dir. Photography: Eleven Artists from Canada = Photographies : onze artistes du Canada. National Film Board of Canada = Office National du Film du Canada. Video, 48 min. 2006 Lavut, Martin, dir. Remembering Arthur. National Film Board of Canada = Office National du Film du Canada. Video, 89 min. 2010 Lamothe, Michel, dir. John Max: A Portrait. Les Films du 3 Mars. Digital video, 94 min. 1964 Lipsett, Arthur, dir. 21-87. National Film Board of Canada = Office National du Film du Canada. 16 mm, 9 min. 1970 Lipsett, Arthur, dir. N-Zone. National Film Board of Canada = Office National du Film du Canada. 16 mm, 45 min. 1967 Gagnon, Charles, dir. Le huitième jour = The Eighth Day. 16 mm, 13 min. 1971 Nishihata, Jesse [Hideo], dir. ...to be INDIAN. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 16 mm, 54 min. VOX, Centre de l'image contemporaine Galerie La Castiglione

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