Collections Detail – MAC Montréal

Artist: Yves Trudeau
Title: La Cité
Dimensions and medium: Steel, 303 × 51 × 45 cm
Artwork description: Trained in various artistic disciplines during his youth, Trudeau first specialized in ceramics, then developed a career as a sculptor at the end of the 1950s. Bronze was his first material of choice before he began exploring the many possibilities of welded iron. La Cité is among the first iron pieces he created. This material allowed him to create pared-down forms and volumes that could be reduced to a few lines of action. By hollowing them, Trudeau created a dichotomous interplay between interior and exterior, between positive and negative. Iron also made it possible to create spatial thrust, giving the sculpture more vertical momentum. La Cité features some realistic elements, while other forms remain quite abstract. But as the title of his work suggests, Trudeau makes a direct reference to the urban environment. This theme was an early foreshadowing of his later preoccupation with humanity’s place within the cosmos.

Yves Trudeau