Melvin Charney

Parable No. 9 Series: So be it… Factories are closing, museums are opening, but all the nudes have descended the stairs, 1992

© The Estate of Melvin Charney / SOCAN (2022) • Photo: Richard-Max Tremblay

Melvin Charney, Parable No. 9 Series: So be it… Factories are closing, museums are opening, but all the nudes have descended the stairs, © The Estate of Melvin Charney / SOCAN (2022) • Photo: Richard-Max Tremblay
Artist
Melvin Charney
Title
Parable No. 9 Series: So be it… Factories are closing, museums are opening, but all the nudes have descended the stairs
Dimensions and medium
Pastel and laser prints on paper mounted on cardboard, 115 × 231.5 cm
Origin
Gift of the artist
Artwork description
Intrinsically linked to the sculptural installation created by Melvin Charney for the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal’s inaugural exhibition, Pour la suite du Monde, in 1992, this work was inspired by two photographs published the previous year. The first shows workers leaving a railway car factory on the brink of closure, while the second features the new contemporary art museum about to open in the same city. Part of Charney’s Paraboles series, the piece posits the following idea: unlike events that condense time and space, artworks reverse this process. The artist’s interventions onto the enlarged found images activate their surface and break their space while extracting the essence of their meaning.

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