The new Écrans series, inspired by Japanese Zen gardens, comprises nine large-scale elements that unfurl in an imposing procession through the exhibition space. In it, the artist takes up where he left off in the exhibition L’Envers des apparences presented at the museum in 2005.
Made out of ordinary printed matter (sketchbooks, issues of Artforum magazine, posters, manga comic strips, colouring books, Yellow Pages directories and road maps), these works are attached straight onto the wall. They are consequently ephemeral and will be destroyed in the dismantling process, in accordance with the artist’s wishes.
With repeated gestures, patience and time, Fortin tirelessly develops a work by folding and gluing, turning paper screens into murals, raising seriality to the level of fascination, and producing pictorial spaces in which the viewers readily lose themselves. Exhibition curator Sandra Grant Marchand sums up the artist’s approach as follows: “We are speaking of an oeuvre that brings together the visual experience of a work defined by its materiality and the contemplative experience of a work informed by a kind of immateriality.”