Theme exhibition presenting a dozen works from the Musée collection focusing on the notion of space and time. All the works, which are mostly recent acquisitions, reveal significant current concerns and display strong material and formal qualities.
Featured artists include Pascal Grandmaison, Francine Savard, Claude-Philippe Benoît, Martin Bourdeau, Denis Farley, Lynne Cohen, James Casebere and William Kentridge.
James Casebere’s fictional Parlor, 2001, and Lynne Cohen’s very real Spa, 2000, for example, share similar architectures devoid of any human presence. In Denis Farley’s Paysage étalonné, Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, Québec, 1997, the artist becomes a sort of yardstick in the middle of the image. Claude-Philippe Benoît telescopes time in his Sans titre no 17, Chapitre…du Prince, Les lieux maîtres, 1999,by juxtaposing computers and antique furniture. Inspired by the writings of Pinelo, Sergio Vega relocates the Garden of Eden to South America in Il primer dia, 2003. Francine Savard, for her part, turns Canada over sideways from east to west in her polyptych Ici/Là-bas and Toi/moi, 2004. The configuration of bed sheets in Serge Tousignant’s Ouragan Fran, 1996-1997, recalls weather charts and diagrams. Examining memory and landscape, the four diptychs Nothing Ever Stays the Same, 2004, by Henri Venne blur the boundaries between painting and photography, between taking the shot in the past and experiencing the work in the present. Martin Bourdeau tackles the portrait theme in Fig. 62 (Le déjeuner sur l’herbe de Manet), 1999, a work referring to the history of painting and painting genres. Pascal Grandmaison offers five portraits of young people: fragmented close-ups of faces and musical instruments incorporating the reflected full-length portrait of the viewer. William Kentridge pays tribute to the main archetypes of art and culture in Learning the Flute, 2003, with its allusions to Mozart’s Magic Flute. Through landscape features, Trevor Gould explores the social and cultural history of plants in Le monde dans notre ville : les cent dernières années. Jardin botanique, Montréal 1997. And Greg Curnoe’s America, 1989-1990, deals with the notions of history and territory.