| Symposium 2009-2010 Paths and Traces
The 10th Symposium international d’art in situ welcomes eleven artists from Cuba, the United States, Québec and the rest of Canada. These have been invited to conceive works on the theme of Chemins et tracés (Paths and Traces), with their creations being required to take shape in the unique environment of the Jardins du Précambrien.
2010 |
||
|
2009 Artists |
||
|
Xavier Cortada Holder of a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of Miami, Xavier Cortada today lives and works in that city. Orientée vers l’écologie et l’art public, his artistic practice often calls on the participation of spectators. He has created several works of public art in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, including at the White House, the Florida Supreme Court and the Miami Art Museum. He has also realized installations at the South Pole and at the North Pole. (Site 2) Project Genetic Markers (Ancestral Journeys across the Asian Continent) A series of flags livens up the forest through its palette of bright colors, but what Xavier Cortada is seeking to symbolically represent is the long progression of the first Homo Sapiens from East Africa up to their gradual implantation on all the continents. Sixty thousand years ago, a group of men and women set off on a northward migration. We store in our DNA traces of that migration, which stretched as far east as Asia, and from there over the Bering Strait into America, as well as heading west into Spain and Scandinavia. The mitochondrial DNA, belonging to women, enables us to go back to the primitive “Eve,” whereas the markers of chromosome Y, those of men, have retained signs of the paternal and maternal. The artist joined the Genographic Project, a genetic study launched by the National Geographic Society. The project aims to collect the DNA of a very great number of people in order to map the migration patterns of our distant ancestors. In creating an artistic branch for this project, Xavier Cortada is endowing it with visual qualities and enhancing the collection of data. The series of flags traces the crossing to the east, with an emphasis on the dominant genetic groups in each country. Thus, the journey starts off in Kenya, whose genetic group is E, just as it is for Egypt (green flags). Then come Oman and the United Arab Emirates, whose group is J (pale blue flags). The group R (dark blue flags) includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and India. But India also contains people from the group H (purple flags). Group D is found in Tibet, Japan and Java (red flags). China, Thailand, Korea and Malaysia are represented by group O (orange flags). Finally, Australia and the islands of Tonga and Samoa are located at the end of the journey (yellow flags). The emplacements of the flags corresponds approximately to the emplacement of the countries on a map of the world. Thus, individuals from different countries find themselves having the same distant ancestors, while others sharing the same space do not. The ultimate lesson, according to the artist, is to consider political borders to be profoundly artificial and to unite worldwide efforts in order, among other things, to reduce the effects of global warming. Pascale Beaudet, curator Linda Covit A veteran artist, Linda Covit lives and works in Montreal. She has produced over 30 works of public art, primarily in the city where she lives (including for Jarry and Mont-Royal parks), but also elsewhere in Canada and in the U.S. The recipient of a number of prizes and grants, she has also exhibited in Canada, the U.S. and Japan. (Site 3) Project Sons du Versant / Sounds of the Slope On the slope of a hill, 54 delicate metal stems support little chimes created from scratch by the artist with zinc bolts. The installation calls upon both sight, with its fine shocking-pink cords attached to the shiny metal stems, and upon hearing, with the delicate sound of the chimes whenever the wind picks up. Taking the ground into consideration, the artist uses a triangular part of it following the particular incline of the slope, dividing it up with fine stems of stainless steel. The regular rhythm of the layout lends a serene character to the work, which was conceived to be seen in its totality from the des Érables platform. When you move in front of it, however, an illusion of movement is created and the stems come to life, with a depth-perception game being created. The meditative quality inherent in most of the artist’s works is also found in Sounds of the Slope. It has been present since the start of her career, including in 1987, with Sekibutsu-gun. The perspective point of view on the commemorative pillars was already present; similarly, the work included a bench to look at them from, which formed a visual unity with the rest of the installation, just as here the platform is taken into account. The influence of Japanese culture has been enduring in Linda Covit’s work, as have been the serial works of the 1960s minimalist artists. Those references also permeate the artist’s numerous works of public art, installed both in the U.S. and in Canada. Pascale Beaudet, curator Duvier del Dago Fernández Born in Zulueta, Cuba, in 1976, Duvier del Dago Fernández is a graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts in Havana, where he now teaches drawing. He has realized numerous installations in Cuba, the United States and Europe. In France he is represented by Galerie Odile Ouizeman. (Site 5) Project Castillos en el aire / Castles in the Air Manufacturing his dreams is what Duvier del Dago seeks to do in his installations, three-dimensional drawings made up of synthetic thread. For the artist, drawing is no minor art, subordinate to painting or sculpture, as it has been defined since the sixteenth century. It should nevertheless be pointed out that normal drawing methods find themselves differently scaled by this very special process, which demands considerable space and where the layout of fine lines remains very visible against the green forest background. The artist’s previous works represent both characters and objects: a jockey on a horse, a skull, an airplane, a car… For Duvier del Dago, the diaphanous character of the installation corresponds to its transience, as well as to the fleetingness of thought. The sea in the forest is the poetic image that the artist has chosen for the Symposium, a contradiction that becomes possible through art as intermediary. This representation of the sea, however, embodies a quantity of references, both positive and negative. For a great many people from Québec, the sea is a symbol of vacations, whereas for Cubans it constitutes a frontier that it is difficult to cross. Water is a foreign element, hard to control, and infiltration by which threatens to cover over everything: we walk under the waves, in the artist’s dream, where we progress through different registers of emotion. Thus the image, which at first appearance seems innocent, almost decorative, carries within it a great depth of meaning. Pascale Beaudet, curator Marc Dulude Marc Dulude lives and works in Montreal. He has a master’s degree in fine arts from the Université du Québec in Chicoutimi, and has exhibited at various artist-run centers and exhibition spaces in Québec. Marc represented Québec at the 5th Jeux de la Francophonie in Niamey, Niger, where he won a silver medal. He has also done a temporary work for the pond on the esplanade of Place des Arts in Montreal. (Site 10) Project Regard et tain / Looking in Many Mirrors Installing a fountain at the heart of a forest is a gamble that only artists will make. Still, its astounding presence leads us on the one hand to become conscious of the urban value of this type of construction, as well as the discussion possibilities that might arise from encounters along the secondary path that visitors will take to get there. The paradox of its imposing and unexpected presence is an ideal pretext for comments. Suzanne FerlandL Suzanne FerlandL lives and works in Sainte-Thérèse, in the Laurentians. An UQAM graduate in fine arts, she has exhibited in several Québec galleries and exhibition centers, as well as at the Canadian Science and Technology Museum. Her projects include works of public art, among them Sentier Art3, a sculpture pathway laid out in Parc du Bois de Belle-Rivière, in Mirabel. (Site 6) Project 7721303-2009 Suzanne FerlandL’s work consists of two parts: the two generic faces installed at the top of two withered trees, and a map of the world she fashioned in relief on one of the large rocks on the trail. The two faces were produced by superimposing the profiles of a number of assistants helping out at the Fondation at the start of the artists’ residency. That accumulation engendered a face without a distinct personality, a generic type of indeterminate characteristics, without sex, race or particular color, or else bringing them all together. Flanking the pathway, they stand over visitors like silent attendants. A little further on, behind a large rock, is a map of the world designed with pebbles, a three-dimensional tableau resting on the moss. A series of small sculpted generic faces can also be seen there: they have been sent to all the artists, as well as to some members of the Symposium team, including, of course, the Symposium founder, René Derouin. The faces have been positioned on the map according to the town of origin of each individual; they represent the multiplicity of processes and encounters stemming from the 2009Symposium. In the work of Suzanne FerlandL, commemoration and ritual occupy an important place. People who have disappeared or been cast aside by society live again for a time, for the fleeting moment in which they are evoked by the artistic act. Most of the time, the artist’s interventions are made up of three components: performance, installation and interaction with visitors. For the Symposium, because of the residency, it is the installation that will play the more significant role. Pascale Beaudet, curator Tricia Middleton Tricia Middleton was born in Vancouver in 1972, and today lives and works in Montreal. She has a bachelor’s degree from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and a master’s in fine arts from Concordia University. Her installations have been hosted by a number of Canadian museums and artist-run centers. Her video works, meanwhile, have been shown as part of various festivals and events in Canada and abroad. (Site 8) Project Body Caves The two shelters made by Tricia Middleton introduce a purely artificial element into the forest of the Jardins du précambrien. The forest context is very much a presence in the imaginings of the artist, who grew up in a Vancouver suburb and who has read widely in nineteenth-century writers, including the Bronte sisters. The intense contrast produced by the presence of these shelters in nature prompts us to question the definitions of natural and artificial. They contradict the stereotyped image that we have of nature, everything located in the extension of nineteenth-century romanticism and the notion of the sublime associated with it. The idea of a genuine and inviolate nature comes from that era, where portrayals of people alone before a rugged landscape provide the emotion of the sublime. Every era carries with it its own representation of nature, and ours, influenced by the last two centuries, swings back and forth between sublime and kitsch. These shelters in the forest are made up of highly artificial, clearly urban, materials: cotton balls, blankets, paint, sequins, frequent elements in the work of Tricia Middleton. The excessive consumption of our time is reflected in the overabundance and repetitive use of these commonplace materials, typical of our industrial era. In addition, the decorative overload of the interior of the cave-shelter returns us to a quasi-caricatural hyperfemininity, too excessive to be true. The reference of the title is to bodies, but whether these are animal or human, they are absent from the installation. The artist will leave the shelters in place over the winter, when their fundamental qualities will no doubt be made the most of. Pascale Beaudet, curator Daniel Olson Daniel Olson is the holder of a master’s degree in fine arts from Toronto’s York University, and his work, which focuses on video and performance, has been presented by artist-run centers, galleries and museums across Canada and in Europe. He has received a number of grants and taken part in several artist’s residencies. (Site 4) Project Empire Studio Daniel Olson is an artist of movement. That term can be taken in more than one sense: the artist moves in space during his performances, plus, he changes the meaning of the objects or words he uses in his artistic projects. This summer, he walks along the roads of the Symposium with his portable studio, dressed in a white linen three-piece suit whose precise era is difficult to pinpoint. That character, invented from scratch, is “Monsieur.” The enigmatic, elegant man with his cane and hat has already strolled along other paths, rather more urban ones. He evokes the early decades of the twentieth century, which carries within itself a dose of nostalgia: nostalgia for a time we think was less troubled than our own. His portable studio is inspired by the painters of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, who were the first to go off and paint “in nature” – meaning they took along all their equipment to work in the open air. But instead of brushes, paints and canvases, here we have the modern version of the ideal studio according to Daniel: portable desk, bookcase, bar, smoking room and storage space. For each of his artist-colleagues, Daniel has prepared a short performance, a photographic outline of which is installed near each of his works. He sings a song taken from the pop repertoire or recites a poem of his own making, borrowed from another author and fiddled with in some way or other. Often using a bricolage technique, a pen amplified by a microphone or a bullhorn connected to a ukulele, he deliberately complicates his actions and plays in the registers of the learned and the popular to outwit current codes and create an effect of comic surprise. Pascale Beaudet, curator Lyndal Osborne Born in Newcastle, Australia, Lyndal Osborne is an artist of long standing living and working in Edmonton. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, where she completed a master’s in fine arts, she is emeritus professor at the University of Alberta. Her installations have been presented in more than 300 exhibits around the world, and her works can be found in a number of Canadian and foreign collections. (Site 9) Project (in collaboration with John Freeman) Counterpoint / Contrepoint A secondary road leads to a space that is different from the surrounding forest, that of a Counterpoint to the natural world. Forty-one artificial “trees” have been placed on a geometric grid, which here and there has been shifted slightly in order to avoid irregularities of terrain as well as real trees, just as in reforestation practices. The motifs of these new-type trees have been taken from two photographs by Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932), a German photographer who took pictures of plants with great attention to detail and without including natural habitat. That said, this is certainly not a matter of illicit duplication, since only certain details have been borrowed, and then enlarged a considerable number of times. Nature and culture, as in several other works in the Symposium, are profoundly intertwined. The motif comes from nature and returns to it, but the material itself on which it is printed is a totally artificial plastic. Nonetheless, the successive stripes look like horsetail rings, a plant of humid environments that is frequently found in Québec, or like bamboo stalks. The successive gradation of hues, from the darkest to the lightest, enables the artificial grove to merge with the forest, although the camouflage is not total: once the visitor looks on this side of the path, it is easy to tell the difference between the natural and the artificial shapes. With this new species of trees the artist preserves an esthetic dimension and in addition brings a critical gaze to bear on the experiments of institutes of agronomy or companies who produce seeds for farming, the ones that create genetically modified plants whose possible repercussions on health or on the natural environment we are not yet aware of. Pascale Beaudet, curator Fernando Rodriguez Falcón Fernando Rodríguez Falcón was born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1970. A graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts in Havana, he lives and works in the Cuban capital. Created in collaboration with his alter ego, Fernando de la Cal, his installations and paintings have appeared in several exhibits in Cuba, in the three Americas and in Europe. (Site 1) Project Punto ciego / Blind Point Fernando Rodríguez possesses a double, Francisco de la Cal, whom he created in 1991 while a student at the Institute of Fine Arts in Havana. Born in 1933 in rural Cuba, Francisco de la Cal went blind at the age of thirty. The humble coal seller also turns out to be an artist, although self-taught, his work close to naïve art. He belongs to the generation that was at the origin of the Revolution. Whereas Fernando Rodríguez was educated twenty years later, assimilating the most contemporary notions in fine arts. Francisco communicates his ideas to Fernando, who produces the works. The blind coal seller is often represented in the works of Fernando Rodríguez, furnished with the attributes of the visually handicapped: dark glasses and cane. For the Jardins du Précambrien, the character lengthens disproportionately to the point of forming a cane himself, and he distorts himself to the point of creating a sphere. For the artist, who regularly uses this stylized figure in formal alignments, such a grouping symbolizes the get-together of artists at the 2009 symposium, while still having a social significance. The blind point of the title is that of every individual, but also that of the societies in which we live, with their injustices and their inequalities. The character of Francisco de la Cal is taken from Cuban history and popular representations from the island. The series of identical figures produces a formal effect borrowed from minimalist art of the 1960s, while at the same time questioning the content of individual and collective identity. For him, the artist as creator of shapes and social commentary has a role to play in the evolution of society. Pascale Beaudet, curator Jennifer Stillwell Born in 1972, Jennifer Stillwell lives and works in Winnipeg. The holder of a master’s degree in fine arts from the Art Institute of Chicago, she has been the recipient of a number of grants and prizes and has done installations in Canada, the U.S. and in Europe. She is represented by the Pari Nadimi Gallery in Toronto. (Site 7) Project Forest Processes Some of Jennifer Stillwell’s accumulations are discreet to the point of being almost invisible. If visitors do not pay close attention to the road barely traced, if they do not focus their gaze on the ground, it is quite possible they will see nothing. And yet, there is much to see: series of round forms assembled in tight groups, quite like natural formations in a type of structure that can be found routinely in the cells of plants or of the human body. The wooden stakes with the sharpened ends are somewhat more apparent, and stand there like something left behind by primitive cultures, whereas the aggregates at ground level are made up of plastic pipes, conspicuous traces of industrial civilization. The solidity and durability of plastic pipes buried in the ground mimic the long-lastingness of natural structures, while at the same time lending them an artificial dimension. The neutrality of the color contributes to the overlapping of artificial forms in the natural context of the Jardins du Précambrien. The work of Jennifer Stillwell combines natural elements and others formed mechanically, which she repeats in series in order to produce a significant contrast effect. She uses “poor” materials, meaning those that have no monetary or esthetic value: gravel, earth, plastic baskets, metal pots… The ordinariness of the objects is a reflection of the repetition of daily activities. The creative process, also repetitive, possesses great value for the artist. It is through the reiteration of simple or complex actions, taken by her herself or with the help of collaborators, that the accumulation occurs and meaning is created. The challenge for the artist has been to face for the first time a totally natural space, different from a gallery setting, where the parameters are controlled, and different as well from that of urban public art, where the constraints are more of an institutional character. Pascale Beaudet, curator 2009 Guest Yves Daoust, composer Yves Daoust took his first piano lessons at the age of seven, with Alice Vigeant; at sixteen he carried out his first electroacoustic experiments, “preparing” the family piano to do the soundtrack for one of his friends’ 8mm experimental films. At nineteen he created his first electronic work: an hour’s worth of music for a gestural theatre piece presented in Berlin, Germany, as part of an international amateur theatre festival. At twenty he entered the Conservatoire de Musique et d’Art Dramatique de Montréal, first in the piano class of Irving Heller, then in Gilles Tremblay’s composition class. Since 1978, the year in which he officially entered the professional music world, Yves Daoust has composed an average of one work per year, for different genres, various situations and different ensembles. His influences are many: movie soundtracks, of course, but also Cage, Xenakis, Kagel, Ferrari, Savouret, Stockhausen (Hymnen), Beethoven, Schumann, Magritte… (Sentier de la Sonorité) Project Empreintes / Prints – Collective work The entry path opens onto a circular area, a compound both contemplative and interactive where visitors will be invited to reflect in silence for a few minutes before penetrating the exhibit zone. A piece of electroacoustic music, inspired by the sounds of the forest, plays continuously. Chimes of wood, bone, and glass and ceramic cubes accompany the permanent musical part, at the whim of the wind and public intervention. These sound sculptures will be deposited throughout the summer by visitors who have made them during the workshop sessions that precede the visits. As more and more are put up, they will make up a sort of organic keyboard that reacts to everyone’s visit as well as to climatic conditions. The electroacoustic music pours out of eight loudspeakers. Visitors will have the time to sit down and let themselves be caressed by the gentleness of the sounds, in symbiosis with the cumulative memory of the place. Hélène Monette, poet Hélène Monette studied literature, art history, and to a lesser degree, fine arts. Cofounder of the photo magazine Ciel Variable, she worked for ten years in community and cultural organizing. A poet and novelist whose writing is at once rebellious and sensitive, she has participated in a number of public readings in Québec and elsewhere. Hélène Monette has collaborated on projects that combine poetry with radio, cinema, theater, discs and video. She has performed the works of other poets at tribute evenings and has published in several literary or news periodicals, among them Estuaire, Moebius and Relations. Of her book-length published works may be mentioned Crimes et chatouillements (XYZ éditeur, 1992), Unless (Éditions du Boréa, 1995), Un jardin dans la nuit (2001) and Thérèse pour Joie et Orchestre (2008). (Sentier des Chevreuils) Project Huit Vents 2010 Artistes Nathalie Levasseur Multidisciplinary artist, interested in human behaviour in his immediate environment, Nathalie Levasseur allies sculpture, installation, works in situ, performance and multimedia in an art of assembly and cohesion. She counts several solos and collective exhibitions in Quebec, Canada, Japan, France and Spain. On many occasions, her projects received the support of the “Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec”. Project Mes racines, Ma Terre / My Roots, my Land Composed of remnants of chair seats, made mainly of cane, and skeletons of seatless chairs, as well as the ghostly interweaving of a felled tree, Nathalie Levasseur’s work offers a multifaceted deliberation on the place that is ours, or that we choose to occupy, as human individuals among the plant-world individuals that surround us. Integrated into the forest, without making any judgment, Mes racines, ma Terre conjures up the anthropological foundations of the way people use living matter for their survival. Marc Walter Artist of great sensibility with a unique course, Master in management, he is very early interested in the arts and attends classes of the bachelor of visual arts at UQO and in varied institutions in Canada and Europe. His participation to numerous events in the country and abroad allows him to acquire the recognition of his peers and of the public. Marc Walter is a creator specialist of outdoors and indoors installations on specific sites where they are set up (sculptures, spaces, mosaics). The artist intervenes by means of organic material and his creations are mostly short-lived. Often large sizes, the installations allow the visitor to penetrate into a universe and to live an emotion related to the history of the places. Project Territorium Et Tu With Territorium Et Tu, I propose an installation that speaks to the constant efforts of humans to master and control the territory up to the realization that nature will in the end be stronger no matter what. The First People always try to keep an organic and spiritual relationship with nature, where the white man imposes himself. Our society has to question its relationship to an environment that feeds and supports it. I created two chambers and a canoe. The first chamber invites to penetrate onto the site; the visitor can touch it and can get into it. The second chamber is a meditation place, a place to think about how humans should relate to nature; partly integrated with the first chamber, it forces to look up. The canoe, with its easily recognizable organic shape, evokes a culture. Its position expresses a refusal, extracting itself from the chambers. The whole installation talks about evolution, from the rigid to the organic, from the bottom to the top, from the reality to the dream… 2010 Guest Pierre Dostie, composer Composer and pianist, Pierre Dostie studied composition at the Vincent D'Indy school and at the McGill University where he also studied electro-acoustic composition. Founder member of “SONDE” in 1976, he works until 1986 within this group of Montreal composers, whose researches and experiments concern mainly the construction of new sound sources and the broadcasting of mixed and live electro-acoustic works. His leading-edge and innovative artistic approach brings him to participate in multidisciplinary events and to present his individual and collective compositions in several Quebec, Canadian and European cities. General-purpose composer, Pierre Dostie joins artists of many disciplines to create original music broadcasted within the framework of installations and sound environments for concerts/ performances, pictorial and multimedia exhibitions, movies festivals and art videos. He was repeatedly recipients of scholarships of the “Ministère des Affaires Culturelles du Québec et du Conseil des Arts du Canada. General-purpose composer, Pierre Dostie joins artists of many disciplines to create original music broadcasted within the framework of installations and sound environments for concerts/ performances, pictorial and multimedia exhibitions, movies festivals and art videos. He was repeatedly recipients of scholarships of the “Ministère des Affaires Culturelles du Québec et du Conseil des Arts du Canada. François Hébert, poet François Hébert taught literature at the University of Montreal from 1972 till 2006 and organized writing workshops. He managed the magazine “Liberté”, was journalist for “Radio-Canada” and literary critic for the “Devoir”. He is the author of about twenty works, among which several poetry collections: “Les pommes les plus hautes, 1997; Comment serrer la main de ce mort-là, 2007; Poèmes de cirque et circonstance, 2009)
|
||
