| 2012 Artists Paloma Torres | Maribel Portela | Pierre Dostie | Normand Ménard Guest Speakers Jean Désy | Henri Dorion | Pierre Nepveu | Michel Allard | Manon Regimbald 2011 |
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ARTISTS 2011 |
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Artist: Jean-Jules Soucy Origin: La Baie (Québec) Residence: La Baie (Québec) Photo: John Ohis Jean-Jules Soucy has worked regularly with the community of La Baie (Saguenay region), prompted by an enduring sense of belonging to the town where he was born. La Baie remains an inspiration and his “material” of choice. At the turn of the millennium, the permanent monument entitled “Pyramide des Ha! Ha!” was erected there. Firmly anchored in his time, the artist wields innumerable visual and linguistic puns that follow their own rules. A, B, C and D are his favourite letters, which he uses to create infinite combinations. He recently added the initials M.D. to his repertoire. A skilled recycler of ideas and objects, Soucy gives new life to common or discarded materials. Extensive, selective collections or requests are at the root of large-scale installations that require public participation. The artist deftly combines art-its history and its function-and life. |
PROJECT: JJS © D
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Artist: Jean-Denis Boudreau Origin: Moncton (New Brunswick) Residence: Moncton (New Brunswick) Photo: Mathieu Léger Jean-Denis Boudreau shares some of modern society’s ills with his fellow man, but responds by offering solutions to the trials and tribulations of life on earth, and of departing this life. His means: cunning, trickery, absurdity, graphic signs, instructions to be followed and gallery or public infiltrations, alone or with the Collectif Taupe (Jennifer Bélanger, Angèle Cormier, Mario Doucette), with whom he collaborates. From insignificant tasks to grand designs, nothing gets by this artist/researcher whose work/laboratory attempts to cure our daily dysfunctions. The artist is friendly, not pretentious, but his humour does not mask the gravity of his/our relationship with the world. His vision seems boundless: what will remedy our consumer culture? how can we create art for everyone? Halfway between an introspective alibi and true attention to the world, the artist investigates the way our lives are built. |
PROJECT: Home Made
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Artist: José Luis Torres Origin: Córdoba Residence: Montmagny (Québec) José Luis Torres claims to make sculptures. His recurring material is wood, untransformed and left bare, assembled in such a way as to evoke construction sites or furniture arrangements. Happily situated between environmental design, landscape architecture and immersive installation, his work initially draws the viewer into an experiential position. The artist creates “me” and “we” areas: the visitor moves through “ambulatories” (devoid of all religious references). Torres designs open spaces within connotation-filled spaces (gallery-within-an-art-gallery, gallery-within-nature) which are activated by the visitor. The titles of his works clearly indicate the spectrum of his process: Exchanges, Drifts, Crossing Points, Portable Landscapes, etc. Torres’ concerns vary between humanity’s imprint, in its relationship with the world, and mobility as a matter of survival. |
PROJECT: Espaces collecteurs
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Artists: BGL Origin: Québec (Québec) Residence: Québec (Québec) Photo: BGL Made up of Jasmin Bilodeau, Sébastien Giguère and Nicolas Laverdière, the BGL collective is known for its immersive installations, sculptures, photographs and performances that combine socio-political commentary and unfeigned humour. With ease, emphasis and extravagance, the trio appropriate exhibition sites and public spaces (“natural” or “civilized”). More often than not incorporating found objects from their surroundings, their works revolve around themes such as the effects of overconsumption, our threatened environment, death, what is real and what is fake, and the role of art in society. They meld folklore and design, without imposing any hierarchy. They mimic reality in order to deconstruct it; they render the trivial fascinating. The BGL collective disorients viewers at every turn, without hitting them over the head, jumping between discomfort and obviousness, and alternating first- and second-person points of view. BGL has no leader: eternal adolescents, the trio plot their “mischief” together. |
PROJECT: Le Chablis
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Artist: Pascale Girardin Origin: Montréal (Québec) Residence: Montréal (Québec) Photo: Stéphany Hildebrand A great specialist in clay, Pascale Girardin uses this medium and ancient pottery techniques to create a wide range of works, from the culinary arts (line of dishware for domestic use) to the visual arts and design (integrated architectural pieces). She has followed a unique path in the world of ceramics by alternating between producing the smallest of functional objects and majestic installations (a 100-foot ceiling fixture, a 400-square-foot mural). Her recurring motifs evoke an organic profusion (branches, petals, corals painted in timeless colours) wherein a seeming roughness is contrasted with the fragility and sensual tactility of the reliefs. In her studio, sharing and passing on skills to her apprentices are of paramount importance. She has been involved in the Val-David event 1001 pots since the year 2000, and is “crossing the road” this year to join the Symposium for the first time with an outdoor spatial offering. |
PROJECT: Ceci n’est pas un arbre
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Artist: Terrance Houle Origin: Calgary (Alberta) Residence: Calgary (Alberta) Photo: Sonia Pinette Terrance Houle is an interdisciplinary artist and a member of the Blood Tribe. Involved with Aboriginal communities in various capacities, he has travelled to reservations throughout Canada and the United States to participate in powwow dancing and other ceremonies. Through his paintings, drawings, videos/films, installations, performances, music and other mixed-media works, he shatters standard perceptions surrounding the notions of culture and race. He crosses or ignores borders by mixing the traditional with the contemporary, not to mention keen humour and healthy self-deprecation. With a BFA in fibre art, he follows an approach focusing on connection, from the family to the community. Customs and costumes, alienation and assimilation, “official” representations and self-fiction, past and present are merged, with no attempt at continuity or synchronization-at once inside and outside, without a break between the two. Prolific and ubiquitous, Terrance Houle wears many hats and defies labels. |
PROJECT: Naapittahsin' – Song 
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Artist: Cal Lane Origin: Halifax (Nova Scotia) Residence: New York (United States) Photo: Galerie Art Mûr Through her sculptures and installations, Cal Lane reconciles and fuses High and Low Art, heavy industry and decorative arts, machine-made and handcrafted, hard labour and relaxation, profane and sacred, brutality and refinement, pollution and seduction, masculinity and femininity. Her favourite material is metal, preferably heavy, which she recycles and gives new life. These objects include steel (I-beams), containers, car chassis, cans, carts, etc. Her goal? To tame, bend and turn them fiery red through the caresses of her blowtorch. With ferocious skill, the artist’s appropriationist approach transforms the impure elements of our time. The operation welds the extremes (solid and void, rough and sensual) and repositions traditional women’s work within history. Initially inspired by her grandmother and her crocheted placemats, the artist’s lace ornamentations reveal maps of the world and medieval or religious iconographic motifs. Situated somewhere between the monumental and the ephemeral, Cal Lane draws and engraves reconstituted time. |
PROJECT: Oil Tank 
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Artist: Betsabeé Romero Origin: Mexico D.F. (Mexique) Residence: Mexico D.F. (Mexique) Betsabeé Romero creates paintings, prints, photographs and installations. She is known for “customizing” cars, her ready-made of choice, which she takes great pains beautifying. She bridges historical eras by, for example, engraving pre-Hispanic motifs or hieroglyphics on tires, which are then used as big, rotating rubber stamps. Accompanying her fertile melding of formal concerns (dissection, ornamentation, transposition) is a questioning of fundamental social issues (instability, violence, security). An American legend-the automobile-turns out to be a curse. It leads to overconsumption, over-indebtedness and pollution, all of which contradict a value like speed. Outside the gallery, she ventures into site-specific installations and artist workshops or urban interventions planned with communities. Through her public art projects, she reaches alternative art audiences. The “world city” of Mexico inspires her in all respects. |
PROJECT: Heures de pointe / A Vuelta de Rueda 
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GUEST POET AND COMPOSER 2011 |
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Guest composer: Cristina García Islas Photo: Olivier Maranda Born in Mexico City, Cristina García Islas studied at the Escuela Superior de Música of Mexico’s national arts centre, where she obtained a degree in composition. In 2005, she moved to Canada to study at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal under Michel Gonneville. The excellence of her work earned her many grants and prizes. Her work is extremely varied, alternating between pieces for small instrumental ensembles to electro-acoustic and orchestral music. In 2010, she participated notably in the ninth Rencontres internationales de composition musicale in Cergy-Pontoise (France) and the XXXII Foro Internacional de Musica Nueva, Manuel Enriquez (Mexico): In 2009, she took part in the Montreal/New Music International Festival. In 2008, one of her pieces was selected, recorded and filmed by Films Zingaro 2, Inc. for a television documentary on Québec conservatories. |
PROJECT: A’nayáhuari / La voix ancestrale du ciel  |
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Guest poet: Joséphine Bacon Origin: Betsiamites (Québec) Residence: Montréal (Québec) Photo (detail): Jean-Christophe Stefanovitch Born in 1947, Joséphine Bacon is an Innu from the community of Betsiamites. She lives in Montréal. In addition to being a documentary filmmaker (Mishtikuashisht - Le Petit Grand Européen: Johan Beetz, NFB, 1996), she is also a poet and lyricist for songs performed by Chloé Sainte-Marie, including Mishapan Nitassinan. She published a collection of poems in the book Aimititau! Parlons-nous! (Mémoire d'encrier, 2008) and a bilingual anthology entitled Bâtons à message/Tshissinuatshitakana that was very well received (Mémoire d'encrier, 2009). For her poem “Dessine-moi l’arbre,” taken from that anthology, Joséphine Bacon received the 2010 Prix des lecteurs du Marché de la Poésie de Montréal. More recently, she penned the collection Nous sommes tous des sauvages with José Acquelin (Mémoire d'encrier, 2011). Link: http://www.innuaitun.com/modules/smartmedia/folder.php?categoryid=2&folderid=14 |
PROJECT: L’offrande
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