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16/6/2010

Two exhibitions

Darling Foundry visual arts centre, Montreal

Luis Jacob
Tableaux Vivants

Curator Marie Fraser

The Darling Foundry is proud to present a solo exhibition surveying the work of Toronto-based artist Luis Jacob, the first chapter of his Canadian tour. Curated by Marie Fraser, the exhibit Luis Jacob: Tableaux Vivants features a constellation of works produced in recent years as well as a new installation created especially for this project.

Album VIII (2009) consists of hundreds of images culled from a variety of sources. The images are mounted together in plastic-laminate panels hung sequentially in the form of an “image bank” or an Atlas. Through processes of visual association, the images of Album VIII compose a proliferating narrative around various themes: mapping, construction and the manufactured “sub-conscious”, embodiment, the fabrication of worlds, and the possibility of transformation. Making its Canadian debut, Album VIII was previously shown at the Kunstverein Ludwigshafen (Germany) and the Limerick City Gallery of Art (Ireland).

Also on view are a series of photographs entitled Evicted Studios at 9 Hanna Avenue; November 1999 (1999) that depict various disused spaces in an old industrial building in Toronto, which until the end of the 90’s had provided artists and artisans with studio space. The spaces were captured soon after the building's occupants had been evicted to allow for the redevelopment of the site; they appear in various states of tidiness or chaos, registering remnants of their former occupants' lives and, at times, their anger at being forcibly evicted. First published in the book Money Value Art: State Funding, Free Markets, Big Pictures (YYZ Books) and shown in the offices of the Toronto Arts Council, these images reflect upon the transformation of urban environments worldwide, and resound within the Darling Foundry, itself a reminder of Montreal’s industrial past, which has been born anew.

For this exhibition, Luis Jacob has created a new installation that takes the form of a gallery-within-the-gallery. Within this newly built space - a “white cube” gallery with one glass wall – viewers will see a group of twelve monochrome paintings displayed the degree-zero of the pictorial tradition associated with the painting as tableau. Seen from the outside of this space through the glass wall, viewers will become part of a tableau vivant that points to our shared presence in the gallery and the conventions of viewing that orient aesthetic experience.

This exhibition inaugurates a touring survey of Luis Jacob’s work. The next chapter, itself uniquely conceived, takes place in February 2011 at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto.

Luis Jacob acquired renown on the international artistic scene with his participation in Documenta 12 in Kassel in 2007. His solo exhibitions include the Städtisches Museum Abteiberg of Mönchengladbach, the Hamburg Kunstverein, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery of the University of British Columbia, and the Musée d’art de Joliette. His work is currently on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in the exhibition Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance, and in the Kunsthalle Bern in the exhibition Animism.

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Fugue urbaine
In situ cavalcade

Virginie Laganière and Jean-Maxime Dufresne (duo, Montreal), Philippe Côté (Montreal) Brandon LaBelle (USA-Germany), Antoine Nessi (France) Carlos Contente (Brazil), série Plan large : Ron Terada (Vancouver), Michael Flomen (Montreal), Shelley Miller (Montreal) and Rebecca Belmore (Vancouver).

Curator Esther Bourdages

"I guess I always feel the most powerful thing about sound is its ability to integrate, disrupt, or stimulate other things, whether they be visual objects, narrative images, spatial constructions, social gatherings...". *

Fugue urbaine presents a cavalcade of in situ works from Canadian and International artists that unite Ottawa St from East to West, from Faubourg des Récollets to Griffintown. Centred around two sites, the former New City Gas building and two viaducts beneath Bonaventure Highway and the railway, artistry intertwines with the urban fabric at a time when Griffintown faces increasing uncertainty ahead of a major redevelopment. To point, the Société du Havre, a paragovernmental municipal corporation of the city of Montreal, has announced that Bonaventure Highway is to be converted into a boulevard from 2011.

Globalization forces cities to re-invent, re-define and re-configure themselves. News-media and publications increasingly describe cities in terms of fluidity and sustainability. Urban renewal often results from socio-economic motivations and a desire to adjust to competition. In this respect, architect and theorist Bernhard Tschumi wrote that a space does not exist without an event, nor does architecture exist without a program. The historic fabric of Griffintown is once again threatened by contemporary alterations. History appears to be repeating itself. During the 1960s, hoping to cultivate a more prestigious image, part of Griffintown was demolished to make way for the Bonaventure and Ville-Marie Highways, thus further isolating and impairing the neighbourhood.

Facing renewed upheaval, the artists were asked to reflect on the sites: they recuperated the past and incorporated the present, inspired by the hopes and anxieties— as well as the social, political and economic realities— of Griffintown’s residents. Fugue urbaine invites the public to wander Ottawa St with a fresh perspective on the redeveloped Faubourg des Récollets and the precarious flicker of Griffintown. We discover the resonant fallacy of Virginie Laganière and Jean-Maxime Dufresne’s phantom car, Brandon LaBelle’s four-voice audio theatre, a vibrant mural by Carlos Contente, the Rature Lumineuse of Antoine Nessi, and Philippe Côté’s rendering of a ruin. In concert with architecture and urbanism, the artists aspire to humanise an area that may soon undertake an irreversible metamorphosis by instilling it with an individual voice.

With this event, the Darling Foundry hopes to give impetus to Ottawa Street's transformation into a "cultural corridor", a project in partnership with the Griffintown community (griffintown.org). A community initiative for the promotion of a cultural corridor in Griffintown is inviting artists to submit proposals to the inaugural-curated series of public art installations and performance interventions that will be programmed monthly between September 2010 and August 2011. For more information, click here: Urban Occupations.

The Darling Foundry would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts for its support to the project.

Image: Ron Terada, See other side of sign, 2006 and Brandon LaBelle, The Accident, 2010. Photographed by Guy L'Heureux

For more information or other pictures, please contact
Myriam Achard, Directrice des communications et du marketing (514) 779-8868 myriam@dhc-art.org
or contact us at 514 392.1554 or communications@fonderiedarling.org

Thursday June 17, at 5 pm: Opening, Book launch and Studio-open-doors
During the opening of the two exhibitions, Brandon LaBelle, an artist from Fugue urbaine, will be officially launching his new book, Acoustic Territories: Sound Culture and Everyday Life.* Another exceptional event planned for the evening is the Darling Foundry Studio-open-doors. The public will be able to explore the creative spaces of artists like Montreal-based Guillaume Labrie and international resident Korean artist Eva Jung. Finally, the duet Sylvia Winkler and Stéphane Köperl will play their public intervention Make No $mall Plans(2008).

Darling Foundry, visual arts centre
745 Ottawa street Montreal, QC H3C 1R8
open to the public:
Wednesday to Sunday from 12 to 7 pm
Winter season Thursdays until 9 pm
Summer season Thursdays until 10 pm
Entry: 3$
Free on Thursdays.

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