calendario eventi  :: 

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22/9/2010

Two exhibitions

Darling Foundry visual arts centre, Montreal

Lani Maestro: l'oubli de l'air
in collaboration with Malcolm Goldstein

Lani Maestro had the kindness to let me in on some of the thoughts that had been running through her mind as she prepared her work for Darling Foundry. She told me that its title, l’oubli de l’air—roughly, “the forgetfulness of air”—, had been inspired by a work of Luce Irigaray’s. She spoke to me of sand. Black sand, there, on the ground. She spoke of water. Of small cavities dug into the sand and filled with a little water. She told me that the sky seen from the windows perched high in the lofty spaces of the Foundry would reflect in the pools. She spoke of a garden, while reminding me that water would tend to evaporate, that the little sand pools would have to be topped up—watering the garden, as it were. She told me of her meeting with Malcolm Goldstein, of the poetry of his music, of his independent participation in the project. The work would be the occasion—to take what form?—of an encounter between Maestro’s visual poetry and Goldstein’s sound poetry. Is that the be-all and end-all of l’oubli de l’air? Not exclusively, of course.

Both are significant in Maestro’s work. Maestro and Goldstein. The visible and audible. The sky, out there, and the sky here, in the water. Here within and there without. Water in the sand and water in the air. The silent air and the musical air. The sand here, now, in the exhibition space, and the sand then, when the sand technique was being used to mould the metal. Yes, metal was moulded here. Mould. Shell. Hollow. Fire. Heat. Noise. Memories, just memories. Deaths, too. Suffering. Arduous work. Today, art has taken its place. The Darling Foundry is also that. Ghosts. Something in the air one can’t forget, when entering the space. Repressing, denying, rejecting, yes, but not forgetting. A kind of unintended tyranny of place. Imposed material, in a sense. Material to which Maestro adjoins freedom. The freedom that made her an artist.

Lani Maestro sculpts. She sculpts just these materials—the involuntarily tyrannical materials that can’t help but convey coercion, oppression, repression, domination, hegemony, the totalitarian. And how does she go about it? Not by opposing the freedom of doing. No. But by going ahead, so to speak. She, with the very material, digging in, nestling within it, and in so doing, breaching it. She, with that which is inalienable in her, i.e., that which makes her who she is, not subsumed by, under, in, on the confines of tyrannies, which have deeply marked her nonetheless.

Thus, often, very often, you’ll notice it now, Maestro constructs places within places. And between them, relationships, links, contacts. A line is thus built up, a line of silence she would say, because it isn’t language that builds it up, but only the obviousness. The obvious senselessness of the Unique. The senselessness of the unique idea, the only thought, the single form, the one material.

Her work should be seen as we see the horizon, where we see the infinite sky and sea touch, though we know it is impossible. We should see it as that horizon where tyranny and the artist touch, without mixing, refer to each other, without corresponding, while adjoining, ostensibly, for the good of the cause one might say. It takes place over there, so very far away from us. Infinitely far even: an art issue, so to speak, regarding the infinite struggle against the hegemony of the One. But it is happening for us. I am you, says she. Thus, the poetry. Lani Maestro’s poetry for us.

Jean-Émile Verdier

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Mathieu Latulippe: Contre-faire : entre construction et anti-matière

A British physician named Paul Dirac formulated, in 1929, a hypothesis on the existence of anti-electrons, thus introducing the notion of anti-matter: all the constituents of matter— protons, neutrons, electrons— correspond to the equal and opposite mass and charge of anti-matter— anti-protons, anti-neutrons and positrons. From this scientific premise, some particularly fertile minds were quick to ignite and spread the idea: "And if our world was not unique, if there existed somewhere in the universe a mirror world, an anti-world?”

In interpreting freely and without any scientific rigour the concept of anti-matter, Mathieu Latulippe has built upon its framework in the exhibition Contre-faire: entre construction et anti-matière (Made-up/Counterfeit: between construction and anti-matter). Revisiting the genre of science fiction in new ways, it explores the world of "anti" and negativity with humour and irony. The works presented (objects, models, photographs, posters, etc.) play with dualities, derail the mind, and challenge our understanding of the world.

Doing the Opposite

Major work is under way behind the closed-off walls of a building site from which construction noises can be heard, however a building will not result from this activity. For if Mathieu Latulippe works with real space within the framework of this exhibition, it is to deconstruct our mental space, seeking to open up and challenge our conceptual schemas. He multiplies contradictions and misinterpretations by combining, in one work, two worlds that seem at first opposed. While in the world of antimatter negativity refers to the intangible, absence, the abstract, the invisible and the intellect, construction uses the tangible, the presence of matter, the visible and manual. Micro-chantier (Micro-site) is a testimony to this, "Much ado about nothing" says the artist about the centrepiece and keynote of the exhibition that thwarts the viewer's expectations— it creates absurd, inoperative situations. The models and other elements of the installation become supports to frame such ideas and improbable situations, allowing the imagination to unfold.

The Maquette pour la réalisation d’un édifice en plastique biodégradable (Model for the creation of a building out of biodegradable plastic), explores the trend towards ecological behaviour taken to the extreme, while the Machine à ondes négatives (Negative airwaves machine) is a far-fetched invention that plays on our propensity to believe in superstitions despite our considerable scientific advances.

Negativity

More than a simple exercise in contrasts, the focus on negativity is of significance as it challenges our habitual preoccupation with "everything positive" that pervades the different spheres of our lives (personal, political, economic, etc.). Multifaceted, the concept of negativity is the marker of a refusal (as opposed to an affirmation), designating that which is not constructive, even that which is injurious or harmful. But it can also be seen as a form of otherness that enables the activation of thought. By restoring a measure of visibility to negativity, the artist provides a counterweight to a rigid and standardized conceptualization of the world. These works highlight the dialectical and conceptual exploration of the "in-between”, underlining the process of reflecting on and interrogating discourse.

Evasive, Carré de cendre (Square of ash) oscillates between two states, neither fully one nor fully the other. Illustrating the first principles of construction, it is the "black" happening of the sandbox of our childhood. Substituting sand for ash and the castle for the church, the artist emphasizes the inherent darkness of each one of our actions, including the most childish. Life and death come together in this playful reminder of the biblical words: “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” However the enabling aspect of the concept of negativity maintains its sometimes pernicious character. Affixed to the wall at the back of the exhibition space is a box similar to those usually containing a fire extinguisher— instead there is a can of gasoline. Ironically entitled Antidote, it may be an incitement to rebellion and to "fight fire with fire". A mildly subversive tone also pervades Antidéflagrant (Flameproof), an absentee work that, in all probability, would have been torn violently from its pedestal.

Interpretations of these works remain open to a multitude of readings. Even if they are themselves autonomous, they do not evolve in isolation, rather they form a conceptual network within which each responds, echoes and opposes. The artist allows the viewer to draw from his or her own experiences and connections to form the conclusions he or she wants. This is unique to irony— etymologically related to "interrogation"— which Mathieu Latulippe makes extensive use of in this exhibition. As Claire Guerard says about irony: "Everything creates confused, it [irony] knows all too well. It adds its own complications to the complexity of reality. [...] It looks for contrasts, gives perspective, searches for relationships. Combine the incompatible and reconcile the irreconcilable."1 It is through the use of counterfeit, in imitating the characteristic features of a site or of modes of (re)presentations specific to architecture, that the artist infuses his works with ironic propositions.

The reflection raised by the exhibition Contre-faire: entre construction et anti-matière (Made-up/Counterfeit: between construction and anti-matter) addresses in a poetic, symbolic and philosophical manner the question of the arrangement of space, as much in an abstract as a concrete sense. Through the two axes that are architecture and science, and working his way backwards from the diktats imposed within these disciplines, Mathieu Latulippe has developed his own building codes. Heterogeneous, polymorphic and enigmatic, the works that result from his explorations create ambiguous and unlikely associations that open spaces for reflection. By restoring visibility to the concept of negativity, the works create spaces of dis-sensus that disturb ambient consensus and foster the emergence of a critical relationship with the world.

Annie Hudon-Laroche

1Guérard Claire, « Préface » from L’ironie, le sourire de l’esprit, Paris, Autrement, 1998, p. 12-13.

Image: Lani Maestro

Press contact:
Isolde Legare Directrice, Communications et développement Fonderie Darling, phone 514 392.1554 or communications@fonderiedarling.org

Opening Thursday September 23 2010, 5pm

Darling Foundry visual arts centre
745 Ottawa street, Montreal
Open Wednesday to Sunday from 12:00am to 7:00pm
until 10:00pm on Thursdays

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