Press photo for Martin Beck's exhibit The Particular Way In Which Things Exist.
Press photo for Martin Beck’s exhibit The Particular Way In Which Things Exist.
Despite having been rendered contemporary in many respects, the artistic world of today remains, for the most part, traditional when it comes to the curating process and the showcasing of artists. Some may say that an artist does not fully play the role of the author of his work, in the sense that the curating process affects how his work is both viewed and received by his audience.
The Particular Way In Which Things Exist, the exhibit showcasing work by artist Martin Beck that launched at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery on Nov. 15, touches on this debate with gusto. It showcases 12 years of work on the artist’s behalf, underlining his single prevalent artistic style that can be seen in all of the different mediums he uses, despite their differences. Beck’s work is considered, as the exhibit quaintly coins it, “an intersection between the subject of art, design and architecture.” The prevalent focus of his artwork is an interest in communicating artistic and cultural intention and how the systems we use to do so operate.
As an artist, Beck’s approach is unique, not only because of the variety of mediums he uses as an artist, but also because of the way he utilizes the gallery or ‘commercial’ space. Beck doesn’t actually have a say on where in the gallery each installation is set up. He does, however, create installations that are made to articulate a more active presence in space than the ones thought up by other artists.
Press photo for Martin Beck’s exhibit The Particular Way In Which Things Exist.
The Particular Way In Which A Thing Exists is no exception to this rule: as visitors enter the exhibit, the first and most stunning piece is definitely Sculptures (2008), an ensemble of five stainless steel cubes sprawled out throughout the gallery space to articulate the relativity of size and direction between the exhibit space and the art work. David Everitt Howe, who published an article on Beck’s work titled Contentious Utopias: Martin Beck’s Avant-Garde Art and Design describes Sculptures as being “almost textbook examples of theatricality or of presence”. Howe pinpoints Beck’s subtle play on the use of space: these stainless blocks are “essentially, a group of large objects occupying a space, almost like people,” giving the art a presence amongst the audience.
All presentation concerns aside, the exhibit is interesting for the topics it chooses to touch upon. Direction, perspective, movement and relativity are combined with an interest in social causes and the engagement of a viewer. Beck is a minimalist and this fact is apparent in his work: clean lines, illustration and photography leave ample room for the audience’s interpretation. Were anyone to question first impressions of the exhibit, the word that would come to mind would not be ‘iconic.’ Beck’s vision is, at best, controversial and, may I even add, stimulating. He invites the intellectual to meet the artist and question the way we feed off culture from a visionary standpoint.
The Particular Way In Which A Thing Exists remains at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery, 1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W. until Jan. 26. For more information, visit ellengallery.concordia.ca.
Earlier this year, in an initiative taken to build an open-source exhibit that would, in a very à propos fashion, be titled ABC: MTL, the Centre for Canadian Architecture launched a public call for proposals to garnish its future compendium of a city. The goal was to illustrate what makes a city iconic in a subtle fashion and what pieces of urban development and parcels of architecture make it singularly recognizable in its present form, in its perspectives, and for the future.
The exhibit is the third part in a series of shows that the CCA has put on in the past 20 years. The first part, Montréal Métropole: 1880-1930, was launched in 1998 and the second, Montreal Thinks Big, was showcased in 2004. According to the description of the exhibit, Montréal Métropole 1880-1930 considered the upbringing of a city and what makes it, over the span of time, “the behemoth of trade and industry at the turn of the century.” On the other hand, Montreal Thinks Big considered Montreal’s response to its growth and increasing population with respect to the infrastructures of the city. Although it is equally concerned with our city, ABC: MTL is unique in the sense that it is the first of the three exhibits to focus on our city in the here and now.
The open source project launched on Nov. 15 after months of proposal gathering and selection processes. The result is an amalgam of photography, architecture recommendations and typographic illustrations, all of which coin Montreal oh so well. Divided into diverse parts of the city, the exhibit focuses on areas and topics that characterize it as a whole. For example, one corner of the show explores and considers the indoor and underground world of Montreal. Artists individually consider the forgotten or exploited areas of our city, from the organization of our alleys to how we utilize the underground to showcase artistic installations.
Olivo Barbieri, Aerial view of La Ronde amusement park and the Jacques Cartier Bridge, Montréal, 2004. CCA Collection. Gift of The Sandra and Leo Kolber Foundation
Sprawled throughout the exhibit, visitors will find statistic indicators, printed boldly in black and white, which contrast the overall qualitative feel of the exhibit. The numbers paint a portrait of a city that is constantly busy, constantly in movement. Abandoned buildings, alleyways, hotels, and bridges — everything is taken into account.
As a viewer of this exhibit, what’s fascinating to watch is how artists’ visions and approaches to the city can be totally different. On one hand, you’ll have an artist who, via panoramic photography, will depict how citizens are utterly engulfed by the traffic and movement that surround the intersections of our city. Fewer than two steps away, all in the same exhibit, another photographer attempts to showcase the human side of one of our city’s misrepresented institutions, focusing exclusively on portraits of police officers in the face of demonstrations on police brutality. The idea is that the visions of a collective will make their city iconic. Regardless of traffic, institutions and architecture, a city, no matter how busy, will always be what its citizens make of it.
ABC: MTL runs until March 31, 2013 at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1920 Baile St. For more information visit cca.qc.ca.
Quebec native Pierre Dorion has been leading a successful painting career in Canada and abroad for almost twenty years. The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal’s showcase is Dorion’s second exhibition in Montreal; he was previously featured at La Musée des beaux arts in 2010.
MACM has chosen to hang Dorion’s paintings chronologically which allows visitors to follow the evolution of Dorion’s work. The popular belief about abstract contemporary painters is that they might not master classical figuration painting techniques very well. This doesn’t apply to Dorion; his strategy towards abstraction partly uses the principles of figuration itself.
Pierre Dorion: 101 Spring Street, 1997Dorion’s signature style is photo-realist painting with a constant hesitation between figuration and abstraction. It has been reported that he uses the photographs he takes during his morning walks around town to inspire his paintings.
It is obvious that Dorion has been leaning towards abstraction since his debut and the exhibition conveys this evolution well. The total absence of living representation in his paintings is all the more striking as the scenes Dorion depicts are cold, minimalist, architectural environments: rooms, corridors, walls, windows and doors that get less comprehensible to the eye as the visitor moves forward in the exhibition.
Dorion also includes specific composition angles, depth of field and blurry details in his pieces, just as a camera’s focus would do. The photographic illusionism works rather well in Dorion’s paintings, but some details that would normally be found in a photograph have voluntarily been omitted by the painter from time to time, such as shadows. Also, the classical linear perspective of painting has been intentionally dismissed by Dorion.
The paradox with Dorion is that although his love for painting is evident, he continually questions its legitimacy as a medium for visual perception. Some will find the surgical precision and cold shades of his deserted canvases anxious, but the uncanny halo that emanates will certainly be attractive to the alert eye.
The Pierre Dorion exhibit will remain at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal until Jan. 6. For more information visit macm.org
Montreal's iconic Biosphere, as viewed through the lens of Mimmo Jodice. Photo by Mimmo Jodice.
The Biosphere is one of several examples of Montreal’s iconic cityscape featured in the exhibit. Photo by Mimmo Jodice.
Architects are part of that rare breed of people who make for interesting case studies, simply because of their combination of attributes. The opposition of the artistic and rational views that spur their creativity is enough to fascinate just about anyone.
Go for a walk with an architect and you’ll be amazed by how much more they see than you. Much like artists, they have one key element that escapes the rest of us and that is vision.
Sublime Cities, the newest McCord Museum exhibit showcasing urban photography by internationally renowned photographer Mimmo Jodice, is a testament to that vision.
For those of you who have never heard of him, Jodice has an honorary doctorate in architecture from the University of Naples Federico II and has had close to 30 solo photography exhibits throughout his career. His reputation is built partly on his particular technique, a combination of the use of the gelatin silver process and image digitization. The gelatin silver process is often used to develop black and white photography. Silver salts are applied in gelatin to film or resin-coated paper that is sensitive to light, but can be developed at any time.
Jodice was the first ever photographer to win the Feltrinelli Prize in 2003, a prize awarded by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei to individuals for their extraordinary achievements in the arts. Last year, he was commissioned by the Louvre in Paris and given “carte blanche” to create an exhibit of his choice for the museum.
As an exhibit, Sublime Cities focuses primarily on photographs that Jodice has taken over the years that “conjure the aspects of aesthetics of the sublime,” according to the museum’s descriptor. The photographs being showcased are from a variety of major cities across the world. Jodice’s obsession with urban areas is immediately obvious from these photographs. All the images convey a profound love of the cities they were taken in.
“I don’t always choose the cities. It’s rather the cities choosing me,” he says, in the interview featured at the exhibit.
Observers will also be quick to notice Jodice’s subtle signature in all his prints. He’s a photographer on a quest to frame the ultimate photograph. We see Paris through camera lenses splattered with rain, New York skyscrapers through the penthouse view of someone’s apartment, and the famous Gondola Docks in Venice crowded and mysterious with fog. In other words, Jodice leaves us with the impression that his photography is something of a quiet contemplation of the cities.
The pictures of Montreal are probably the most fascinating, in the sense that we can’t help but be curious about our own city. In a video interview displayed at the end of the exhibit, Jodice says it himself: Montreal is fascinating for the “ongoing relationship between small European houses and the new architecture, the contemporary architecture.”
The dozen stills of our city include the abandoned Olympic Stadium, as well as mysterious stills of the Biosphere, hiding behind a row of trees, almost like a quiet reminder of what it was during Expo 67. Museum goers will also find unrecognizable pictures of the Old Port, which look so European that one could easily confuse them with Paris or Milan. In fact, that’s probably the only unfortunate critique for this exhibit: the 30 or so prints in the exhibit often seem overwhelming in the open space that was allocated by the museum. One feels as though more guidance or pacing would have assisted the viewer.
Jodice collaborated with a slew of well-known artists, including such greats as Andy Warhol and Sol LeWitt. His allure lies in the fact that he remains current in a day and age where most giants of the art world have already come and gone.
Mimmo Jodice’s Sublime Cities runs at the McCord Museum until March 10, 2013. For more information visit www.mccord-museum.qc.ca
There’s a very human touch to the éLoges s’expose (avec Inédits) photography exhibit that is occupying the George-Émile-Lapalme cultural space at Place des Arts. Martine Doucet, the photographer, has decided to showcase her love of women by building an exhibit in collaboration with famous “québécois” celebrities, depicting these actresses preparing to mount the stages of massive productions. Through door openings and even via close-ups, the photographer documents the preparation process necessary for these actresses to embody their roles on stage.
Doucet had actually published this collection of photographs as a coffee table book, with the publishing house Les éditions du passage back in 2006. The book is stunning, but the selection of photographs that is being showcased in the actual exhibit also includes brand new snapshots from the show Les Belles-Soeurs, the theatre adaptation of Michel Tremblay’s play, which is currently under production at Le Monument National. The experience is also utterly incomparable when you blow these pictures up to a bigger size, as opposed to having them in a smaller format of a book.
Essentially, the exhibit is quite particular in the sense that it plays on the development of the antithesis of the photographic portrait. Doucet delves into the world of intimacy of all these women, who welcome her into their space as they prepare to be seen by thousands. The transformation that some of these actresses undergo is remarkable; layers of colorful makeup and outrageous wigs can be seen throughout the entire exhibit. The common theme in all the images on display is the mirror. Doucet clearly enjoys exploring the moment of introspection and dialogue with oneself that occurs when we see our reflection in the mirror.
Though the exhibit is by no means immense, the content of the pictures is incredibly lively. Sophie Cadieux, Guylaine Tremblay, Anne-Marie Cadieux and so many more familiar faces contribute to making this exhibit so alluring. Doucet is, in that respect, a genius. Human curiosity will always get the better of us and we are all curious about what’s required for these women to invest themselves so profoundly in the magic of theatre. The affinities that exist between the photographer and her subjects are almost palpable, which is so refreshing in this age of distanced, contemporary art.
There’s also something more personal in the works. Doucet does an excellent job at catching some of these grandiose artists in a moment of vulnerability, as they contemplate the task that awaits them on stage, the shoes of the characters they’re about to fill. Sometimes exhaustion looks like it may get the best of them. Other times, the photographer’s lens is filled with the amused look of one of these women reading a line in their script that particularly pleases them. There’s no camouflage here and that was clearly the photographer’s goal: total transparency.
éLoges s’expose (avec Inédits) can be viewed until Dec. 2 at Place des Arts, in the George-Émile-Lapalme cultural space. For more information visit pda.qc.ca
HOT MESS is Maya Cardin, Leigh Macrae and Stephanie EM Coleman's second exhibit
HOT MESS is artists Maya Cardin, Leigh Macrae and Stephanie EM Coleman’s second exhibit
For those of you who find yourselves wandering Concordia’s campus in the coming week, the HOT MESSexhibit at the VAV gallery will definitely lure you in as you pass by the Visual Arts building.
Passersby will be stunned by the earth-like tones of color and the sheer size of this mixed media exhibit; a mix of sculpture, painting and drawing that will attract both the art aficionado or the debutant, and that acts like a magnet for sidewalk spectators walking down René-Levesque blvd.
The HIVEMIND collective is a group of three fine arts undergraduate students at Concordia: Maya Cardin, Leigh Macrae and Stephanie EM Coleman. They have been collaborating for the better part of the past two years building two select exhibits. The first, Home Paralleled, was shown at the Ctrl Lab art house on St-Laurent blvd. two years ago. Then, earlier this year, they received a grant to use the space at the VAV Gallery for their second exhibit, HOT MESS. The exhibit, unlike most, allows spectators to see the artists build onto their work in the gallery, rather than exhibiting it as a “finished” product.
The point of the exhibit is to really immerse the spectators in the artistic process that would normally occur in a studio.
The trio explained that they wanted people to be able to witness art as a celebration, not see it in a “traditional” or “sterile” way.
The members of HIVEMIND feel that the process of working together is mutually fulfilling. In the gallery it’s impossible to truly differentiate where one artist’s work begins or ends.
In the dynamic workspace that these artists have created, it’s clear that what they are looking to do is create an impact on their audience.
Ultimately what is so impressive about the HOT MESS exhibit is that, because the work of all these artists is so closely correlated, it simply takes on a life of its own. The artists work with neutral objects, like their signature hive stamp, which, being a recurrent symbols in the work becomes a “transition” piece that embeds the diverse parts of the exhibit together. “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts” seems to be the mantra for this particular collaboration.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “At the Concert a Box at the Opera” (1880). Oil on canvas.
Art aficionados and romantics everywhere will surely have their breath taken away when they visit Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts this winter for its new exhibit, Once Upon a Time… Impressionism.
The collection of 95 paintings, which belong to the Sterling and Francine Clark Art institute, features well-known impressionist painters like Édouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Edgar Degas.
The impressionist movement, named after Monet’s 1872 painting, “Impression, Sunrise”, wasn’t taken very seriously at first; most of the movement’s painters suffered hatred and ridicule from the art critics of the time. Today, they are among the most famous painters to have ever lived and exhibitions of their work never cease to capture the interest of viewers worldwide.
This exhibit is organized as a chronological storyline, starting with the precursors of the infamous art movement which features the works of painters like Jacques Rousseau, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Jean-Francois Millet. Sharing the first room with these paintings is the lovely collection of still-lifes by Alfred Sisley, Renoir, Manet, and one of the few female impressionists, Berthe Morisot.
The second room of the exhibit features a vast selection of scenic paintings by Monet, Renoir, Sisley, and Pissarro. Art enthusiasts will recognize some famous paintings like Monet’s “Geese in the Brooke,” and discover some hidden gems like Sisley’s “Les Bords de la seine a By” and Camille Pissarro “Piette’s House at Montfoucault.”
As you walk from room to room, quotes of the infamous and outspoken Renoir line the walls and offer viewers a glimpse into his great mind. “You’ve got to be a fool to want to stop the march of time” is written over the collection of scenic paintings, a testament to the impressionists’ ability to capture time and its beauty.
Claude Monet’s “Geese in the Brook” (1874). Oil on canvas.
The various “pièces de résistance” of the exhibit lie in the third and penultimate room, which features a vast collection of portraits and self portraits by Renoir, Degas, Morisot and yet another female impressionist painter, Mary Cassatt. Some of this room’s most famous works include Renoir’s “At The Concert,” Degas’s “Dancers in the Classroom” and Morisot’s “The Bath.” The only sculpture to be featured in the exhibit, Degas’s “Little Dancer of Fourteen Years,” captivates museum goers with its stunning simplicity and beauty. The striking contrast between Renoir’s self-portrait of 1875 and 1899 is a reminder of the painter’s mortality.
The final room introduces the viewer to the rise of the post-impressionist movement and its painters, like Paul Gauguin and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, among others. Works like Gauguin’s “Young Christian Girl” and Toulouse-Lautrec’s “Waiting” end the exhibit with a distinct transition into a new era of art.
Once Upon a Time…Impressionism runs until Jan. 20.
Louis-Philippe Côté, Transpolitique, 2009. Oil on linen.
Jana Sterbak, Artist as Combustible, 1986. Color photograph.
Have you ever gone to an art gallery or exhibition and while viewing the art wondered, “What am I supposed to think about this?” Or perhaps you viewed the art, interpreted its meaning and wished to share your thoughts with others. If so, the exhibition Interactions at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery is the place you’re meant to be.
Conceptualized with the aim to expose the gap between art and the public, the exhibit combines contemporary art pieces with verbal and written interpretations by people of the public and art domain. The exhibit is set up so that each piece of art is accompanied by a written response to the piece as well as video response from among the thirty people who participated in this project. What this does is allow a gallery visitor to not only experience the contemporary art on display for themselves, but to also experience the art through the interpretations of others. It is an opportunity to hear what others think, some of whom work in the field, and thereby deepen the experience of the piece.
The exhibition at the entrance of the gallery will at first set some to puzzling. Displayed on a flat screen television is a thirty-two minute video of people watching the film Six Colorful Inside Jobs by John Baldessari. The piece is called You Are the Work, by Alana Riley and it serves to provoke the question, ‘What are they thinking?’
Watching the video of these people, who in turn are watching a film, we want to know what they think. Do they like it? It is akin to standing next to someone in a gallery as you both observe the same piece of art. You find yourself wondering what that person thinks of the piece, how they might interpret it, whether your interpretation is different, but like You Are the Work, you can’t know without asking. Luckily, curator Mélanie Rainville has done the asking for us.
The artwork in this exhibition spans a range of medium from sound and video installations to performance art, photography, painting and graphite. All of the sound and video installations are striking, playing on your visual and auditory senses to transport you into the artwork and to not only view it, but experience it as well.
To Be Continued by Sharif Waked is a video designed to resemble those made by terrorists wherein victims are made to recite a script before being executed. However, instead of propaganda, the victim, played by Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri, begins to read from the story A Thousand and One Nights. The film is in Arabic with English subtitles and as the Arabic words fill your ears, your eyes scan the English translation as you are drawn into the narrative by Bakri’s piercing blue eyes.
However, it is not so much the recitation that is important, although it is incredibly beautiful to listen to, but rather the parallel between the plight of Scheherazade in A Thousand and One Nights, who staves off execution by telling the king stories and that of Palestinian prisoners reciting their final words.
Louis-Philippe Côté, Transpolitique, 2009. Oil on linen.
The three paintings by Louis-Philippe Côté, Ton rêve d’anarchie, Égérie, and Transpolitique (L’abattoir virtuel comme machine de guerre) are the only painted pieces in the exhibit. Visually stunning and thought provoking, these three pieces immediately grab the eye upon entering. The video responses to this piece are interesting to listen to, but the written response left something to be desired. Dominique Sirois-Rouleau’s interpretation is highly academic and likely to make the average gallery visitor crossed eyed, but it served the purpose of a scholastic interpretation of contemporary art, ensuring that both the casual art observer and the professional were represented.
The written response that was perhaps the most interesting, was the poem Monologues by Denise Desautels, translated into English by Simon Brown, which was written in response to John Massey’s piece Three Eyes. The poem attributes a dialogue to the artwork, taking a different approach to interpreting the piece. The poem was beautifully written and could stand alone, but together with Massey’s work it serves to enhances one’s experience of his artwork.
Interactions can be viewed at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery, located on the first floor of Concordia’s LB building at 1400 Blvd. De Maisonneuve. For more information please visit their website at www.ellengallery.concordia.ca
Amanda Durepos graduated from Concordia this June from the Art History and Studio Art program. The Concordian sat down with Durepos to discuss her new art exhibit and the inspiration behind her fascinating work.
Q. (A.S) What did you take away from your time at Concordia?
A. (A.D) I learned to allow myself to be vulnerable and to worry less about a finished piece and more about paying attention to the process and experimentation. I initially felt pressure to have a coherent and established style but soon realized that I was (and still am) undergoing a lot of self-discovery.
Q. (A.S) When or where did the inspiration for this project begin?
A. (A.D) I’ve always had a bit of an interest in technology, and a few months ago I began reading a lot about Google and how the company has completely changed the way we distribute and receive information. I also was surprised by the results that came up when I Googled my own name and spent a long time disabling and cancelling accounts on various websites; accounts which were long dormant and no longer representative of who I am today.
Q. (A.S) In your statement you say that your practice often deals with “the paradoxes introduced in our lives through technology”, can you specify what some of these paradoxes are?
Oh, my ears and whiskers! Collage, 2012.
A. (A.D) It seems to me that recent history has been marked by a widespread adoption of technology in everyday life. Our increasingly symbiotic relationship with technology yields a paradoxical influence both on the way experience interpersonal relationships and the ways in which we access and process information.
For example, I am thrilled that the internet enables me to connect to my faraway family members. Although I have only met my newborn niece twice, my frequent video chatting with her has brought me closer into her life than would otherwise be possible. Conversely, some days I get home from work and can spend hours browsing forums, Reddit or countless other black holes of content and in the process completely neglect my boyfriend. In this sense, technology has the potential to bring us closer together from a distance, but can simultaneously alienate us from our immediate surroundings.
The Fallow Deer, framed print, 2012.
In my collage Dürer’s Rhinoceros, I am referencing a woodcut from the 16th century by Albrecht Dürer. Despite never having seen a rhinoceros himself, Dürer worked from a written description of someone else to create the woodcut. The interesting thing about the woodcut is that although it vaguely looks like a rhinoceros, there are a many incorrect or invented anatomical features. Nonetheless, the woodcut was very popular in Europe, was used in encyclopaedias, copied frequently and considered for centuries by Westerners as being a true representation of a rhinoceros. Today, we access information from a multiplicity of sources on the web and tend to think of the internet as providing democratic and more accurate and immediately accessible access to information. What we sometimes don’t address is the fact that the way this wealth of information is sorted is not always ideal. When one Google searches a subject to learn about it, the result that rises to the top is not necessarily the most accurate but the most popular, which reminded me a lot of Durer’s woodcut. Could it be that even in an age where we have access to many different standpoints, we could still be exposed to inaccurate information?
Q. (A.S) Could you tell me about how the ‘profile’ or, way we represent ourselves online is represented in the exhibit?
A. (A.D) My boyfriend and I met on a picture rating website when we were 15 years old. Because the history of the forum is stored chronologically, I discovered that I could time travel backwards in the forums and read interactions between us before we had met. It was fascinating for me to see the formal way in which we addressed one another, and how this differs drastically from who we are today and the ways that we interact. In this way, I have found that my self from 7 years ago has left quite a trace online. What is notable (and embarrassing) about it is the fact that I can go back and see quite tangibly who I was at that time. Before the internet, our memories of our old selves or old friends are pieced together perhaps through photos or home videos. When we were 15, we all said things we would be embarrassed about today, but I have the misfortune of having that dialogue in a public cyberspace. And as I have discovered, erasing a blog can be more difficult than the ridding of a diary book!
To have an online profile is to define something static about a self that is always in flux. Although we can update our profiles to match the changes that take place in our lives, some aspects remain, concretized in cyberspace. Anyone who has ever Googled themselves can see that there are sometimes things that you wish were not there.
Alter Egos (series), prints, 2012.
As an artist, I sometimes feel pressure to establish an online presence, and to plan for exhibits to showcase what I am working on. However, just as I am constantly growing and changing, so is my work. Collage is very playful and when I work with it, I am without intent. It is a very stream-of-consciousness process, very much like living life or breathing. It becomes complicated when I have to frame it or define it.
Q. (A.S) I found the Alter egos series to be particularly striking because it was done with computer technology and all your other pieces were done by hand, a literal cut and paste. Why is this? What made you choose to do this series differently?
A. (A.D) A struggle I face in wanting to work with original vintage material is that it is difficult to come across very large source material. The initial collages for the Alter Egos series were 4 x 6” and were done manually. It is interesting to me, that upon enlarging them and thereby converting them to a digital equivalent, they are likely to last longer. That is to say, my collages are created with source material which is already mouldy and yellowed, and are likely to have a much shorter life, like a fleeting memory. These prints have been digitalized and are therefore immortal!
Q. (A.S) I noticed that the pieces were displayed with little polish, some of the pieces coming off from their backgrounds, curling etc. Was this intentional, if so why?
A. (A.D) Creating a collage is very spontaneous for me and I can work very swiftly. I do not like to revisit collages I make and do not “touch them up”. Additionally, I like the character of curled and yellow paper and want people to be able to see the pieces as more than just flat images, but rather as objects on paper, wherein the paper is an important aspect. I have fun when I create my collages and I do not want them to be seen as precious images.
Q. (A.S) Can you talk about Slowness Japanese bound-book? Slowness, Japanese-bound book, 2012.
A. (A.D) The book was created as an assignment for a drawing class at Concordia. I was thinking about the way the internet affects the way we absorb and process information. Before the internet, one would have no choice but to go to the library, take out an encyclopaedia and read it in a linear fashion, and then condense the information later. Linear, and slow appreciation of text seems to be falling out of fashion.
For my piece Slowness, I cut up Milan Kundera’s novel Slowness, using words from the novel itself to piece together the Wikipedia article. I was taking this idea to an extreme and envisioning a hypothetical time in which even pleasure reading (which is necessarily slow and linear by definition) is fractured, a victim of instant gratification. I chose this book in particular because Kundera suggests in it that speed is linked to forgetting and only slow, uninterrupted appreciation can submit something to memory.
This interview has been edited for length.
Amanda Durepos’ exhibit Cut and Paste is on display at Papeterie Nota Bene 3416 Du Parc until June 1, with a vernissage taking place May 31 from 5-8pm.
