Sculpture today: Somewhere between enclosure and expansion
What notions do we agree on today about the term “sculpture”? Painting is easily defined. Sculpture, on the other hand, does not refer, even etymologically, to a single category: to sculpt originally meant to notch, to carve in stone, but modelling, which is just as ancient a technique, is classified under the same rubric. Before…
Beyond sculpture, the shadow ?
While it might seem futile to search out an exhaustive and unilateral (re)definition of contemporary sculpture given the varied directions it takes, it would appear a contrario necessary to rethink sculpture based on studies1 that together elucidate the scope of this constantly broadening field. By looking at specific current productions it will be possible to…
The possibles of sculpture
“The possible of sculpture, or I shall suffocate! “ 1 The above epigraph, associated with the thought of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, can be traced back to Sören Kierkegaard.2 The initiator of existentialism, Kierkegaard envisaged the possible as an exit from a reality that has “become necessity or banality.” As a means of existence, inscribed…
Jeff Thomas. Reclaiming one’s history in public space
In December 2012, Jessica Gordon, Sylvia McAdam, Sheelah McLean and Nina Wilson launched the Idle No More movement in Saskatoon to oppose Bill C-45 proposed by the Harper government. This omnibus bill, which became famous in the wake of the events, contains clauses that not only threatens some important rights and treaties signed between Canada…
Confronting destinies: Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno
In Paris last fall, critical attention crystalized around exhibitions by two darlings of the French scene and relational aesthetics, Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno. The overlapping exhibition dates unconsciously led to a sort of implicit comparison in the analysis and method of viewing, indeed even creating a rivalry between what the first-named artist had on…
Gareth Lichty. Gabion Tower
Gabion Tower Cambridge Sculpture Garden Cambridge, Ontario September 2012— September 2014 For an artist who is a sculptor by training, background and inclination, Kitchener-based artist Gareth Lichty does an awful lot of weaving. His work – typically large-scale and installational in nature – tends to foreground weaving in an aggressively sculptural way that transcends…
Selected titles
Stephen Wright, Toward a Lexicon of Usership, Ed. Eindhoven: Van Abbemuseum, 2013, 68 p. The Van Abbemuseum in the Netherlands commissioned art writer and theorist Stephen Wright to compile a lexicon of artistic and subjective political terms as a way of addressing the alleged lexical crisis in today’s cultural sphere. Published in 2013, Toward a…
Emotions and Visual Arts
Art as a fictional presence has always encouraged the expression of artistic emotions. Whether it is through theatre, fiction writing, music, painting, sculpture, photography, film or video, human beings as readers, spectators or viewers are inclined to be moved. And while an emotional experience is always encouraged in many artistic categories, this was not always…
Dominique Sirois, Deux cannibales, 2015
Dominique Sirois lives and works in Montreal, she holds a degree from University of Quebec in Montreal in visual art (MFA 2010). Her practice takes the form of installation involving an interplay of sculptures, videos, sounds and prints. With her projects, Sirois creates mental spaces, semiotic constructions linking economic, aesthetic, archeologic and digital references. Often…
Henrique Oliveira – Being & Form
Presented as wall reliefs, free-standing pieces or walking-in environments, Henrique Oliveira’s works are always hybrid forms, organic structures that merge with architecture or objects crafted to blur the limits with nature and destabilize codes of visual perception such as space, surface and consistency. Rather than making judgments over the disequilibrium of today’s human relations, they are presented as “growths” nurtured by the deteriorating residues of society, images that couldn’t have been thought of beforehand but can now appear as a side-effect of the contemporary world.
Michael A. Robinson : Corporate Logos, 2017
Michael A. Robinson teaches sculpture and drawing at UQAM’s Department of Visual and Media Arts (2004-present) and recently as full-time Artist in Residence at Concordia University (MFA Sculpture, 2016-2017). He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University (Montréal), and a Masters of Fine Arts from Université de Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris). Michael…
