four works from PASSAGES INSOLITES now form a circuit in downtown Trois-Rivières, as part of the city’s Un été Culture Trois-Rivières program:
- Charles Fleury (Québec), Zootheology, 2016
Path of life-sized characters, Charles Fleury’s work is inspired by plastic figurines of our childhood, with a playful side, and by diverse mythical figures that sometimes look like oriental gods. Those creations are the fruit of regular hallucinations of animals in the middle of the city. He gives life to those hallucinations to materialize a bit of poetry, of shamanism, and absurdity in the old parts of town.
Credits : Olivier Croteau
- BGL (Québec), The Portal, 2019
A metal gate constructed from security fences marks a fictitious border. The openings present seem to have been forced. This barrier appears austere and intimidating, but a closer look reveals handcrafted ornamentation, which makes its presence less intimidating while sowing doubt about its true function. BGL has created an ambiguous work exploring the precarious balance between the need for control and freedom, between following the rules and letting loose.
Credits : Olivier Croteau
- Max Streicher (Toronto), Endgame (Nagg et Nell), 2019
The scene seems absurd: two inflatable clown heads stuck between two cables at the entrance of the J.-Antonio Thompson Theater. Compounding the strangeness, the figure of the clown—an object of mirth—takes a turn for the disturbing, depending on our point of view and our level of sensitivity. The title Endgame (Nagg & Nell) refers to the Beckett play in which two characters, Nagg and Nell, live out their days in a dumpster after losing their legs.
o : Credits : EXMURO
- Brandon Vickerd (Ontario), Alouette, 2018*
An aerospace device seems to have fallen from the sky and crashed in the middle of the city. A replica of the 1962 Canadian satellite now abandoned in its perpetual earthly orbit, Alouette recalls the failed promise of a brighter future foretold by modern times. It could equally represent the ever-growing obsession with connectivity and the resulting accumulation of space waste.Will the day come when the sky finally does fall down on our heads?
* Temporary removed because of vandlism.
Credits : Olivier Croteau
Le parcours présente également l’œuvre Mythe et évidence de Mathieu Valade (Québec), Produced and presented as part of Manif d’art 8 – the Quebec City biennial, and circulated by EXMURO arts publics.
A light emanating from the interior of a frosted glass display case hints at the silhouette of a legendary creature: a unicorn. The translucent surface blurs the reading of its realistic-looking forms. Both exposed and concealed, elusive and imprisoned, the evanescent presence of the magical being exudes a certain magnetism. There is no doubt that this symbol of purity and grace, which has captured the Western imagination for centuries, still exerts its powers of fascination.
Credits : Olivier Croteau
