The exhibition
COOKE-SASSEVILLE AT BASE DE PLEIN AIR DE SAINTE-FOY
The Cooke-Sasseville collective, formed by Jean-François Cooke and Pierre Sasseville, has been developing a contemporary art practice blending humor, social satire and references to popular culture since 2000. Through monumental sculptures and absurd stagings, the duo question consumer society, the banality of everyday life and the contradictions of the contemporary world.
Presented at the Base de plein air de Sainte-Foy, their public art exhibition transforms the seaside landscape into a terrain of unusual apparitions. Deployed around the lake and paths, the works emerge like sculptural anomalies in nature, provoking unexpected encounters between humor, strangeness and critical reflection.
About the public art trail
THE LOST COW
Visible from afar in the landscape, La vache perdue features a fiberglass cow mounted on an imposing pedestal. Inspired by familiar commercial and tourist figures, this monumental sculpture takes a sudden turn for the unexpected: the animal is pierced by a shell, from which a bright red splash emerges.
With this public art piece, Cooke-Sasseville hijacks a banal image to question contemporary violence, the fragility of the living and our relationship with the trivialization of shock images.
Photo: Marc-Antoine Hallé for Manif d'art
THE CURSED FRUIT
On a forest path, Le fruit maudit features three hooded giants gathered around a huge golden apple. Part fantasy tale, part popular culture, part social satire, this contemporary art installation evokes temptation, mystery and clandestinity.
With their silhouettes reminiscent of hijacked cartoon characters, the figures create a scene as playful as it is disquieting, turning visitors into unwitting witnesses to a strange ritual.
THE LAST SCENE
From the footbridge overlooking the peat bog, La dernière scène reveals two giant white-tailed deer seemingly emerging from the damp ground. Face to face in silent exchange, the animals recall La Rencontre, the iconic work by Cooke-Sasseville installed at Place Jean-Béliveau.
In this new public art installation, the deer leave their monumental dimension to rediscover a more organic presence, intimately linked to the natural landscape.
Photo: Marc-Antoine Hallé for Manif d'art
THE ODYSSEY
In L'Odyssée, three giant pigeons observe a can of Campbell's soup on the water's edge. Inspired by Pop Art and the works of Andy Warhol, this offbeat scene plays with the codes of consumer culture and contemporary art.
Between humor and critical reflection, the installation transforms a banal object into a mysterious symbol, evoking the accessibility of art and our relationship with popular images.
LIFEBUOYS
Floating on the surface of the lake, seven giant pastel-colored pills appear like buoys drifting through the landscape. At once playful and disquieting, these sculptures evoke both the world of candy and the growing presence of drug residues in ecosystems.
With this public artwork, Cooke-Sasseville proposes a reflection on care, dependence and contemporary fragility, in a floating installation that is both poetic and critical.
PARTNERS
