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Exibitions 2009

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Index of artists, authors and curators

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OPTICA Fonds (Concordia University Archives)

Guidebooks to help in consulting the archives

Electronic Reproduction Fees





Andrea Sala
From January 17th 2009 to February 21st 2009
Cicognino

How often do we look at clouds and shape an image in our minds?
Finding something new in an existing form - discovering a different potential within it- is fundamental to my approach as an artist.

I am fascinated by the world of design and architecture. I work with design objects, architectural projects, as well as images and the work of other artists to identify new functions, new scales and different realities for them. During this process I add, subtract, rework and appropriate something already present within the original work in order to reshape it. I like to revisit the origin of ideas as a way of disclosing their latent potential and to give them new life. Sometimes (with a bit of irony), I might use the same approach as the initial "creator" as a way of fabricating their "portrait".

Like many of my projects, Cicognino (Little Stork) began with locating a common everyday object- in this case, a table. In 1953 Italian designer Franco Albini drafted a small table inspired by the shape a stork and named it "Cicognino". I strongly value Albini's formal and poetic approach and consider it an attitude that has played an important part in the history of industrial design. Via a simple table, Albini found a way of inserting nature - both flora and fauna - into people's homes.

In this project I multiply and re-scale the Albini table. I turn the table into a flock of objects with the ability to communicate movement, energy, interactions – life. Together the storks inhabit the gallery and transform its space into a new landscape. I aim to activate a process of 'naturalisation' of the gallery by sharing it with twenty-three wooden works made in variable dimensions, and painted with few colours.
-Andrea Sala

Born in Como in 1976, Andrea Sala graduates from the Milan Fine Arts Academy. He divides his time between Milan and Montreal.

Among his exhibitions are Con Altri Occhi(With other eyes) in 2006, (Milano, Palazzo della Ragione, curated by Roberto Pinto and Katia Anguelova) Sala presented Walk around, a sculptural elaboration of the city of Milan's topographic map. At the IX Architecture Biennial in Venice in 2004, his work All21, was a reprocessing of an installation by designer Achille Castiglioni for the 1954 Milan Triennial. In the exhibition Exit, curated by Francesco Bonami at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in 2002,Sala transformed the model of the Le Corbusier project Villa Savoye, into a bookshelf. In 2008 Sala presented to solo shows Allunaggio y otras aterrizajes exhibition at MACO in Oaxaca, Mexico and Andrea Sala Plays Chancey Gardner in Milan, Italy.




Monique Moumblow
From January 17th 2009 to February 21st 2009
Six Years

I’m lying in bed.
I can’t sleep but the time passes quickly.
When I look at the clock it’s 2:03, when I check a few seconds later, it’s 2:45.

It will be morning soon.


A woman is woken by a doorbell. When she gets up to answer it, there’s no one there. The next morning the entire house smells of sour milk. She brings her daughter to school. The hours pass.

The woman’s thoughts appear as subtitles on the screen. A voice attempts to simultaneously translate these subtitles into Swedish. The voice hesitates, stumbles and sometimes fails. The gaps between thoughts and words fill the empty rooms of a small house.

Six Years is the second in a series of Swedish language works by the artist. (Sleeping Car, 2000). For the artist, Swedish, a language she neither speaks nor understands, has become an adopted language. It is a way to narrate a story and to distance oneself from that story. Speech becomes sound. Errors are made in the translation. Words which are always imprecise become more so. What remains is no coherent thought, no absolute or perfect text.
-Monique Moumblow

Monique Moumblow lives and works in Montreal. She received a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1992 and is currently completing an MFA at Concordia University.

Moumblow’s videotapes have screened at festivals and galleries in North America and Europe, including the Centre d’art contemporain de Basse- Normandie, the Festival international du court-métrage (Clermont-Ferrand), Impakt (Utrecht), and The International Short Film and Video Festival (Oberhausen). Her videos have won prizes at The Images Festival (Toronto) and L’immagine leggera (Palermo) and are included in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada and the Netherlands Media Art Institute.




Dagmar Keller, Martin Wittwer
From March 14th 2009 to April 18th 2009
Messages passagers

Curator : Nicole Gingras

Messages passagers is the first Canadian solo exhibition for artist duo Dagmar Keller (Germany) and Martin Wittwer (Switzerland). It comprises three recent works in which the artists examine the relationship between reality and fiction and interrogate processes of perception and communication.

Say Hello to Peace and Tranquility (2001) is a constant flow of scenes shot in a quiet suburb where time seems to have stood still. A sense of timelessness is created by the smooth motion of a hidden camera and the constructed, artificial nature of the scenes: one can hardly tell if one is facing a photograph, a scale model, or an ad for a housing complex. A soundtrack by Michaela Grobelny envelops the spectator, reinforcing the impression of atemporality. Is this a utopian vision, a fiction, an illusion, a critique of urban phenomena, or simply a fascination with this disturbing tranquility? What You Want To See (2006) presents us with the facades of city buildings at dusk and the sounds of conversational fragments between a man and a woman. The urban framework serves as a conduit for an intimate communication continually scrambled and truncated by language and faulty transmission. Here too is a sense of suspension. In both these works, the scenes are devoid of human presence. The shooting of Ave Maria (2007) is more direct and unmediated, consisting of documentary shots of a busy Italian street filmed from a moving vehicle. Images of passersby drivers, and billboards converge and collapse into each other, while Ave Maria recited in a female voice lends an operatic and incantational tone to the short video.

Resting on contemplation, voyeurism, and curiosity, these three works offer a true balance between urban, social, and aesthetic concerns. Supported by impressionistic audio atmospheres that are part ironic, part oneiric, they represent a serious and masterly investigation of the power of the image on our surroundings. Architecture, urbanity, flux and mobility, relationships with the other are some of the recurring themes broached by Keller and Wittwer. Despite the many narrative elements incorporated into their work, their entire endeavour may summed up as “the experience of time.”
- Nicole Gingras

Messages passagers is the second exhibition in Listening to See, a series of exhibitions presented by Montréal curator Nicole Gingras as part of NOISE AND SILENCE 2008-2009, an interdisciplinary series of events organized by Goethe-Institut Montréal.

The exhibition is a joint endeavour by Optica and Goethe-Institut Montréal. It also receives support from the Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council.

Goethe



Prohelvetia


Dagmar Keller (1972, Germany) and Martin Wittwer (1969, Switzerland) have worked together as an artist duo since 1997, gaining an international reputation for their photography, video, and installations. They have had several solo exhibitions in Europe and have taken part in group exhibitions in Europe, the Far East, and India.

Author and curator Nicole Gingras lives in Montreal. She has expressed her interests in the image and in sound through numerous exhibitions, artistic programs, and publications.




Dagmar Keller, Martin Wittwer
From March 14th 2009 to April 18th 2009
Messages passagers





Serge Murphy
From May 9th 2009 to June 13th 2009
Rien de tout cela (version 2009)

The relationship between sculpture and the monument takes a festive turn with Serge Murphy. All Murphy’s recent production might well be summed up as “work in progress.” His is a body of work that eschews the commercialization so prevalent in the art world. Rien de tout cela (2009 version) introduces the idea of an autonomous, recurring series that varies with each iteration. He brings his own approach into the spotlight here, and with it, the act of collecting. The work evolves considerably from one presentation to the next, materials and objects constantly appear and disappear. Following its own inner logic, the installation, which contains another, gains in richness and complexity over time, and the time and place of each presentation generates a unique constellation of emotion.

Found and reused objects and unfinished materials—veil, cross, drawings, photos, bits of wool and string—compose a repertoire of playful forms and references to art history, painting, the land, and popular imagination. The gallery installation is comprised of several constructions of painted wood erected like towers and balanced atop one another. As in the first version, presented at the Manif d’art du Québec, each of the constructions—a tabletop, a crate—contains one or more elements. In the second version, the space is subdivided into a grid; our gaze travels along the proffered perforations and points of view, the areas and masses. Murphy indulges in a lengthy and meticulous reconstruction, modelling the exhibition space’s voids and volumes. The unity of the piece, as precarious as it may be, rests on the profusion of objects, abstract forms, water colours, moulds, and other of the artist’s productions, here assembled into an immense collage.

The impression of being faced with pandemonium quickly gives way to a sense of organization, where each of the artist’s gestures becomes meaningful in a distribution of shapes and lines that only exist in and through this particular space.
-Marie-Josée Lafortune


This exhibition is part of the Montreal Off-Biennal 2009.

OFF BNL MTL


Serge Murphy lives and works in Montreal. He produces installational sculpture, drawings, and narrative video (the latter in collaboration with Charles Guilbert). His work has been presented in Quebec, Canada, the United States, Europe, and South America. In 2007, he won the Ozias-Leduc lifetime achievement award.



Suzanne Caines
From May 9th 2009 to June 13th 2009
Split Pea Soup

Suzanne Caines’ videos bear witness to the difficulty of inhabiting public space; in them, she exposes her disappointments, her ennui, and questions the limits of relational art. Creating situations and engaging in conversations that broach and disrupt particular social conventions, her simple gestures raise many questions about audience expectation and the artist’s role in her community.

Caines uses objects to interact with people and to work her way into their everyday lives. These objects reflect a cultural heritage, are associated with memories, with patterns of thought and action characteristic of a social group. In Split Pea Soup, a video she produced during a residency in Portugal in 2007, Caines stands with the cashier behind the counter of grocery store and attempts, fruitlessly, to serve pea soup to the clientèle.

The artist’s approach is to create situations that have a connection with reality. In the 1960s, "reality was a major preoccupation, with a consequent refashioning of the 'art world,' from the gallery to the museum, from the market to the very concept of art."(1) Such reassessments would appear to be widely accepted now, and artistic interventions in public spaces are no longer the exception, nor do they have any revolutionary import. The art of public intervention and participation still has to find its place among cultural events geared towards entertainment, a context in which audiences are not encouraged to examine their expectations or to familiarize themselves with alternate forms of dissemination and enquiry.

In the gallery, the repetition of the filmed sequence, on two alternating screens, adds to the sense of a breakdown in communication, and of the subject’s isolation. One finds oneself before a document labouring to establish a connection with its audience. Yet Caines sets the spectator in the very space of the encounter, and for that spectator the entire situation becomes the work—and an accomplished one at that. -Marie-Josée Lafortune

(1) Paul Ardenne, Un art contextuel, Paris, Flammarion, 2004.

Suzanne Caines produced this project in within the framework of the Nodar Residency; she would like to thank Mr. Luis Costa for his support.

Suzanne Caines completed her MFA at the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London, in 2004. Her work has been shown in solo and group shows in Canada, the United States, and Europe. She has participated in several performance and video festivals, as well as in international residencies.


image
© Lancement du 23 avril 2009 à l'École des beaux-arts de Valence. (Photo : Marie-Josée Lafortune)

David Dupont, Marie-Josée Lafortune, Diane Morin, André-Louis Paré, Sylvie Vojik
June 13th 2009
Livres d'artistes
Résidence de recherche jeune création


+ Book launch :: Saturday, June 13th, 3pm-5pm

This publication sequels research undertaken by artists David Dupont in Montreal, and Diane Morin in Valence, in the context of a residency and exchange program initiated by art3 and OPTICA.

The Résidence de recherche jeune création Montréal-Valence is a combined residency and grant program for young artists from the Rhône-Alpes region and Quebec. This edition gives an first-hand account of the relationship forged between art3 and OPTICA, focusses the respective practices of the resident artists, and presents a critical perspective on "process" by author André-Louis Paré.

This project was made possible with the support of partnering institutions, the Ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition féminine du Québec, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and Région Rhône-Alpes.

See the catalogue of publications.



Anne-Lise Seusse
From September 1st 2009 to November 30th 2009
Résidence de recherche jeune création

Originally from Lyon, France, Anne-Lise Seusse produces photographic work that broaches issues of territory, especially the micro phenomena of the ritualization of particular spaces through leisure activities. The creation of these singular communities - skeet-shooting retirees, or free riders traversing a military zone - gnerates situations that sometimes run counter to the location's "political" organization. Seusse's journalistic forays seek out such areas of slippage and confrontation. She pursues her research in Montreal, making portraits of young roleplayers taking part in medieval fantasy live action games at the Mont-Royal.



Consulat Général de France art3 Région Rhône-Alpes





Yan Giguère
From September 12th 2009 to October 17th 2009
Attractions

Yan Giguère pursues his investigation of the everyday. His intuitive practice resembles a filmic composition that unfolds in the exhibition space as images interconnect to form a series of poetic and formal associations. A developing narrative is suggested by the presented environments, their deployment in separate production cycles, and the interplay of genres—mainly landscape and portraiture. Picking up where the previous series had left off, the figure of his beloved now leads us into a garden.

The photographer focuses on plants, on their suggestive power, on particular tropisms, especially those caused by light. This characteristic of plants to react to light and shadow recalls aspects of the medium of photography: effects of exposure, reactions to a light source. Their presence, like cranes reaching up into the sky, teaches us something about the structure of the process.

One notices an ascending movement in the choice of motifs and their distribution, and a progression in the arrangement of the exhibition area given the attributes of each photograph. A slew of associations emerges from the proximity of the images, like that of the magnificent white brugmansia (Trompette des anges) and a sun-shaped monstrance (the Blessed Sacrament), religious iconography that lives on in popular culture. This image, like others he has taken throughout the Quebec countryside, are documentary in nature, and Giguère likes to conjure them as signs of cultural origin and identity.

This series preserves a degree of intimacy. Layered into it are themes of the Garden of Eden, Genesis (the apple), and the temptations of artificial paradise (psychoactive properties of some plants). One has the impression of journeying through underbrush, where plants guide us in a universe that leaves traces on the photosensitive film surface. Several images also suggest the idea of foundation—a clump of struts holding up a parking area—, germination, or growth, more metaphors of the creative process, of which views of the workshop and of the beloved painter are essential components in Giguère’s work.
- Marie-Josée Lafortune


Nicolas Mavrikakis's review on Yan Giguère's «Attractions» is available online, («Tropismes», Voir, October 1rst, 2009) as well as an excerpt of the interview between the artist and Sylvain Campeau («Gravity et Tropism», CV87, Winter 2011).

Yan Giguère will be at the gallery on Saturday, September 26th (12pm-5pm) for Journées de la culture 2009.

For the 13th edition of the Journées de la culture, Yan Giguère («Attractions», photography) and Sophie Bélair Clément («Le son du projecteur», conceptual art/sound installation) will be at the gallery this Saturday, September 26th : a meet-and-greet with the artists, a guided exhibition of their works and a discussion about their respective practices will take place. Admission is free. See you there!

Journées de la culture


The artist thanks the Canada Council for the Arts, le Centre Clark, l’Atelier Clark, le Centre Vu, Marie-Claude Bouthillier, Rodrigue Bélanger, Peter King, Louis Lussier and Mobile Home.


Born in Disraeli, Yan Giguère completed his studies in photography at Concordia University in 1996. His work has been shown in many artist centres and he has taken part in several group events and exhibitions. One can find his work in both private and museum collections.

Bibliographie
- Campeau, Sylvain, «Gravité et tropisme», Ciel variable, no 87, hiver 2011, pp.21-29.
- Campeau, Sylvain, «Yan Giguère», Ciel variable, no 84, printemps 2010, pp.67-68.
- Delgado, Jérôme, «Une autre constellation lumineuse», Le Devoir, 26-27 septembre 2009, p.E9.
- Mavrikakis, Nicolas, «Dans les centres d'artistes cet automne, Montréal, centres d'art», Voir, 3 septembre 2009, [www.voir.ca].
- Mavrikakis, Nicolas, «Mois de la photo Montréal, les théâtres de l'image», Voir, 17 septembre 2009, [www.voir.ca].
- Mavrikakis, Nicolas, «Tropismes», Voir, 1er octobre 2009, [www.voir.ca].



image
© Sophie Bélair Clément, Le son du projecteur, 2009. Photo : Bettina Hoffmann.

Sophie Bélair Clément
From September 12th 2009 to October 17th 2009
Le son du projecteur

Sophie Bélair Clément has developed a video and audio production in which a performative body explores the idea and phenomenon of loss brought about by reproductibility. The experience of loss - replayed on the screen in slow motion and to music - exacerbates the act of hearing, concentration, and other properties of the exhibition. Works in the gallery : Adrian Piper's Bach Whistled (1970, 44 min 7 s) and Piece for a string quartet aiming to reproduce the sound of a video projector playing Bas Jan Ader’s “Nightfall” (1971, black and white silent 16 mm film, 4 min 16 s, transfered to DVD) (2009, 44 min 21 s), performed by Kingdom Shore.


➤ May 8 2008, 07 : 46
➤ FW : Re : the Space Between

Dear Sophie,

If you want to record during the day-time, Adrian Piper´s work Bach Whistled will be on which means that you would not be able to hear the Bas Jan Ader projection. Otherwise, you need to come outside of opening hours.

Kind Regards,

Marie Chrysander
Museum Anna Nordlander, Skellefteå


➤ July 27 2009, 14 : 31
➤ Re : project

Sophie.

I hope this finds you well.
we are finished with the piece.
it turned into a long undertaking here.
we could not track the piece, as we were having too much trouble hearing each other in the mix, and we divided up the parts based on the subtleties in the original file of the bulb.
also, the division and recording of strings meant that we had to recast the score together.
the writing credit should go to the whole band.
we could not find a reed player, so we used violin for the high sound. I hope that you like it.

so, we recorded it live, all together.
the human element of it was interesting. you can really hear the stress of the players at around the 24 minute mark. everyone starts to get tired, and stressed, and the strings dig in a little more, though the volume doesn’t increase.

we realized when we tried to play it, that the sound of the bulb and the projector is encased in a flimsy plastic box, and that it is resonating through there to make some of the sounds that we were hearing. also, you can hear the grinding of the motor in the original file, which made for some tough frequencies to match in the mid-range, but I think we’ve satisfied the spectrum of sound from the original.

so we put 2 microphones up, and set the players at different distances from them. you can hear the way it resonates through the house.
the biggest struggle was to find a way to represent the hissing sound that comes on the original file. we did this through mic placement, and the natural cavity of the house.
there’s a good reverb on this that makes everything sound contained, and i think we’ve matched the hiss and resonance well.

so, the instrumentation and frequency separation is as follows:

jasmine landau: mid violin ryan hough: high violin mark molnar: mid and low cello gerg horvath: mid and low bass

nathan medema dealt with engineering and balancing the recording.

warmth,
mark


«Le son du projecteur» is the subject of an article by Jesse Mckee, Sophie Bélair Clément : Le son du projecteur (Cmagazine, spring 2010)


Sophie Bélair Clément will be at the gallery on Saturday, September 26th (12pm-5pm) for Journées de la culture 2009.

For the 13th edition of the Journées de la culture, Yan Giguère («Attractions», photography) and Sophie Bélair Clément («Le son du projecteur», conceptual art/sound installation) will be at the gallery this Saturday, September 26th : a meet-and-greet with the artists, a guided exhibition of their works and a discussion about their respective practices will take place. Admission is free. See you there!

Journées de la culture



The artist thanks the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Adrian Piper Research Archive, Marie Chrysander, Mats Stjernstedt (curator of “The Space Between”) and the Musée Anna Nordlander of SkellefteÃ¥, Kingdom Shore (Mark Molnar, Jasmine Landau, Ryan Hough, Gerg Horvath, Nathan Medema and Simon Guibord), Michèle Thériault and the Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery, Dan Nguyen and Hexagram UQÀM, Marc Dulude, David Jacques, Marie-Claire Forté, Olivier Girouard and Alexandre Castonguay.



Sophie Bélair Clément has developed a video and audio production in which a performative body explores the idea and phenomenon of loss brought about by reproducibility. The experience of this loss – replayed on the screen in slow motion and to music – exacerbates the act of hearing, concentration, and other properties of the exhibition.

Kingdom Shore was formed in March of 2006. Blurring the lines between the punk rock that grew out of 1980's hardcore, avant and art rock, electroacoustic music, noise, old world gospel, and contemporary and left-field music.

Adrian Margaret Smith Piper is a first-generation conceptual artist. Bach Whistled is a durational audio performance in which Piper whistles along to a recording of Johann Sebastian Bach’s concertos in D minor, A minor and C major.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is a renowned Baroque composer.




Myriam Yates
From November 7th 2009 to December 12th 2009
Syntoniser - Night park

Myriam Yates has developed a rapport with the image that shows an attachment to the screen, along with a marked interest for cinematic images whose forms of recording and retrieval are countercurrent to a digital approach. With each exhibition of her work, Yates further complicates this rapport, prompting us to dwell on both the narrative elements and the formal aspects of the images produced, which stage different qualities of video and film. In the gallery, she juxtaposes two spaces and temporalities from a single fiction : a now demolished hotel complex and drive-in cinema.

Yates makes frequent use of the still image in this series, placing us before moments suspended in time. A sad, melancholic sense of wandering emanates from the images, along with a sweeping vision of abandoned, obsolete venues, in city centres, or on their outskirts. It is difficult to distinguish what they represent from the source of an affective response, particularily our sense of space and time.

Both the presence of nature in these spaces – marking a passage of time – as well as the architectural references in the landscape are decisive factors in the construction of this affect. Their indicial nature informs us on the subject of the experience, the origin of the narrative, and the site of a vanishing symbolic activity which stirs in us a consciousness we identify with.

Several temporalities coexist within the image. They are accentuated further by the effects of superimposition. Yates is not only interested in the screen as a projection surface, but also with what surrounds it. She directs our attention to the youthful users and seasonal activity of an open-air cinema, which she documents together with the phased demolition of a hotel complex. Her images, thus layered and deconstructed, meld into a recomposed (non-)space.
- Marie-Josée Lafortune

«Syntoniser - Night park» is the subject of an article by Sylvain Campeau, Intrusion et transition (ETC, june 2010).

Born in Montreal in 1971, Myriam Yates works with photography and video installation. She documents and reflects upon public spaces and the many relationships we have with them. Her projects have been shown at the Mois de la Photo à Montréal, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, and at various events, including the Rencontres Internationales Paris-Berlin.

The artist wishes to thank Ciné-Parc Orford and the City of Sherbrooke.


Bibliographie
- Campeau, Sylvain, «Intrusion et transition forcée», ETC, no 90, juin 2010, p. 48-49.




Jacinthe Lessard-L.
From November 7th 2009 to December 12th 2009
En fonction de la forme

In works conjuring pictorial forms of modernity, Jacinthe Lessard-L. explores the aesthetics of our everyday lives and living spaces, the interstices between the normative and the individual. She is particularly interested in contemporary realities resulting from the democratization of design. Her current work exacerbates the phenomenon of commodification present in earlier series, as she investigates the potential residing in the polymers that now pervade our visual culture, particularly the packaging of trivial objects. Explorations of these colourful resurgences reveal an evocative power, as the critical distance of the photographic medium and the ambiguity of the image suggest certain minimalist practices and betray traces of modernist idealism.

Indeed, though the series presented in the gallery may at first seem self-evident, it harbours various levels of meaning. Lessard-L. calls upon our collective memory and each spectator, prompted by more or less implicit visual citations, will bring their referents to bear, creating unique intertextual linkages. Thus the ornamental nature of the work, combined with effects of materials and textures, sometimes suggest decorative fabric; outlines, whether sharply defined, fleeting or incandescent, can suggest rayograms; for some, the flat bands of bright colour will recall Colourfield Painting; others will think of International Klein Blue, despite the fact that the construction of the image, its coloured material, is determined by the products themselves.

That said, colour isn’t entirely freed from its situational and figurative references: despite all the manipulations it has undergone, we can sometimes make out the uncanny familiarity of the materials at the root of the work. One shouldn’t confuse these chromogenic prints with digital works, however. Here, the found objects are captured in their original packaging and only the lighting, composition, and darkroom manipulations are brought to bear in the production of a photograph whose ambiguity tests the limits of the medium’s documentary function.
- Geneviève Bédard

Jacinthe Lessard-L. completed her master’s in visual arts at Concordia University in 2006. Her projects have been exhibited in Quebec, and in the cities of Toronto, Nancy, Götenborg, Glasgow. Her exhibition “reGeneration 2 : photographes de demain” will soon be on display at the Musée de L’Élysée in Lausanne.



En conversation avec Gabor Szilasi
November 24th 2009
Campagne de financement
Cocktail | Conférence | Exposition + vente


Gabor Szilasi’s work is undeniably seminal in the history of contemporary Canadian photograpy. At the University Club of Montreal, he will talk intimately about his career and offer a selection of original artworks that bear witness to a priveleged point of view. Three photographs marking three significant periods of Gabor's career will exceptionally be for sale. Enthusiasts and collectors take note! Gabor Szilasi, represented by Art45 gallery, is the 2009 laureate of the prix Paul-Émile-Borduas.

"En conversation avec Gabor Szilasi" is an invitation of Alain Ishak, director for Quebec at the Hay Group, president of the University Club of Montreal and member of OPTICA's board of directors. All proceeds from the evening will go towards the center’s activities and the William A. Ewing grant. OPTICA is enrolled in the "Programme Placements Culture" (Government of Quebec); the gallery also has a endowment fund, administered by the Foundation of Greater Montreal.

November 24th, 5pm-8pm
En conversation avec Gabor Szilasi
Cocktail | Conference | Art exhibition + sale

Cost of the event : 65$ (including a 30$ donation, with tax receipt)
University Club of Montreal
2047, Mansfield
Montreal, Quebec H3A 1Y7
Reservations : 514.874.1666 ⎢ communications@optica.ca
Business casual dresscode
RSVP before November 20th


   Gabor Szilasi, Motocyclistes au lac Balaton, 1954
   Gelatin silver print
   12 3/4 x 18 7/8" (image); 16 x 20" (paper)
   Signed on the back
   sold   2 500$
Motocyclistes au lac Balaton

   Gabor Szilasi, Dunn's, 888-902 rue Ste-Catherine Ouest, Montréal, 1977
   Gelatin silver print
   14 3/4 x 18 5/8" (image); 16 x 20" (paper)
   Signed on the back
   sold   2 500$
Dunn's

Salle de bain    Gabor Szilasi, Salle de bain chez André et Marie-Rose Houde, Lotbinière, janvier 1977
   Chromogenic colour print
   15 1/16 x 18 7/8" (image); 16 x 20" (paper)
   Signed on the back
   2 500$








Club universitaire de Montréal Placements Culture Placements Culture Fondation du Grand Montréal Jean-Marc Côté - Imprimeur Mario Beaupré - Encadreur




Anne-Lisse Seusse
November 26th 2009
Conférence + Cocktail

*5@7 :: Thursday November 26th*

You are cordially invited to a public presentation by Anne-Lise Seusse – an artist originally from Lyon having just completed a three-month residency at OPTICA – this Thursday, November 26th. She will talk about her photographic practice, especially the research done in Montreal this fall. The conference will start around 5pm and will be followed by a cocktail. All are welcomed!

Originally from Lyon, Anne-Lise Seusse produces photographic work that broaches issues of territory, especially the micro phenomena of the ritualization of particular spaces through leisure activities. The creation of these singular communities – skeet-shooting retirees, or free riders traversing a military zone – generates situations that sometimes run counter to the location's "political" organization. Seusse's journalistic forays seek out such areas of slippage and confrontation.

OPTICA (Montreal) and art3 (Valence) initiated a combined residency and grant program for young artists. The host organizations’ primary functions are to serve as mediator for artists working in new environments and setting up meetings with professionals in the field. At the end of the three-month residency, the grant recipient makes his or her work public; a publication is co-produced by OPTICA and art3 the following year.