centre d'artistes.artist run centre
Exhibition in Montréal : October 19 – November 25, 2012
Opening reception : October 19, 6pm
Exhibition in Brooklyn : January – February, 2014
In collaboration with Front Room Gallery
As part of the project Montréal-Brooklyn organised in collaboration with : Centre CLARK, Optica, Les Territoires, Galerie [SAS], Galerie de l’UQAM, MACM, Galerie Division, Parker’s Box, Front Room Gallery, A.I.R Gallery, Causey Contemporary, Residency Ulimited & Interstate Projects, Smack Mellon, Pierogi 2000, Momenta Art
The first major artistic and cultural exchange between Montreal and New York City in over 10 years, Montreal – Brooklyn will reveal cultural similarities and differences between two major cities and beacons of North American contemporary art, via a series of exhibitions in galleries and museums in both cities.
For this exchange, artist-run center articule and The Front Room Gallery collaborate to organize an exhibition that will be presented in both Montréal in and Brooklyn. This exchange was developed as an occasion for both organizations to explore and share each other’s concepts about art, artists, the working styles and cultural variances between the two cities. The concept of the exhibition, “Territorial Re-Marks” grew from this exchange and became the focus for the curation of representative artists and artworks from Brooklyn and Montréal. Artists were selected whose work deals with the idea of territory: territory of the mind, territory of the body, territory of societies, territory of wilderness. By presenting a range of working styles from performance to painting, drawing and sculpture, each artist explores the complexities of desire, social organization, hierarchy, and mark-making relative to the various forms of territories.
With, Where we touched; A drawing of places to meet authors, Michelle Lacombe explores the encounter between author and reader and the way one contributes to shaping the mind of the other. In a performative action, Michelle Lacombe will translate onto a wall, marks she made to emphasize important passages while she was reading. By reenacting the action of underlining, she will be tracing a horizon of the mind.
In Plot Plans for an Ideal City, Patricia Smith proposes un-realistic plans for city developments that will never be realized. Drawing delicate psychological maps, she uses the movement of desire to prescribe domains, territories and unattainable plot plans. Patricia Smith's map-like drawings reflect how inner architecture can constrain our action in society.
Emily Roz paints territories in which wilderness and domestic domains intertwine. Wild animals act ferociously – feeding upon each other, fighting, and roaring – in luxurious domestic flora. Their instincts of survival and territorial control can be viewed as human actions in relation to the space they share, competing against each other to control the land, to feed, and propagate.
Jérôme Havre proposes a fiber baroque sculpture exploring the use of power to create hierarchy. Referring to colonization, he associates artifacts of luxury with objects of war; he utilizes light and flames to reflect how behind power lays domination. Havre uses the underlying metaphor of The Enlightenment to examine how rational discourse can be used to justify violence and abuse when explained by the dominant.
In the exhibition, “Territorial Re-Marks,” each artist examines the conditions of control over territory. Havre’s sculptural installation considers the materiality of desire as illustrated through opulent objects – and how this desire for control can taint the reality of actions. Roz’s paintings reference our own underlying desires, and the impulses of survival that can fuel wild actions, even in the calmest of people. Dominion over these base impulses drives an internalization of territorial control. Lacombe’s visually striking wall installation expands the internal relationship inherent in reading and writing and exposes the insulated realm between the two. Smith transforms the internal and private realms of desire into publicly displayed architectural plans. Both Lacombe and Smith cross the boundaries between the hidden internal thoughts and methodologies expanding the territory of the mind to that of the physical world.
Michelle Lacombe (Montreal, QC) has developed a unique body-based practice since her graduation from Concordia University in 2006. Focusing on a visual language where bodily gesture and mark marking are entwined and confused, Lacombe creates short works that are both confrontational and tragic. Her work has been show in Canada, the USA and Germany in the context of performance events, exhibitions and colloquiums. Her practice as an artist is paralleled by a strong commitment to artist-run culture and alternative methods of artistic dissemination. She has worked at a number of Montreal galleries including articule, La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse and VIVA ! Art Action.
Jérôme Havre was born in France in 1972. After completing his preparatory artistic studies in textiles, Jérôme Havre studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. During his time at the School of Fine Arts he developed various artistic techniques, including drawing, sculpture, fresco painting and multimedia. It was here he became interested in depicting news images through acrylic and oil painting. He was introduced to various creative process, including wax modelling and bronze casting during a residence at the Foundry de Coubertin. In addition, during his studies he was awarded three scholarships that enabled him to pursue different art practices: silk printing techniques in New York (Cooper Union), printing techniques in Barcelona (Bellas Artes) and painting and video in Berlin (Universität der Künste Berlin - HDK) in the workshop of Marwan Kassab Bashi, where he began his project “ Magnifique Isolation”. This project, inspired by his personal experiences and by art history has been the basis of his artistic process for the last ten years. Since 2001 Jérôme Havre has exhibited his works in Europe, Africa and North America. He currently lives and works in Montreal, Canada.
Born in 1972, Emily Roz received a BA from Hampshire College where she studied Art History, Literature and Weaving. She went on to receive an MFA in Fiber from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including Front Room Gallery, Parlour, HKJB, 31Grand and ABC No Rio in New York; Decatur Blue in Washington DC; Gardenfresh and Clutch Gallery in Chicago and The Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. She has been reviewed in Time Out New York, New York Magazine, The Washington Post, Joy Quarterly, W+G Williamsburg News + Art, Apollo Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail and NewCity Chicago. Emily was raised in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and currently works in New York, where she lives with her husband and son.
Patricia Smith was born in Camden, New Jersey, and studied art at Drew University, Rutgers University, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She received her MFA from Rutgers University Mason Gross School of Art in 1984, and subsequently moved to New York City. She immediately became active in the downtown Manhattan and East Village art scenes, Smith was very active in 1980’s downtown Manhattan and East Village art scenes, exhibiting at such historic galleries as Sensory Evolution, Helio, Life Gallery, Cuando, Nico Smith, Limbo, Zeus Trabia and Nite Gallery. Her first solo exhibition in New York was at Piezo Electric Gallery in 1986. She was was a founding member of Femme Vitale, a renegade women artists’ group who, beginning in the mid-1980s and throughout their ten-year existence, staged many exhibitions in offbeat locations, including the Brecht Forum in Tribeca and the Times Square Hotel. During the 1990s, her work was included in numerous group exhibitions at galleries in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, including the pioneering Test Site, Sauce Gallery, Eyewash and Pierogi 2000. Also during the 1990s, she staged several group exhibitions and introduced the work of European and local artists. She has also curated large installation projects in conjunction with Voorkamer in Lier, Belgium and at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Smith has had solo exhibitions at Front Room Gallery, Black + Herron Gallery, Saint Peter’s Church, and Piezo Electric Gallery in New York; In Situ Gallery in Aalst, Belgium; Croxhapox Gallery in Gent, Belgium; and S.O.M.A. Gallery in Berlin, Germany.
Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions in places such as Articule in Montreal, Austellungsraum Klingental in Basel, Switzerland, Housatonic Museum in Bridgeport, CT, Stedelijk Museum Aalst in Belgium, Grand Bazaar in Istanbul in conjunction with the 2007 Istanbul Biennial, and numerous others. Her work was recently featured on the cover of The Journal of Creative Geography, published by the University of Arizona.
Smith’s work has been reviewed in various publications, including The New York Times, Art in America, Los Angeles Times, L Magazine, Le Devoir (Montreal), The Globe and Mail (Toronto), De Morgen (Belgium), Critical Review, New York Magazine, and others. She is listed in Marquis’ Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who of American Women. She was recently awarded an artist’s residency for 2013 at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.
