It is not insignificant that verses by Gaston Miron can be read on a window of Michel Goulet’s studio. The artist, a great figure in sculpture in Quebec who will reach the age of 80 in 2024, is a man of words. Since a long time. Words, places, thingsa book of interviews published in December, reflects this well.
From his teaching career, spread over 28 years between the University of Ottawa and UQAM, the sculptor remembers the discussions with his students. His works bear titles that are sometimes enigmatic, never insignificant. And for two decades, Michel Goulet has been inscribing poetic texts on the steel of his chairs, the emblematic object of his sculpture. Today, his chair-poems are being snatched up, especially in Europe, which is always asking for more.
“I cover Paris with poem chairs,” says the man who is proud of the idea of soon being represented in the French capital by five permanent public installations. And as each work includes more than one chair… the one intended for the Jardin du Luxembourg, which could appear in 2025, will contain 100. If the budget allows it.
Let us add that Michel Goulet knew how to make his voice resonate publicly, whether he was challenged by the media or whether he himself took up the pen. His letters in The duty and in The Press at the end of the summer, where he denounced the “shame” he feels about the current state of the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC), are a convincing example.
“I am willing to tackle the situation of the Museum of Contemporary Art, but I do not want to destroy it. This museum is disconnected, he says, with sadness. There was not an artist [québécois] French-speaking in the programming [d’expositions individuelles] since five years. It’s still the Quebec museum. »
Proud man, humble artist
Michel Goulet welcomes us into his comfortable living room, surrounded by works of colleagues — Trevor Gould here, Louise Robert, the friend who died in 2022, there. At his side, Pierre Delorme. It is he, the career academic, who is behind the book Words, places, things. They have known each other since the time when, at UQAM, one was department director and the other, academic manager.
“I took the money from him and he took the words from me,” says the artist, summing up their long relationship.
Pierre Delorme wanted to discover the man who designed these chairs, tables and so many other everyday objects that have become works of art, exhibited in galleries, museums and in the street. “We don’t know the artist and his evolution, where he comes from. That’s what interested me, he said, to bring out the human side. [L’artiste]doesn’t live in an ivory tower, he’s someone who goes out to buy groceries on the street corner. »
The words that he manages to extract from his interlocutor return to his years of youth (the chapter “A desire for art”), describe his relationship to creation (“Works”) and address the question of money and prices, which Michel Goulet would have preferred to avoid (“Reconnaissances”). The answers are surprising, more than once.
“I didn’t have much confidence in myself,” he explains, for example, about his studies. But at the same time, I knew I could be very good. Even today, I know that I haven’t done anything exceptional yet, but that one day I will create an extraordinary work. »
“I always have this feeling… not of failure, but of lack,” he continues in an interview. I feel like I lack the qualities to achieve things. I know I’ve made works that people will remember. Probably, history won’t forget me, but I’m not sure about that. Betty Goodwin [décédée en 2008], we don’t talk about it. »
He ends up admitting that Dreaming of the New World (2008), the 40 chair-poems to see in front of the Palais station, in Quebec, and The unique lessons(1990), two sets installed at Place Roy and Parc Lafontaine, on Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, are “exceptional”. “It doesn’t exist anywhere else, but I have to find something better than that.” »
According to Pierre Delorme, Michel Goulet is always like this, torn between pride and modesty. “He also says: “I am a proud man, but I want to be a humble artist.” It seems,” reports the former art dealer – that of the Pierre Bernard gallery, in Hull.
Mostly mundane objects
The result of the interviews pleases the sculptor, born in Asbestos (and raised in Sherbrooke). A “mixed pleasure”, he adds, eternally ambivalent. ” I think [le livre] is a stop in time, the time to see where you come from, what you are, what you have become, what you are going to leave,” he comments. Why go teach in Ottawa? “I wanted to earn my living and not be on my knees in front of the stock markets. I went there and worked hard. I lived in Saint-Jacques-le-Mineur [en Montérégie], I left for evening class and came back at 2 a.m. Twice a week. »
Tenacious and persevering, the one who has had 17 exhibitions at the MAC, between his very first (Michel Goulet and LouiseRobert1980) and his major retrospective (Part of life, part of play, 2004), knows he is spoiled. He thanks his galleries, including the current one, the Simon Blais gallery, for accepting his unsaleable works. Words, places, things accounts for all that, his presence at the Venice Biennale in 1988, his scenographies for the theater (by Denis Marleau, above all), his own successes, the youngest winner, at 46, of the Borduas Prize (1990 ). And, of course, his half-hearted relationship with the expression which consecrates him as “the artist of chairs”.
” My project [non retenu] for the MUHC, it was 24 poem tables,” he says, to remind us that, yes, the Goulet sculpture is also something other than chairs.
“I’m tired of people talking about my chairs,” he recalls. I would like people to say that I put everyday objects, simple, fairly banal, into the public arena, and that from there, we, like [individus], we are important. It’s not just a chair, it’s also a mundane object. »
Words, places, things was born from a year and a half of discussions, with a weekly meeting of at least one hour. For Pierre Delorme, who dreams of reproducing here what the historian and art critic Hans Ulrich Obrist did in Europe (The infinite interviews, Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art), it is perhaps the beginning of an adventure. “Yes, it’s the first one. From a long series, I don’t know. »
“Can we find out who is following me? asks Michel Goulet, point-blank. I would like to have my say. »
A story to follow.