Barbara Steinman, winner of the Borduas Prize | A belated honor so appreciated

Montreal multidisciplinary artist Barbara Steinman is the winner of the 2022 Paul-Émile-Borduas Prize, awarded by the Government of Quebec. A recognition that makes him very happy. The Press met her at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MABM) near her works that the museum has acquired and exhibits in two pavilions.

Barbara Steinman turned 73 on Friday. She is still an elegant, eloquent, brilliant and in top form artist!

She is very touched to have received the Borduas prize, the most prestigious award given by Quebec to visual artists. And grateful, because it comes as the belated crowning of an exceptional career. This conceptual artist – who studied literature at McGill University and media arts at Concordia University – has mostly been honored outside Quebec, notably with the Governor General’s Award in 2002.

Represented by gallery owners Olga Korper in Toronto and Françoise Paviot in Paris, Barbara Steinman has never been granted a retrospective in Quebec. Amazing when you consider the incredible journey of this artist. Exhibitions at MOMA, New York, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Tate Liverpool, Art Gallery of Ontario and National Gallery of Canada (NGC). In addition to participation in an international exhibition during the 1988 Venice Biennale and the biennials of Sydney, Seoul and São Paulo.

It was her years of experimentation in Vancouver that gave birth to artist Barbara Steinman. From 1974 to 1980, she discovered the language of video there, becoming one of the first to incorporate it into sculptural installations. There, she attended the dynamic artist-run center Western Front – which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year – and produced videos presented notably at the Vancouver Art Gallery. She returned transformed to Montreal, where she directed Video Vehicle, an outgrowth of the ex-VehicleArt center that became PRIM in 1981, before taking over as director of La Centrale galerie Powerhouse, from 1983 to 1985.

The other turning point in his career was the Hundred Days of Contemporary Art in Montreal, organized by Claude Gosselin. She exhibited there, in 1986, Cenotaph, a sculptural work on disappearance and exclusion, previously created for an exhibition in Lyon. ” Cenotaph was noticed in Europe before being noticed in Montreal, São Paulo and Germany, says Barbara Steinman, in impeccable French. The National Gallery of Canada acquired it in 1987.

Barbara Steinman’s commitment has always been expressed discreetly, without exuberance and in the guise of concepts that one must be ready to detect. A style appreciated by lovers of visual puzzles, opening the door to their receptivity. “I’ve always made it my watchword to address people’s sensitivities,” she says. Whatever their origins, backgrounds and particular stories. I dare to believe that this is perhaps one of the reasons why my works have traveled so much and been welcomed in such diverse contexts, in Europe and North America of course, but also in Asia, Latin America and Oceania. »

Following a visit to Prague where she had admired magnificent Bohemian crystal chandeliers, Barbara Steinman had the idea of ​​creating Lux, in 2000. The installation evokes the notion of power, but the crystal of enlightened elites has been replaced by the steel chains of brutal authorities. The crystals are on the ground, where the shadows of the chandelier create an ephemeral cage. A work still current, acquired and exhibited at the MMFA.

The artist then had the chance to meet Montreal curator Ji-Yoon Han – who is preparing the 2023 edition of the Montreal biennial Momenta. It allowed him, after exhibitions at Pierre-François Ouellette, Roger Bellemare and Antoine Ertaskiran, to show his work, in 2019, at the Darling Foundry. A work on human richness and vulnerability, Barbara Steinman’s credo.

Barbara Steinman has also completed several public art projects. Riveran artwork in situ for the Canadian Embassy in Berlin in 2005, another for the Canadian Embassy in Moscow in 2010, and outdoor works in Toronto and Vancouver. She is preparing a solo for her Toronto gallery owner for 2014 and is exhibiting photographs this Saturday (February 4) at the TrépanierBaer gallery in Calgary.

Resilient, Barbara Steinman still has a great need to create. She dreams of participating in a collective exhibition with Quebec artists of her time. “With women like Geneviève Cadieux, Lyne Lapointe and Angela Grauerholz, who all have works in our museum collections,” she says. Because time passes. During the pandemic, I realized that making art, thinking, seeing other works, adds an essential dimension to life. I hope to continue as long as possible to express myself through art. Because making art is being proactive. »