Contemporary Art Museum of Baie-Saint-Paul | BGL for the last time?

Passing through Charlevoix, The Press immersed herself in the stimulating world of BGL. The Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul is showing until November 6, and perhaps for the last time, the works of the Quebec collective that has put an end to its artistic adventure. A good opportunity to immerse yourself in the spectacular workshop Canadassimo that BGL presented in Venice in 2015 and to discover previously unseen works.

Eric Clement
The Press

After more than 25 years of artistic life together and a total of 133 exhibitions, the three university friends who formed the BGL collective, Jasmin Bilodeau, Sébastien Giguère and Nicolas Laverdière, decided last year to close shop, sell their workshop and henceforth lead their boat separately.

Met at the Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Jasmin Bilodeau was saddened when the three artists decided to put an end to the BGL epic. “We had an ambition that energized us at the end, so it was like saying “well, we stop being ambitious”. We talked to each other a lot and we want to continue showing the works of BGL. But we’re happy to start showing ours. »

Carefully prepared by curator Audrey Careau, who followed BGL for 14 years, the exhibition aims to pay tribute to “the inventiveness, depth and relevance of the collective”, she says. In the great hall of the museum, we find with pleasure Canadassimo: the workshopthe installation created for the 56^e Venice Biennale and acquired by collector Marc Bellemare. A work that makes you smile. With its hundreds of paint cans stacked in the space where all sorts of objects and tools found in workshops are inserted. And of course, humorous winks to discover with attention to detail…

The exhibition includes some twenty works including An untitled death (2021), exhibited for the first time in Quebec. Made up of painted branches which, from a distance, form a rural landscape, this monumental sculpture evokes life and death, in particular that of BGL. Also new to us, Tribute to Tom Thomson is an original installation also made with branches and which evokes the Canadian landscape painter who died mysteriously in 1917. With typically BGL landscape paintings representing a corner of Kamouraska, the two bridges of Quebec and a part of Highway 15, in Montreal .

Find their uniqueness

Jasmin Bilodeau, who will have a solo at gallery 3, in September, in Quebec, is improvising a workshop in her chalet this summer.

The artist is currently exploring the earthenware medium.

The other two members of BGL have also started their new solitary exercise. Sébastien Giguère participates, until October 10, in the 9^are Unusual passages, in Quebec, with its sculpture Hope 2.0, humorous and symbolic. A huge BBQ gas lighter kid in the woods. A work that invites us to remain confident in the future, despite COVID-19, Russian aggression in Ukraine, inflation and so on.

For his part, Nicolas Laverdière is in full production in Frelighsburg, as part of a six-week residency at the Adélard art center. He titled this first solo RECEIPTS, but he signs it Jasmin Giguère! In tribute to his two lifelong accomplices. A corpus that consists of creating ephemeral works in the village, especially on the baseball field. Its finishing takes place on July 23.

In conclusion, BGL may have dissolved, but, with due respect to Aristotle, the whole could very well be less than the sum of its three parts, these happy begehelian fellows don’t seem to be about to stop begeheling …