A clock, the movement of the waves, the succession of days and nights… For 35 years, Diane Landry’s art has been marked by the passage of time. This marathon runner, who posts her times on her website, has more than once found the origin of her kinetic, sound and/or light installations in her daily walks.
The motors, gears and pulleys that make the works turn are “timing wheels”, writes Marie J. Jean, director of the Vox center and co-curator with Claudine Roger of the retrospective Transparent forecastsdevoted to Diane Landry.
Who says retrospective, says back in time. The one that takes place in building 2-22 in downtown Montreal dates back to 1996, the year of the Headlightproduced as the artist begins to make an impression after a decade of practice.
Presented at the end of the course, like the highlight of a show made of magic and refusal of defeatism in the face of the planetary future, Lighthouse takes on the scale of an emblematic work, that which opens the way. Animated by the projection of shadows and the rotation of record players, this “dance of utilitarian objects placed in lyrical confrontation”, as Diane Landry describes it, is one of her first with automation.
“The work dates from the time when people were switching from record players to CD players,” she recalls, during an interview granted by videoconference. Between the house and the workshop, on the day of the emptying, I found plenty of them. »
The artist from Quebec experienced “a nice surprise” when he saw Lighthouse get active, ten years after its previous outing, in Normandy. “I wondered if she was okay. She’s fine, “says the one who humanizes her works, as she already did. in our pages aboutSchool aviationnow in the Cameron Art Museum, North Carolina.
The cycle of life, natural or material, is evident at every stage of the exhibition. It reaches a sort of climax in Knight of the infinite resignation (2009), another installation magnified by its shadows. Twelve bicycle wheels turn and carry, with their crowns of disposable water bottles, the weight of the world. The sound element produced by the movement of sand transports us to the incessant swaying of the sea.
“I knew that this work would age because of the sand which creates erosion inside the bottles. It tarnishes them, modifies them. I knew it would happen,” she said. It is difficult not to see in front of this spectacle, however captivating, the slow destruction of the planet.
There are all kinds of ways to act and, through art, I felt like I could bring something about.
This penchant for recycling materials and for evoking nature makes Diane Landry an ecological artist. If she approves of the idea that an environmental comment tints her work, she assures that it manifests itself unconsciously. “It’s not a coincidence,” admits the one who has a background in natural science techniques.
Recycled from agriculture
Born in Mauricie, Diane Landry found her second job in art. It was in the field, in an agricultural research center, that she worked in her early twenties, before “leaving everything” in 1983. Bachelor of Fine Arts from Laval University five years later — and holder of a master’s degree from a Californian university since 2006 — she has become a renowned artist, with “a scientific spirit”.
If she liked her “action work” in the past, she still considers herself useful. “There are all kinds of ways to act and through art I felt like I could bring something about. “She who has” tons of ideas “does not however claim to dictate his thoughts. “I leave space for people. The background, the culture, the personal past of each affects the reading [d’une oeuvre]. »
Series blue decline (2002), an example of which is part of the exhibition, is another proposal that recycles plastic bottles. Their water, Diane Landry drank it… in Marseille. Unable to throw them away, she made them the source of projected mandalas on the wall. Under his hand, each banal element does a world of good.
“When I work with an object, I don’t transform it. We recognize it, it’s always something very ordinary, she says, thinking of the pencils, keys or forks of Celestial mechanics (2023), installation created for the exhibition. I try to bring [voir] potential even in the garbage. »
From the 15 “photographic” discs (images printed on a circular panel) which open the exhibition to the 15 record players which close it, Transparent forecasts combines the round supports. rare exception, The fall (2017) reproduced, vertically and by assembling 60 folioscopes (flip books) motorized, the equally cyclical movements of a waterfall. “It’s a portrait of the Montmorency Falls, says its author, who has endowed each flip book of 24 pictures. The mechanism is not ultra-precise, but approaches 24 frames per second, for the effect [cinéma]. »
All the effects, appearances and mirages that Diane Landry offers come from her daily life. In the past, it was record players that she picked up. From now on, it is soils that she photographs. These become astonishing landscapes in Mechanical celestial and its pseudo-clocks. Time passes, but the artist remains attentive to the rhythm of life. “These clocks, which turn a little faster than one revolution, are not very exact. Like when I go to the studio: I stop, start again, change direction. It evokes that, on a very personal scale. »
This is his involuntary survival lesson: to be satisfied with marveling at the banality, the one close to us.