Goose Village, Marisa Portolese (self-publishing)
Published in the fall, Goose Village looks back at the homonymous exhibition from the beginning of the year. But the book is much more than a catalog. If Marisa Portolese still tells in portraits and landscapes the history of the neighborhood demolished in 1964 for the wrong reasons, she signs here, supported by the erudition of the author Vincent Bonin, a true manifesto. Against the contempt of political powers towards marginal populations. For a better appreciation of oral and family memories. And for an official apology from the City of Montreal.
Reasonable grounds. Ten years of political posters, Clément de Gaulejac (Ecosociety)
Artist, designer and sharply politicized citizen, Clément de Gaulejac delivered his most militant work in April. The object, an almost square red rectangle, brings together his work as a poster artist started in 2012, during a certain spring. This overview of the social struggles that held us in suspense is done through black humor, clean lines and pithy words. Racial profiling, extraction policies, third link, everything goes there. Sad and paradoxical observation, the posters remain relevant today.
Michael Flomen. Photograms and Photographs, 2020-1970, Collective of authors and photographs by Michael Flomen (Hirmer)
Formerly a street photographer, a specialist in the photogram (image born without the use of a camera), Michael Flomen does not capture reality. He works with him. His collaborators: fireflies, snow, wind. The renowned printer and explorer of techniques – he goes so far as to wrap himself in paper – receives the tribute awaited since 2020, the year of his retrospective canceled due to the pandemic. The 300 pages, which are read in reverse to the usual chronology, bring together eight pens that are both scholarly and accessible, even captivating.
Parallel(they). Another history of design, under the direction of Jennifer Laurent (Montreal Museum of Fine Arts)
Here is the only exhibition catalog in our list. Without taking the form of the scholarly and colossal brick, it pursues the noble program of giving women back their rightful place in the history of design. The only text, signed Jennifer Laurent, curator of the exhibition, is followed by 150 pages of illustrations. Charlie Proulx’s graphic design not only highlights the emblematic objects, it reminds, through the subtle identification of the works, that this history has long been hidden.
Michel Goulet. Words, places, things, Pierre Delorme (Liber)
The surprise, published in this last month of the year. On the eve of his 80th birthday, the sculptor Michel Goulet – “sculptor artist”, he specifies – speaks in a direct exchange with Pierre Delorme, university professor. Candy. Because the artist is not only the man of chairs and everyday forms, he is also a man of words, a lively and contagious spirit. The biographical story does not lack revelations. Nor images, which look back on a career spent in galleries, theater stages and, of course, public space.