Galerie 3 de Québec moves to the Belgo

On March 30, Galerie 3 will open a new space in the Belgo building in Montreal. The Quebec City Art Gallery is also changing its name. It will now be called the Chiguer Art contemporain gallery, named after Abdelilah Chiguer, co-founder of Galerie 3 in 2015.

The Belgo continues its strong comeback as the epicenter of the Montreal art gallery market. Galerie 3, which represents, in Quebec, the artists BGL, Laurent Craste, Dan Brault, Daniel Barrow, François Morelli, Paryse Martin, Jean-Pierre Morin, Mathieu Valade, Martin Bureau or Claudie Gagnon, will set up there from the end of the month.

Galerie 3 was created by Abdelilah Chiguer, Norbert Lacroix and Pascal Champoux. The latter died accidentally in 2017 and Norbert Lacroix sold his shares to Mr. Chiguer at the end of 2022. In 2017, Galerie 3 sold the work to collector Marc Bellemare for $220,000. The Workshop that BGL had presented at the Venice Biennale two years earlier, as part of its installation Canadisssimo.

The new 1250 ft gallery² will be located at 4^e floor of the Belgo, in room 416 previously occupied by the La Castiglione photographic art gallery. A floor that Abdelilah Chiguer knows well since Galerie 3 presented there, in 2015, its first exhibition outside Quebec – a pop-upas they say in the industry – before organizing other pop-upthe following years.

“We come to Belgo because there is a new dynamism there,” says Mr. Chiguer. Since the creation of our gallery, we wanted to come to Montreal. Customers have been retained there. The pandemic has delayed our project. But the basis is solid now for moving forward. »

The inaugural exhibition, from March 30 to April 30, will include works by the artists of Galerie 3, in particular two rookies, the two-headed Cozic and the sculptor Gilles Mihalcean. “There will also be works by Pierre Ayot,” says Abdelilah Chiguer. I work with Madeleine [Forcier] to enable links to be made between Pierre Ayot and BGL or even with Cozic, Paryse or Claudie. »

Then, the gallery will present at the Belgo solos by Dan Brault, from May 11 to June 3, and by Annie Baillargeon, from June 8 to July 9. Abdelilah Chiguer wants to generate eight exhibitions a year, each lasting four to five weeks. Some exhibits will be presented at both locations. The Belgo space will have a director, Marie-Christine Dubé, and an exhibition manager, Léo Rivest. Both have made their classes in the middle of galleries and art centers.

Abdelilah Chiguer has ambition. He wants to consolidate his Montreal project and then aims, in 2024, to go to two contemporary art fairs in New York and Miami. “Afterwards, I would like to participate in biennials and think big for the gallery and the artists I represent,” he says. The gallery owner is very attached to the artists. He created Artroduction, in 2021, to help emerging artists and budding collectors¹.

With this arrival in Belgo, Abdelilah Chiguer wants to seduce collectors and institutions who rarely travel to the Old Capital. And he offers himself a gift for his 20 years in Quebec. Born in Morocco, he came in 2003 to study at Laval University thanks to a scholarship. He becomes the first Quebecer of North African origin to run a double art gallery. “I never thought of being a gallery owner or even immigrating here,” he says. I had come for my master’s degree in manufacturing and logistics management. I loved Quebec and its quality of life. I met my wife there. I worked as a supply manager in the private sector for 15 years. I collected art and that led me to become a gallery owner. »

Current co-president of the Association of Contemporary Art Galleries, Mr. Chiguer has always had an artistic streak. Author, he staged his play Women… and women, on the situation of women in times of war, in 2005 in Quebec. He studied cinema in Morocco, made short films and did theater there. “I won two directing prizes in Morocco,” he says. It was thanks to one of these prizes that he discovered Parisian museums in 2002 and was overwhelmed by the impressionist paintings of the Musée d’Orsay. Before cracking, in Quebec, for a painting by Rafael Sottolichio, The apocalypsewhich had moved him so much that he acquired it after spending a sleepless night!

“Unfortunately, I can’t represent all the artists I love,” he says. But I can expose them. This is how I was pleasantly surprised by an exhibition by curator Camille Larivée put on last year at DRAC in Drummondville, with the work of Glenn Gear, Carla Hemlock and Christine Sioui Wawanoloath. The exhibition will come to Quebec and Montreal. These are the kinds of projects I can do now that I have two exhibition spaces. »