Manon Labrecque and experimental FIFA
Among the important sections of this 42e International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA), let us note that of the experimental films presented again, for our greatest pleasure, by Nicole Gingras. The renowned curator and intellectual made the decision to dedicate this year the FOCUS section of her programming to Manon Labrecque, a multidisciplinary artist who died far too young, at age 58, last September. A great loss for the art world.
Eight videos produced since 1993 by Labrecque are in the spotlight at FIFA. We would also have liked a museum in Quebec or Canada to think about producing a tribute to this artist… But who, among our museums, is really interested in contemporary culture here, and in video in particular?
For Nicole Gingras, “the freedom that Labrecque has given himself in creation is impressive, whether in the exploration of new forms of writing, the investigation of intimate or immense spaces like the Gobi desert in the video Nomadic silences, for example, or in the design of complex and refined mechanisms, used during filming or in a kinetic installation, to evoke and share a state, an emotion, a memory, an experience, a breath. At Labrecque, the question of touch is also crucial: touch at a distance, touch with the gaze, touch through sound.” Gingras also emphasizes how “ [la] notion of play appears from his very first videos and performances. It will be explored throughout his practice. There is in her the desire to invent, to invent games, to develop various rituals to tend or approach what fascinated her: the fragility of the present moment, the suspension of an emotion or a physical or psychological state. , the tension or friction between stopping and moving, life and death. The artist’s commitment to his research and his studio work was total.”
Labrecque will have marked the history of video by “questioning the questions of self-representation, the double, mimicry, the history of performance in video”. You will go and see in particular Nothing but the truth, the whole truth (1993), funny and intelligent video about artistic creation and its avatars.
At Concordia University, March 23, at 4 p.m.
Dirk Wauters
Still in the same section, experimental FIFA, the art lover will notice a great discovery, At the wrong time, by Christophe Delbecq, film about Dirk Wauters, Belgian artist who “for 30 years, every day, photographs, films, draws, writes and records a musical improvisation”.
At Concordia University, March 16, at 5:15 p.m.
Lyne Lapointe
You can continue your exploration of Quebec artists at FIFA with the film Lyne Lapointe. Art and material, directed by German Guttierez. This creator, strangely presented here as having “a fanciful personality”, has created an unclassifiable work which has marked the artistic scene for more than 40 years. His recent exhibition, at the end of 2021, at Galeries Bellemare Lambert, amazed the public and critics.
At the Museum cinema, March 22, at 8 p.m., in the presence of the artist and the director. The film will be available online from March 22.
Henriette Valium
Another Quebec artist who recently died will also be highlighted at FIFA. The disappearance of Henriette Valium during the pandemic, in September 2021, unfortunately went somewhat silent. Born Patrick Henley in 1949, Valium left behind an original protest work. He was an artist and cartoonist who had exhibitions among others in Montreal, at the Galerie Robert Poulin, but also in Marseille, at the Friche la Belle de Mai, at the beginning of 2023. The North American premiere of Henriette Valium is dead Long live Henriette Valiuma film directed by Marc A. Lefebvre, will take place at the Canadian Center for Architecture on March 23, at 5:30 p.m. The film will be available online from March 22.
Victor Pilon
His performance, carried out in early fall 2023 at the Olympic Stadium, lasted 30 days. Six days a week, seven hours a day, Victor Pilon moved 300 tons of sand, taking inspiration from the work The myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus.
Created with the complicity of the artist Michel Lemieux, Sisyphus will be the closing event of FIFA. At the Museum cinema, March 24, at 7 p.m., in the presence of director Victor Pilon and Michel Lemieux. The film will also be presented at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec on March 31, at 3:30 p.m.
See also
And you shouldn’t miss either Mark Rothko. The painting looks at you, by Pascale Bouhénic (at the McCord Stewart Museum, March 16, at 8 p.m.) and Hidden Master: The Legacy of George Platt Lynes, by Sam Shahid (at the McCord Stewart Museum, March 18, at 8 p.m.).
We will also watch Hopper x Vermeer, by Annie Dautane, a film which sometimes forces the pairing between these two great painters a little, but which nevertheless explores with passion their visual spaces. This work will be found online from March 22. Because FIFA is also that: a series of films available on the site lefifa.com.