It is in the “mini” museum of contemporary art (MAC) of Place Ville Marie, a space barely larger than the university centers of UQAM or Concordia, that the artist Nelson Henricks presents these days his most recent work. He exhibits there only two video installations, but which will nevertheless pique the curiosity as well as the intelligence of the spectator.
For more than 35 years, Henricks, a multidisciplinary artist, has developed an original approach to video art, which has made him a leading figure in this type of creation. We can add, if it was necessary to prove his talent, or for those who would need national or international support, that his works are present in the collections of many museums in Canada and abroad. They can be found both at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ottawa and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was therefore high time for the MAC to devote an exhibition to him, exhibition which should have been a major retrospective…
Here in Montreal, the art lover will remember, in particular, the wonderful exhibition of Henricks at the Dazibao Center in 2015, a presentation that dealt with our desire to understand the work of art. Among other things, the artist staged a lecture by Oscar Wilde from 1882 dealing precisely with art. But Henricks also dealt with the synaesthetic approach of Symbolist artists contemporary to Wilde, an approach which makes it possible to weave links between colors and language, which gives art an increased network of meanings.
The color show
In the first part of the exhibition, you will be able to see Dont You Like the Green of A?, a video installation where Henricks continues his research. He refers to the relationship that the painter Joan Mitchell had with synesthesia. Just like Henricks, it seems that Mitchell was affected by this perceptual disorder which spontaneously establishes links between senses which are not however summoned at the same time. Henricks explains: “In my doctoral research, I examined Rimbaud and Baudelaire in connection with aesthetics and Oscar Wilde.
For Mitchell, what interested me was his connection to the history of abstract art and color. Moreover, his grapheme-color synesthesia has been very well documented… which was not the case for the others. We even wonder if Rimbaud really suffered from synesthesia…”
In Dont You Like the Green of A?, the spectator will be able to feel a tension in the links that the artist establishes between colors and sound. On the one hand, we will perceive in this use of synesthesia a desire to make art resistant to easy interpretation, to transparency of signs, to simple meaning. But, on the other hand, this video installation also embodies a critique of art — and of its mediation or its dissemination — as a spectacle… synaesthesia there becoming almost like a somewhat curious circus attraction. It must be said that contemporary art is nowadays too often reduced to a function of entertainment.
The sound of revolt
In a second room, in Heads Will RollHenricks shows how music and noise have a power of contestation, sometimes even of revolution: din of saucepans — as was the case during the demonstrations of the red squares in 2012 —, the sound of clapping hands or sticks, and even rustling of waved flags or sounds of guitars in concerts…
At a certain moment of the video, the rhythm of the noise will be reminiscent of that of the famous phrase “It’s only the beginning, let’s continue the fight”, which is chanted in many demonstrations. All these sounds — this popular sound culture, more or less intense — speak of an energy of revolt, how it can be catchy, bewitching.
Mini Mac
That said, we will still be amazed to see that this renowned artist can only be celebrated in these two rooms of the very small Musée d’art contemporain, a state institution one of whose mandates is to promote Canadian artists. and Quebec.
This small exhibition, by its size, is also presented without a catalogue. Such an artist did not deserve such a book? This would have made it possible to give an additional echo to his work with the public…
It will be recalled that the MAC recently announced that it will not be able to reopen premises worthy of the name before 2026! This works story has been dragging on since at least 2018, long before the pandemic. It is our artists who suffer the most from the loss of this distribution tool…
So, by 2026, or later — who knows? — we will only be entitled to small exhibitions? And we will not see any presentation of the MAC collections, collections yet so rich?
All of this is outrageous. You can’t imagine the MoMA in New York remaining closed for so long without everyone being outraged. It is high time for the government to look into this file, a botched file.