Richard Langevin | Between danger and balance

Richard Langevin took advantage of the pandemic to dive back into the heart of his career as an artist. The result takes the form of an exhibition well worth the trip to the Center d’art Diane-Dufresne in Repentigny.

Over the past few months, the sculptor, scenographer and teacher has recreated some outstanding works from his corpus. Surprisingly, even if the origin of some pieces dates back to the 1970s and 1980s, it seems that everything seems rooted in our time.

“It makes me happy to hear that,” he told me during a visit I made with him. I called this exhibition continuum precisely to avoid the notion of retrospective, retirement. I didn’t want to feel the finality. This is my work, but in an augmented version. »

For many, Richard Langevin is the man who evolves in the shadow of his wife, Diane Dufresne. I am not afraid to specify it, because he himself quickly mentions the thing in our conversation.

These two beings share many things in life, including a love of creation in all its forms. “At home, we each work on our own. I often steal a corner of his studio,” he laughs.

Since he has been in the life of the singer and painter, Richard Langevin has been the one who imagines scenographies, projections and visual atmospheres for the shows of the one who has just been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

But before crossing his path, Richard Langevin first built a solid reputation as an artist in his native Saguenay before becoming a graphic arts teacher in the department of art and media technology (ATM) at Cégep de Jonquière. That’s when the company Softimage grabbed hold of him and he plunged into the digital world.

His many years at the Society for Technological Arts in Montreal (SAT) ended up making us believe that he could only create from a computer and software. However, this is not what we can see in Repentigny. Wood, natural or machined, triumphs everywhere, starting with the impressive sculpture Belugasfirst imagined in the 1980s, which welcomes us.

A bench of calves is formed with chipboard slats with wavelike movements. “I used sheets of Masonite that I had cut into two-inch strips,” he explained to me with disarming simplicity. I hooked up with the Home Depot guys. They had never done anything like this. »

If Richard Langevin’s approach is based on solid reflections, the artist stays away from intellectual frills to describe it. That’s what I liked about him. His speech reminded me of Armand Vaillancourt’s.

This side “I work seriously, but I don’t take myself seriously”, Richard Langevin also had it when he introduced me Ice jam/breakup, an installation created in homage to the log drivers of Saguenay. Composed of fir and spruce logs, the structure was made using an assembly technique similar to Leonardo da Vinci’s freestanding bridge.

“Pascal, a technician from the art center, told me that this work is the meeting of a scientist and a scout,” says Richard Langevin. I really like this definition. »

This idea of ​​balance and danger is also found in the work 2 rows of three columns that Richard Langevin created at the end of the 1970s. This assembly of cement blocks which defies gravity by the presence of wooden pegs was acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art during its initial presentation. He is now presented as if he had collapsed.

“I had sent the pieces of the work in crates to the museum, recalls Richard Langevin. One day, a manager calls me in a bit of an act of contrition. As we were carrying out renovations in the museum, workers thought that these blocks were for them. Not offended by this misstep, the artist simply returned new blocks to the institution.

The exhibition hall of the Center d’art Diane-Dufresne, whose lighting and soundscape (that of Toby Gendron) are the subject of great care, also shows us epic doorcement and wood castings that have a “post-apocalyptic” side, celestial mechanicsan array composed of power saws, and The sentinelsa series of sculptures made from an oak tree that fell in the Langevin-Dufresne couple’s yard.

Richard Langevin’s exhibition will be accompanied from June 24 by another of Diane Dufresne’s sculptures called Archeology. The artist has abandoned the brushes to plunge his hands into the clay. “She chose materials that she likes and simply started working,” explains Richard Langevin. We’re going to make a kind of cave with the heads she made. »

Richard Langevin turned 68. He admits that preparing for this exhibition has done him a lot of good. “In my head, it was all scattered. The older you get, the more regrets you have. But you have to know how to accept your gestures. This exhibition is my before and my present. It’s amazing therapy. »

continuumuntil 1^er October, at the Diane-Dufresne Art Center