What if we did not live at all in an era where an infinite diversity of images proliferated, but rather in a world of repetition of images, an ultimately very limited number of images, images belonging to the same genre, images- clichés, comforting-images, meaningless-images? What if in fact we were simply in a context of impoverishment of images as well as ideas, and not only in the political domain?
These are certainly the kinds of questions you will ask yourself when visiting the intelligent and unclassifiable exhibition which has just started at the Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides – MAC LAU. A visual installation which calls for the help of artistic images in societies increasingly given over to ignorance and commonplaces.
Presented by artist-curator Suzan Vachon, this installation is like a sort of collection of images, striking, haunting images, teeming with meanings and solicitations of the senses. The presentation text explains this curious and fascinating project with these words: “Suzan Vachon dedicated a large part of her life to the search for images of artists, filmmakers, dancers, writers, musicians, until being inhabited sometimes even haunted by their research. She invited these images into her practice, discussed in her classrooms, folded, unfolded, collected. »And here on display.
A long-term project
This project has been in the making in Vachon’s mind for years… “Since I returned from my jewelry studies in Mexico in 1981! » she specifies. She then wants to delve even more into the field of visual arts. She listens to “radio programs on Radio-Canada about artists and philosophers” and “it upsets me.” Radio-Canada was then full of cultural and intellectual programs… another era.
“I told myself that one day, I wanted to share a meal with all these people, to talk with them and about their works. And I had the chance to teach, which was also a school for me where I learned a lot. The class was even a space of creation, a choral space for the circulation of ideas, research, sharing of research and passions…”
During all these years of teaching, Vachon was particularly fascinated by the research of Aby Warburg, “which allowed us to think about the relationships between images”. This specialist in the Italian Renaissance, a scholar who purchased nearly 60,000 books, left his mark on the discipline of art history and the world of ideas! It is said that in 1933, four years after his death, two boats had to be used to transport his collection from Hamburg to London and escape Nazi Germany. Warburg invented a Mnemosyne Atlas composed of nearly 1000 images, clusters of images of works of art, but also newspaper clippings, often echoing each other in an enigmatic way. A model that finds intelligent resonance in Vachon.
Vachon was also touched by Walter Benjamin, for whom every image is a constellation, and by the approach of Jean-Luc Godard. Let us recall that in his History(s) of cinema (1998), Godard made a visual and sound collage, a poetic assemblage, which, in a sort of mise en abyme, itself refers to Malraux’s Imaginary Museum… Vachon also refers to Chantal Akerman, who “confided her difficulty to understand the film Random balthazar (1966) by Robert Bresson. Vachon reminds us of what Akerman said about it: “And it is precisely this mystery that keeps me alive, that keeps me strong. »
The question-image
And here Vachon networks images, a network rich in meanings, in five large nebulae which speak of desire, ordeal, embrace and conflagration… You will find the works of nearly 50 artists who will disturb you, will ask you questions and who, through their surprising associations, will keep you on your toes. With images of works by Micah Lexier, Daniel Olson, Lorna Bauer, Jacynthe Carrier, Rachel Echenberg, Mike Hoolboom, Élène Tremblay, Mathieu Beauséjour, Groupe Épopée…
And then, we should also talk about the works that Vachon physically exhibits outside of these five nebulae of images. The visitor will be able to experience the remarkable installation there. In the belly of the whale (2010-2015) by Marie-Claude Bouthillier, an exceptional work which depicts the support of the canvas in painting devouring the space of the workshop, which has become here an almost religious cell for lovers of art and images. You can also watch the wonderful film Rather die than die (2017) by Natacha Nisic, who talks, among other things, about Warburg.
So, does this dense exhibition fall into the cliché that there are too many images? Certainly not. Vachon tells us of her “desire for images which do not blind, but which enlighten, for images which provoke speech…” She adds that “the discovery of something that we do not know and the fact of agreeing not to not understanding allows questions to arise.” And, here, the images are more disturbing questions than reassuring statements. And this is very well so.