Closed for ten years to the general public, the church of the small municipality of Saint-Thuribe, located in the region of Portneuf, reopens its doors by presenting an exclusive exhibition of the famous painter Riopelle.
It was on the initiative of an anonymous private collector residing in the region that the idea for the exhibition was born. Riopelle in Saint-Thuribe in the church of the small village of 300 inhabitants.
“The church was closed for several years and it is the choice of the collector in question to exhibit the works there. It’s really his idea, his wish,” explains Jeanne Couture, general manager of Urban Artefact, executive producer of the exhibition.
The exhibition will allow the general public to reconnect with this historic building, which is part of Quebec’s religious heritage.
“The two doors of the church are open, welcoming, so that we can visit it after almost 10 years”, rejoices Mr.me Sewing.
It is, according to her, a great opportunity for a collective reflection on the new vocation of the church. “Opening it to the public with a Riopelle project, it allows ideas to germinate and advance citizen reflection,” she says.
An original collection
The exhibition Riopelle in Saint-Thuribe presents, from June 24 to September 3, a corpus of 21 etchings produced by the artist in 1968 while he was living in Paris.
These works, brought together for the first time in this exclusive exhibition, were created in the same creative spirit. They appear in the form of a bestiary in a more figurative style, which one does not necessarily associate with Riopelle.
“We present a very interesting corpus, notes Mme Sewing. There are astonishing animals, such as a monkey, a snake, a lobster and an elephant, works that we are not used to seeing at Riopelle. The exhibition attracts, according to her, amateurs who know the artist’s work well and who travel from afar to see these works in person. “We are expecting people from Calgary and Vancouver in the final weeks of the show,” says Ms.me Sewing.
spark plug
For the small municipality, the festivities are not limited to the exhibition of works by Jean Paul Riopelle. With a musical and artistic program, Saint-Thuribe intends to showcase many artisans from the region with, among other things, concerts, pottery workshops, poetry evenings and the creation of murals.
The church was closed for several years and it is the choice of the collector in question to exhibit the works there. It’s really his idea, his wish.
The gourmet side has not been neglected, with an “agri-food program” featuring chefs from the region. An 80-seat pop-up restaurant was also created in the village community hall.
“We used the Riopelle exhibition as a lever for regional, economic and cultural development. It’s a much larger project than just the exhibition; it is also meant to be a spark plug, an incubator for local agri-food entrepreneurs that allows them to test their products,” says the executive director of Artefact urbain.
Some 1,000 people have already visited the exhibition since its inauguration on June 24. The organizers hope to attract between 6,000 and 8,000 visitors by the end of the summer, a feat, according to Mme Sewing. “That’s a lot for a small municipality like Saint-Thuribe. »