Marc Séguin’s studio is in Brooklyn, in the Bushwick neighborhood, 67% Hispanic. His book immerses us in it completely. We feel the temperature, the water flowing in the room in the spring, the ambient disorder, these traces which sediment day after day on the floor or the painter’s ideas which are propagated there in suspension, ready to be materialized on the floor. cloth.
MOCKUPS DESIGN PHOTO, PROVIDED BY FIDES
Marc Séguin at work
The book allows a return to his first works, which we meet here and there, with his signatures. The skinny spruce trees, the suns, the animals. Marc Séguin shares his facts and actions. His relationship with his roommates, R. and C., his sore throat from solvents. The smells of linseed or sunflower oil that soak his body when he creates. His relations with the media, not always to his liking. But also the importance it gives to investigative journalism. “A still pure line in a blurred world,” he writes with poetry in his book. “I sincerely believe that journalism is the last bulwark of a social ravine,” he adds in an email exchange.
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Marc Séguin in his studio
In The workshop, Marc Séguin takes us to do his shopping with him. To go buy pigments, oil or rabbit skin glue. We see him when he greets the truckers who come to pick up his paintings. “It feels good to empty the workshop. It’s like taking a shower. There is like a renewal. »When he visits museums to recharge his batteries. When he is ecstatic at the Frick Collection, in front of the genius of Georges de La Tour. “I left there with the same physical benefits as an hour of sport or sex,” he says after his visit.
Anecdotes and questions
The book is full of anecdotes. Like when he went to see the New York Rangers play with a billionaire and a senator, accompanied by bodyguards, four rows from the bench. His watered openings where he goes so as not to look too wild. His doubts and questions about his art (“only time will prove risk right”) or his questions on the subjects of the day. ” Lack of food [aux États-Unis] kills much more than assault weapons, he writes. I don’t know why artists don’t talk about famine in their works. ”
His writings focus on life. He notes that social networks have invaded our existence and “make evolution stand still by bringing everything back to the individual to the detriment of society”. He passes judgment on American art collectors: “When art seems to have an intellectual veneer, they have difficulty getting on board. ”
We see him rubbing, engraving, printing with his faithful René, painting with large strokes of red, standing on his stepladder, his Ghost Lights no 3 (Wisp) exhibited in 2019 at Simon Blais. He talks about his returns to Quebec, when he is resourceful in the countryside. With his family, his friends. Stake, read, cut his maples.
PHOTO CAIT S. PORTER, PROVIDED BY FIDES
Marc Séguin in his studio in July 2013
The 51-year-old artist and novelist puts poetry in his words. It is his way of explaining, of accompanying his work with an intellectual exercise, of situating his adventure in this land, of transmitting the wonder which animates him, this energy which makes him a man who thinks, who says. , which does. “When what is invisible in itself becomes an object for others,” he says.
The printing of the book was made in China. The iconographic content is rich, but the colors of the photos are often lacking in vividness. “The felted paper gives this effect,” explains Marc Séguin. It’s in fashion right now in publishing. The prints of the photos of “real” photographers are perfect. It is mine that give this low quality effect, but I find it beautiful in opposition to the f… perfect screens! ”
Tender, sometimes funny, always informative, The workshop remains a necessary object for Marc Séguin lovers. The heart and mind of an artist placed on the living room table. Next to the cup of coffee.
The workshop
Marc Seguin
Fides editions
304 pages