The sixtieth edition of the Espositione internazionale d’arte di Venezia begins this week. The Venice Biennale is considered one of the most prestigious art events. The major global gathering takes place around 86 national pavilions allowing visitors to measure trends in the sector, but also to understand what each participating country projects as an image of itself.
This year, the United States is honoring Cherokee artist Jeffrey Gibson as well as his works committed to gay and indigenous causes. The National Gallery of Canada, responsible for the national selection, opted for Kapwani Kiwanga. The corpus of the Ontarian living in Paris, linked to Tanzania by her origins, critiques postcolonial societies and institutions.
At the turn of the century, the system of recognition and validation of artistic values — and the museum in particular — undertook a revolution through decolonization, diversity and inclusion. The effects of this paradigm shift are therefore felt as far away as Venice, where the cream of collectors, critics and curators meet.
The Biennale is the only international event where Canada delegates an official representative. The list of the privileged few includes everything that matters and has mattered from here, from Michael Snow to Stan Douglas, from Alex Colville to General Idea, from Janet Cardiff to Molinari and Riopelle.
“ World famous ” And ” world famous… in Canada »
Jean Paul Riopelle (1923-2002) represented Canada at the 31e Biennale, in 1962. He also lived in Paris, and for a long time at that time. Its aura then overheated the art world, until around sixty museums in around twenty countries integrated it into their collections. There are two kinds of famous Canadian artists in the world, according to the late Montreal writer Mordecai Richler: the “ world famous ” and the ” world famous… in Canada “. Riopelle was in the first group.
The creative prodigy returned to the country in 1972. His fame then diminished elsewhere in the world to somehow become Canadianized and even, above all, provincialized.
An obvious rebound in fervor has been evident here in recent years. His hundredth birthday was the occasion for multiple celebrations. The Riopelle Foundation, launched in 2019 by major collectors, has organized more than fifty multidisciplinary initiatives and a few dozen exhibitions to mark the centenary of the painter’s birth. Meanwhile, by contrast, other major Quebec creators (and born around the same time) have been completely neglected by the media and institutions: Frédéric Back, Madeleine Arbour, Betty Goodwin, Denise Pelletier, Jean Duceppe, Ludmilla Chiriaeff…
The pantheonization of Riopelle continues. The adulation continues with the new Espace Riopelle, under construction at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ). The pavilion worth more than 80 million dollars will highlight the gigantic 40 m fresco entitled The tribute to Rosa Luxemburg. The collection of this state museum already includes 447 works by the modern master, and major collectors linked to the pavilion project will contribute 68 other major works, for a legacy exceeding a hundred million in value.
A Group of Seven all by itself
An artist officially delegated to Venice, we understand. But there, something else, on another scale, seems to be at play. Has Riopelle therefore become a sort of official artist of Quebec? The former automation engineer, signatory of Overall refusal, does he now single-handedly embody a Quebec-style Group of Seven? Does he achieve the rare status of the hero mythologized by the grateful homeland, like Louis-Joseph Papineau, Maurice Richard or René Lévesque?
“An official artist? When we say the expression, it’s like closing the box to simplify a situation. For me, Riopelle is even more complex than that,” replies Didier Prioul, professor of art history at Laval University and former curator of the MNBAQ.
“What is happening to him today is part of a long, long, long continuity. From the start, Riopelle plays on the figure of the pioneer, the hunter, the nomad with his racing cars and his yacht. He has fun, he remains a handyman all his life and he lets the critics talk about him. He is also a man of networks, who understands the old system linking dealers and art critics. He knew he had to go to Paris and, very early on, he was associated with lyrical abstraction. He entered New York in 1955 with the Pierre Matisse gallery. For me, Borduas made the mistake of passing through New York before going to Paris. »
Paul-Émile Borduas died in exile in 1960. His former student at the Furniture School Jean Paul Riopelle had already confirmed his place at the top here as elsewhere. Yes, after the fact, admits Mr. Prioul, in the long run, his global aura diminished. He became a national rather than an international artist, that even The tribute to Rosa Luxemburg did not know how to reposition.
Guido Molinari, the counterexample
The evolution of the system’s validation of the art of Guido Molinari — another major Montreal artist of the modern period in a country lacking recognition for its modernity — sheds new light on Riopelle’s changing fortunes. It, too, enjoyed a meteoric rise and early international acceptance. Except that his own fame, once reduced on a national scale, did not suffer an exceptional boost.
“Molinari achieved official artist status by being chosen to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale in 1968 at the same time as other signals of his recognition, including a major exhibition at the National Gallery [devenu le Musée des beaux-arts du Canada] in 1976,” explains Camille de Singly, French art historian. She published 20 years ago Guido Molinari, Canadian modernist painter, his revised doctoral thesis. She chose this subject after visiting an exhibition of the painter in the Netherlands at the suggestion of her director of studies.
Molinari was perhaps also more associated (and firstly by himself) with Canada than with Quebec, in this country where the constitutional quarrels took place until then. “Unfortunately for him, this recognition comes at a time when the protest will call into question all forms of prizes,” adds the professor at the Bordeaux School of Fine Arts. He therefore acquires this official recognition at a time when it itself is called into question by the world, society and the art system. »
“Other artistic forms then emerged – video, performance – which would cause painting to be considered old-fashioned. All of a sudden, everyone (and press criticism in particular) began to consider it outdated,” she emphasizes.
Riopelle managed to extricate himself from this position. His renewed fortune is still surprising at the beginning of the century, while a revolution against the eternal figures of artistic genius (always a white man) and for openness to more diversity and equality continues, as the selection for the Venice Biennale clearly shows. Riopelle could even be even more “cheesy” from this point of view.
Tomorrow we will see what role museums and the Riopelle Foundation play in this complex ideological game of rehabilitation and repositioning…