BLAISE CARRIER-CHOUINARD | Léthé

BLAISE CARRIER-CHOUINARD | Léthé

Gallery

Blaise Carrier-Chouinard

Léthé

EXHIBITION /
FEBRUARY 21 TO MARCH 29, 2008

In bringing us Lethe, an imposing installation composed of sets and numerous mannequins borrowed from the museum of the Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré basilica, Blaise Carrier-Chouinard literally takes Clark's gallery space by assault. One is presented with what seems to be a large historical scene, epic and tragic, in which the vast themes and stakes of human history struggle together, but one finds oneself unable to pull from it an interpretation. It is, one might say, the index of a “bastardized” history, distorted by its author, a tapestry woven from anachronisms and an overflowing heterogeneity, mid-way between a scene from Body Snatchers by Abel Ferrara and a colonial episode taking place by a raft-filled stream in Nouvelle-France.

The artist is more interested in representation, in the “singularization of foundational myths,” than in things themselves. His historical sketches are presented as might be required by the museological norms of a natural history institution, or some other thematic museum. Here, however, the care given to the details of historical costumes, or to the artist's meticulously-crafted heads - now resting on time-damaged mannequins - clashes with the papier mache bric-a-brac and other objects resting strewn about, like intriguing polymer fetuses hung from the structure supporting the river and its raftsmen. Lethe, one of the five rivers of hell, is also the river of forgetting, a waterway from which the dead drink to lose their memory (and identity) and return to earth to make History. This strange collage defies the collective memory enterprise in which humanity engages through writing History. It does this by finding the meaning in its incongruities, its back-and-forths and the necessarily subjective readings we must make of it.

YP
Translated by PduB

The artist wishes to thank CLARK,s Artists Residency Program, L'atelier Clark, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Sancutuaire Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré.