Chacun montre à chacun

From May 25 to June 22 2013
Opening reception on Saturday May 25 at 3pm

Galerie Trois Points is pleased to present Chacun montre à chacun, from May 25th to June 22nd, a group exhibition that will be held in both of the gallery’s spaces. Inspired by a mantra frequently found in Sylvain Bouthillette’s work, the title of the exhibition reflects the organic relationship that artists build with their mentors. For the occasion, we asked artists Sylvain Bouthillette, Mario Côté, Michel Daigneault, Evergon and Richard Mill to share the work of an artist who has had an impact on the development of their own practice. By allowing them to orient our gaze to one of their own influences, the artists also reveal themselves in a new light.

The five artists have all held teaching positions at various Canadian universities and have helped a generation of artists to develop; asking them to think about the art that has shaped their own practices was a particularly interesting exercise. The question of influence may be a part of their everyday work, but the opportunity to select an artist they want to be associated with is a much stronger statement. The concept of influence among artists is important, and the best artists have always taken advantage of the strengths of their mentors while developing an appropriate discourse of an aesthetic of their own.

Sylvain Bouthillette(1963 -) has chosen to present one of his most recent works alongside a set of prints by Joseph Beuys (1921-1986): their practices reflect both a strong spirit and an emancipatory examination of both the individual and the political.

Evergon (1946 -) presents a typical photograph, where the nude bodies reveal our relationship to male beauty and sexuality. This theme is also important in the drawings of Tom of Finland (1920-1991), whose work was widely reproduced in Physique Pictorial, a leading men’s magazine that was one of the first to publish homoerotic drawings. The exhibition will include issues of this publication from the end of the 1950s.

Richard Mill (1949 -), strongly influenced by minimalism and the American School, chose to present a work by Ellsworth Kelly (1923 -), drawn from his personal collection. Interest in large swathes of colour and very defined shapes highlights the aesthetic relationship between these two artists.

Mario Côté (1954 -), who recently directed a film onFernand Leduc (1916-), Fernand Leduc, la peinture et les mots, continues to explore his affiliation with the artist-signatory of the Refus Global. The duo offers a look at pictorial abstraction with a visual language articulated through colour and geometry.

Finally, for the first time, Michel Daigneault (1956 -) is presenting a recent piece that accompanies a series of drawings by Inuit artist Pudlo Pudlat (1916-1992) that bear witness to the arrival of modernity in the Arctic region. A simplification of form and a light colour palette bind these two practices, both move between the limits of abstraction and representation while maintaining a relationship to time and space that is all their own.

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