Polyphonies at Optica, Montréal

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© Anne-Marie Ouellet, Penser le futur (2013-2015) Performative installation / Installation performative. View of the exhibition / Vue de l'exposition, "Polyphonies" Courtesy of the artist / Avec l'aimable permission de l'artiste. Photo : Paul Litherland

© Emmanuelle Léonard, La taverne (2015) HD Video, color, sound/ Vidéo HD, couleur, son, 11 min 50 s. Courtesy of the artist / Avec l'aimable permission de l'artiste. Photo : Paul Litherland

© Katarina Zdjelar, Don’t Do It Wrong (2007) Video, color, sound / Vidéo, couleur, son, 10 min 13 s. Courtesy of the artist / Avec l'aimable permission de l'artiste. Photo : Paul Litherland

© Sophie Castonguay, La part du lion (2015) Performative installation: 5 artworks, recorded audio track, reciter / Installation performative : cinq tableaux, enregistrement audio et récitante. View of the exhibition / Vue de l'exposition, "Polyphonies" Courtesy of the artist / Avec l'aimable permission de l'artiste. Photo : Paul Litherland

© Kaya Behkalam & Azin Feizabadi, The Negotiation (2010) 2 chanels HD Video, color and black and white, sound / Vidéo HD 2 canaux, couleur et n/b, son, 38 min. 04 s. Courtesy of the artist / Avec l'aimable permission de l'artiste. Photo : Paul Litherland

© Dave Ball & Oliver Walker, Dinner Party (2011-2015) Participatory live art project accompanied by a video installation / Projet participatif accompagné d’une installation vidéo. Courtesy of the artist / Avec l'aimable permission de l'artiste. Photo : Paul Litherland

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POLYPHONIES

18 April – 13 June 2015
Optica, Montréal

Curated by Véronique Leblanc

Artists: Anne-Marie Ouellet, Emmanuelle Léonard, Katarina Zdjelar, Kaya Behkalam & Azin Feizabadi, Sophie Castonguay, Dave Ball & Oliver Walker

Polyphonies is an exhibition that stages a plurality of voices while bringing together the work of eight artists including two duos. Whether based on documentary approaches (interviews, surveys) resembling anthropological field studies or revolving around the invention of fictional situations in which archives of various kinds are played out, the orchestration of speech in the artists propositions creates a disjunctive gap with the documented reality. They appropriate ways of telling stories (in past, present, and future tenses) to bring out issues in the ideological and identity-related constructions that take shape through speech.
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Fault Lines at SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art, Montréal


Francois Bucher, Forever Live: The Case of K. Gun, 2006. Video still. 17:51. Courtesy the artist and proyectos monclova, Mexico City

Fault Lines
6 December 2012 – 16 February 2013
at SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art, Montréal

Artists: Yael Bartana, Bertolt Brecht, François Bucher, Sophie Castonguay, Angela Melitopoulos & Maurizio Lazzarato

Curated by Pip Day

The exhibition Fault Lines/ Lignes de faille presents work that focuses on the power of speech, particularly in relation to dominant institutional discourse. Peopled with characters who come up against mechanisms of control of all sorts, work in the exhibition explores territorial, judicial and psychoanalytical grey areas: potential productive zones where alternative modes of resistance and of subjectivity can be constructed.
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