Alexandre David: D’un objet à l’autre
Jaime Angelopoulos: Opaque Architectures
March 25–April 23, 2016
Opening: Thursday, March 24, 6–9pm
Parisian Laundry
3550 St-Antoine West
Montreal, Quebec
Canada, H4C 1A9
www.parisianlaundry.com
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Parisian Laundry is pleased to present D’un objet à l’autre, an in situ project by Montreal-based artist Alexandre David that works across conventional boundaries of architecture, sculpture and wall adornment. The exhibition features four plywood objects produced with very subtle differences. In many ways these objects function in the same terms as the walls themselves, however they also perform as images on the wall. The simplicity of form, attention to shadow and light are akin to a minimalist approach to painting that ultimately produces a series of “monumental” sculptures.
David’s practice concerns itself with the interrelated contingency of perception and space. Visitors to D’un objet à l’autre are invited to navigate each installation, activating a set of parameters that condition their experience. The particularities of the objects in D’un objet à l’autre come to light when they are moved with and observed from various perspectives. Moreover, depending on the experience of the viewer and their position, the displayed objects may or may not detach themselves from one another and the walls, acknowledging the unstable threshold between artwork and the space of exhibition.
In 2012, Alexandre David’s first solo exhibition at Parisian Laundry, Split, won Best Exhibition at a Private Gallery at the Gala des Arts Visuels. One-year prior, David presented Une place ou deux for the Quebec Triennial at the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal. The installation was a critical intervention into the conventional parameters of the idealized space of the museum. David’s work has been shown in museums and galleries across Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France. In fall 2013, David was the subject of L’un sur l’autre at Parisian Laundry and in 2015 exhibited a solo show at G Gallery (Toronto). He participated in a residency at Studio Let 777 (Dubrovnik, Croatia) in summer of 2015 and completed a site-specific project at HUB (Nantes, Frances).
In Opaque Architectures, Toronto-based artist Jaime Angelopoulos assembles an exhibition of works on paper and sculptures that gesture towards the artist’s personal narratives through processes of abstraction. Angelopoulos draws from a number of sources including mythology, pop culture, current events and our contemporary social climate. These references are simultaneously concealed and disclosed by extension of the artist’s subjectivity
While the impulse towards abstraction produces a shrouding distance between viewer and subjective meaning, the indication of gestural marks and the touch of the body effectively collapse this distance. Such an erratic arrangement is nevertheless productive. For in only suggesting her motivations as producer, Angelopoulos allows her artwork to function as a site for the identifications and projections of others. Thus her practice complexly approaches the workings of empathy, touching on the affective territories of spectators and evoking emotions ranging from melancholy to joy.
Angelopoulos received her MFA from York University (Toronto, 2010), and BFA from NSCAD University (Halifax, 2005). Her exhibitions and work have been cited in Elle Canada, Le Devoir, the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail. Angelopoulos was awarded the Hazelton Sculpture Prize in 2012, in addition to participating in artist residencies at KulttuuriKauppila Art Center (Ii, Finland), the Meadows School of the Arts (Dallas, Texas) and the Banff Centre for the Arts. Angelopoulos has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Parisian Laundry, Stride Gallery (Calgary, Alberta), Gallery YYZ (Toronto) and Cambridge Galleries (Cambridge, Ontario). She has been featured in group exhibitions in Canada and internationally, including Material Girls at the Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina, Saskatchewan) and The Ruin in the Refuge is the Hole at Galleria 5 (Oulu, Finland). Her works are part of the collections of The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norton Rose, ALDO Group, York University, Bank of Montreal, the Claridge Collection as well as numerous private collections.
