Réelle et virtuelle : une exposition où tout est à sa place et où il ne manque rien
OPENING: Thursday, January 15, from 5:30 p.m.
CLOSING: Saturday, February 28, from 5:30 p.m.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
This exhibition brings together eight sculptures and installations that I made over the past three years, arranged to form a single environment. The idea behind this interweaving of works is to increase the number of visual correspondences between pieces that all stem from the same creative method. For each work included in this system, the aim is always to restore the physical integrity of an object placed in a problematic situation where it becomes incomplete. The modus operandi consists of pairing it with a virtual part drawn from digital media, presented as an image by way of “repair”.
By combining the two points of view, what should be the “reality” or normal integrity of the object is thus restored in a deliberately wobbly way, since this desire to reformulate a segment of a thing by substituting it is clearly utopian. And since this is done in a very personal spirit, without really considering the notion of correcting anything, the repair process instead has a harmful effect on the truth. Like a kind of crutch that helps and hinders at the same time, the image produced by digital technology that accompanies the objects does indeed solve a visual problem through its complementary form, but it also transforms them significantly.
My intention behind this approach, doomed to fail, is therefore to stage my own vulnerability as an echo of the self-centredness associated with the digital age. With this in mind, my image in the form of a self-portrait appears often, and situations evoke childhood memories that are gradually fading. My perception and sensitivity thus take centre stage and override the logic of the system I set up myself. Much like a social context in which opinions increasingly take precedence over facts, the works in this exhibition took shape from a problem I created myself, together with an entirely subjective repair process that has more to do with the pleasure of creating than with restoring functionality. So it is not a matter of finding the best formal solution to the many problems of imbalance, breakage, divergence and clumsiness that can be seen in the objects on display, but rather of taking advantage of a weakness deliberately introduced into the whole in order to falsify reality and make it as I wish. In this respect, I position the sculptor’s gesture as a visual lie that has the ability to bring each work into an in-between. The works are complete. Everything is there, everything is in its place, nothing is missing, but not necessarily as one would expect. And then there is the real aspect, the virtual aspect and everything in between.
– Text by Guillaume La Brie
About the artist
Originally from Saint-Hyacinthe, Guillaume La Brie is a visual artist based in Montréal. Through his work, he seeks to transform our perception of objects by exploring the symbolism of modes of presentation. He holds an MFA in visual and media arts from UQAM, and his career is marked by major exhibitions in Quebec and internationally, including a distinction at the 4th Lih Pao International Sculpture Biennial Awards in Taipei, where he received the Award of Excellence in 2019. A founding member of Pique-Nique, an organization dedicated to ephemeral art in public space that was active from 2001 to 2017, he also sat on the board of directors of Galerie B-312 from 2015 to 2024. Since 2001, Guillaume La Brie has taken part in more than forty solo and group exhibitions and has produced more than twenty public art works integrated into architecture.
