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Born in 1970 in Montreal, Michel de Broin lives and works in Montreal and in Berlin.Through a collection of objects and actions, his works seek to escape the constraining nature of modern utopian aspirations whilst attempting to reenact them in playful, jesting objects that glorify the referent on the one hand while upstaging it on the other.
Drawing on his doubt in the capacity and value of ideas, his sculptural projects seek to put them to the test by literally confronting them with the necessities of reality in assemblage that often troubles the ideas it purports to speak for.
His most recent solo shows included The National Gallery of Canada ( Ottawa, 2006 and 2007), Musée national des beaux arts du Québec (Québec City, 2006), PSWAR (Amsterdam, 2007), Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin, 2006), Galerie Isabella Bortholozzi (Berlin, 2005), La Bf15 (Lyon, 2005), Galerie Pierre-François Ouellette (Montreal, 2005), La Vitrine (Paris, 2004) and Villa Merkel, (Esslingen, Germany, 2002).
De Broin has also been part of many group exhibitions in Canada, Europe and United States, among them Berlinische Galerie (Berlin, 2007), Plug In (Winnipeg, 2006), Haus Am Waldsee (Berlin, 2006), Kunstverein Wolfsburg (Wolfsburg, 2006), Christian Nagel (Berlin, 2005), Exit Art (New York, 2005), Fototeka (Havana, Cuba, 2004), Frac Alsace (Célesta, France, 2004), The 11th Biennial of Visual Arts (Pancevo, Serbia, 2004), Museum of Contemporary Canadien Art (Toronto, 2003), Optica (Montreal, 2003), Gallery 44 (Toronto, 2003), Kunsthaus Baselland (Muttenz, Switzerland, 2000), Center for Curatorial Studies (Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, 1998).
His work has been reviewed in Parachute (Montreal), Artpress (Paris), Technickart (Paris), Semaine (Arles, France), Espace (Montreal), Esse (Montreal), C-Magazine (Toronto), Border Crossing (Winnipeg).