FACE À FACE / LOOKING BACK
19 Jun - 04 Sep 2010
Marc AUDETTE, Alexandre CASTONGUAY, Luc COURCHESNE, Amy ELKINS, Jérôme FORTIN, Adad HANNAH, John LATOUR, Marie-Jeanne MUSIOL, Roberto PELLEGRINUZZI, Chih-Chien WANG
Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain is pleased to present FACE À FACE / LOOKING BACK, a selection of recent and early works by ten artists using photography, video, multimedia, or installation art to explore contemporary issues of representation through the tradition of portraiture. This group exhibition is also an occasion to mark the fact that the gallery is entering its 10th year of existence!
As a complex register of emotions, expressions, and personal identity; the human face has been an enduring source of inspiration for artists throughout history. The representation of subjects in the visual arts, however, is a site of critical enquiry and debate. What do portraits say about the individuals depicted, the public who views them, and the artists who mediate this experience?
FACE À FACE / LOOKING BACK questions the role of the portrayed subject as a passive agent. In some of the works on display, the sitters are actively involved in their own representation. They interact with each other and engage with viewers directly. Though some of the sitters return our gaze, others avoid doing so as if to resist our facile attempts to classify them. The faces of some of those portrayed remain concealed or are obscured, as though to protect their anonymity while looking at us.
In conventional portraiture, the role of the artist is often understated in order to create the semblance of a one-to-one relationship between sitter and viewer. For some of the works presented, this illusion has been abandoned in favour of emphasizing the constructed nature of the portrait. Faces are dissected into grid-like compositions, presented in a temporal sequence, or are created through composites taken from numerous sources. Elsewhere in the exhibition, artists engage in self-representation, although the act of self-portraiture is deferred as their features are substituted by other forms.
In as much as FACE À FACE / LOOKING BACK challenges conventions of portraiture while exploring the relationships between sitters, viewers and artists; it also draws our attention to the very act of looking.
Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain is pleased to present FACE À FACE / LOOKING BACK, a selection of recent and early works by ten artists using photography, video, multimedia, or installation art to explore contemporary issues of representation through the tradition of portraiture. This group exhibition is also an occasion to mark the fact that the gallery is entering its 10th year of existence!
As a complex register of emotions, expressions, and personal identity; the human face has been an enduring source of inspiration for artists throughout history. The representation of subjects in the visual arts, however, is a site of critical enquiry and debate. What do portraits say about the individuals depicted, the public who views them, and the artists who mediate this experience?
FACE À FACE / LOOKING BACK questions the role of the portrayed subject as a passive agent. In some of the works on display, the sitters are actively involved in their own representation. They interact with each other and engage with viewers directly. Though some of the sitters return our gaze, others avoid doing so as if to resist our facile attempts to classify them. The faces of some of those portrayed remain concealed or are obscured, as though to protect their anonymity while looking at us.
In conventional portraiture, the role of the artist is often understated in order to create the semblance of a one-to-one relationship between sitter and viewer. For some of the works presented, this illusion has been abandoned in favour of emphasizing the constructed nature of the portrait. Faces are dissected into grid-like compositions, presented in a temporal sequence, or are created through composites taken from numerous sources. Elsewhere in the exhibition, artists engage in self-representation, although the act of self-portraiture is deferred as their features are substituted by other forms.
In as much as FACE À FACE / LOOKING BACK challenges conventions of portraiture while exploring the relationships between sitters, viewers and artists; it also draws our attention to the very act of looking.