Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain is pleased to present new works by Montréal artist John Latour in Chimérique from November 10 to December 22, 2007 . This exhibition of sculpture, text-based art and photography highlights three distinct but related bodies of work that reflect upon our tenuous links to the past.
Vintage found objects are source material for Latour's sculptural practice. Attracted to the sense of history attached to these items, the artist acknowledges that their original histories have been lost. Through alterations to their function and form, Latour makes the familiar strangely unfamiliar. He undermines any sense of comfort that we might come to expect from these objects.
The artist also presents new pieces from an ongoing series of text-based art taken from some of his favourite works of fiction. By applying layers of white paint directly on to pages from nineteenth-century Gothic novels, Latour erases the original stories and replaces them with new ones using the words that remain. Presented in antique frames and hung salon-style in the gallery, they resemble inspirational mottos from the past; although their current meaning remains ambiguous.
Chimérique provides the first opportunity to see a new production by Latour based on found photographs. Using flecks of white paint, he literally “blanks out” unidentified figures from old snapshots and portraits. This process of erasure points to the inevitable fading of all subjects over time.
By juxtaposing and combining these modified vintage objects, nineteenth-century stories and old photographs; Chimérique evokes a fragile past populated by elusive subjects.
