Group Exhibition Photographie

In the 1990s, a group of artists in Montreal developed a new conceptual art practice based on photographic media. As the computer was becoming an indispensable tool across society, they were beginning their education in the visual arts. Michel de Broin, Gwenaël Bélanger, Manon de Pauw, Pascal Grandmaison, Isabelle Hayeur, and Nicholas Baier were all drawn in by these new technologies that offered countless possibilities on an untouched artistic terrain, all within the context of postmodernism.

In the work presented, the conceptual dimension dominates and artistic technique follows after it. Each artist employs a hybrid practice and therefore borrows from sculpture and scale models (Michel De Broin); painting (Gwenaël Bélanger); video and cinema (Manon de Pauw, Alain Paiement, Pascal Grandmaison); or from computer-generated manipulations of images gathered from different sources (Isabelle Hayeur, Nicholas Baier).

Art history teaches us that new vocabularies are born of the latest techniques. Digital media enable an innovative plasticity for picture-making. This group of artists make works that fragment and reconstruct the picture plane, resulting in new meanings to be inferred from their methods of abstraction. The evolution of the photographic medium makes new aesthetic worlds possible.