Programming

INTERVENTIONS

10 August — 31 October 2007

Alexandre David

Faire des places

Three mobile objects, temporarily installed in the no name park, can be carried away and installed anywhere.

Three mobile objects, deposited in the no name park, can be carried away and installed anywhere. Each object is quite light despite its considerable volume so that only one person can move and install it easily. These objects unfold and open to function as small squares. The principle of an object that unfolds and folds for transport is familiar to us: beach chair, umbrella, stroller, folding table. Like these many everyday objects, the initial use of the proposed objects, the ability to move and open them, will be obvious and almost natural. The configuration of spaces, once deployed, is just as simple and familiar, so that we can sit on a form that functions like a bench without wondering if it is really a bench, or walk on a platform without fear of boarding anything other than a floor. We can do what we want. These objects are indeed intended for an informal use: which results from all the singular and variable uses which accumulate and end up integrating the possibility of alternative uses. For example, you eat your lunch, but we know that we could just as well take a nap, or have a conversation with a friend, because others do it or have done so.

To the notion of informal use, which relates rather to the object deployed and momentarily fixed in one place, one could add that of poor use to describe the relationship between the object and its own mobility. The Franciscans, to whom we owe this expression, refused not only the property, but also opposed that their use of the property is marked by the law (for example, the regulation concerning the prohibition of the dogs in the Viger and Émilie-Gamelin parks in the Ville-Marie borough seem to be aimed primarily at eliminating the presence of homeless people who have dogs). If we dismiss this notion of a usage without right on the space of the city, it allows us to refuse an organization of the city which seeks a conformity between types of places and corresponding attitudes. Each of us places places of personal importance and each one adapts differently to the places already invested by a community. For the artist, this project is an attempt to sneak between sharing places more or less determined by oneself and others. (For an additional discussion, see a minor biopolitics, interview with Giorgio Agamben directed by Stany Grelet and Mathieu Potte-Bonneville, Din 10, Winter 2000.)

Some of my works work like paintings while others work more like architectural places within which one can move. Others, halfway between painting and architecture, are designed to render the distinction between image and use ineffective.

- Alexandre David

An opening took place on Friday, August 10 from 18h to 23h.

Alexandre David is an artist who lives and works in Montreal. His works in sculpture, photography, and painting have been exhibited in locations across Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. He is the recipient of the 2006 Louis Comtois Award.