Programming
ROMEO GONGORA
Place des Arts?
Through my research residency at the DARE-DARE Center, I sought to understand what the artistic, social and political stakes of the "revolutionary adventure" of the first Place des Arts really were.
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DARE-DARE welcomes Romeo Gongora, in collaboration with Odile Joron.
Romeo Gongora's research residency was an opportunity to become deeply involved in the "Place des Arts?" community project, which explores questions of Quebec identity and social utopia. The Place des Arts? project he created during this residency adds to a body of work that analyzes the artistic legacy of modernity in Quebec and the neo-Quebec identity in the intertwining of cultural, economic and state issues. Since 2008, Romeo Gongora has led a number of large-scale collective projects, such as "Movimiento Social del Cuerpo", a series of laboratories in collaboration with Latin American universities (Bogota, Lima, Cordoba, Guatemala, Goiania, etc.).
In the early 1950s, in an old building at 1199 Bleury Street, the sculptor Robert Roussil set up a collective workshop-meeting called "Place des Arts" with the artists Roland Dinel, Armand Vaillancourt, Mario Merola, the unionist Henri Gagnon, and others. In this workshop will be given courses, conferences, exhibitions and will discuss communism. Considered "the one and only temple of thought in Montreal", the workshop was officially closed by the municipal authorities in 1954 for "insalubrity", and less officially for its subversive activities. Mayor Jean Drapeau would build the large and official "Place des Arts", the "Place des Autres" is its nickname, a few months later.
Through my research residency at the Dare Dare Centre, I sought to understand what the artistic, social and political stakes of this "revolutionary adventure" really were.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the official "Place des Arts", my intervention on September 28 at 1199 Bleury Street is my way of calling out its ghost and questioning our current situation. I do this in memory of Roland Dinel, Robert Roussil and all those artists and activists who devoted their lives to building the beacons of Quebec's identity.
Program
Place des Arts?
Saturday, September 28, 2013
from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
at 1199 rue Bleury
Free activities
Come and discover "Place des Arts", a mythical artists' studio that gave birth to today's Place des Arts. You'll find the artistic bohemia of the 1950s through activities of the era: exhibition, sculpture workshop, conference, launch, etc.
1:00 pm: "Le contexte politique au Québec durant les années 1950", lecture, Marcel Fournier, sociologist
1:50 p.m.: "Around wood sculpture in Quebec, 1940-1960", lecture, Danielle Doucet, art historian
2:40 pm: "Les bases de la sculpture sur bois", workshop, Valérie Blanchet, sculptor
3:10 p.m.: "In memoriam: 60 years ago, Robert Roussil founded the Atelier de la Place des arts" in Bulletin d'histoire politique, volume 22 no. 1 (fall 2013), launch of an article on Place des Arts, Marc Comby, historian and archivist
3:40 pm: mini-exhibition of works by Robert Roussil, Roland Dinel and Mario Merola, in the presence of artist Mario Merola and others
4:30 p.m.: "Place des Arts? finissage, Romeo Gongora, artist In the presence of wood sculptor Valérie Blanchet
The artist would like to thank: M. and Mrs. Roland Dinel, Mario Merola, Anne Kahane, Geneviève Massé and Martin Dufrasne of the Centre DARE-DARE, Nathalie Thibault, Hélène Godbout and Caroline Gauthier of the Musée national des Beaux-Arts du Québec, Linda-Anne D'anjou and Danielle Blanchette of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Lucie Rivest of the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Claude Cantin of the UQAM archives, Lise Lamarche, Marcel Fournier, Danielle Doucet, Marc Comby, Robert Comeau, Sébastien Hudon of Rebel Photographers, Joyce Millar of Stewart Hall Gallery, Julie Bronson of the McMaster Museum of Art, Chantal Pesant of UdM, Laureat Boily, Urgel Bourgie, Suzanne Janelle, Amélie Laurence Fortin of the Centre Vox, Jose of Guatemala, Aubergine and Xavier.
