Montréal, September 20, 2005. Before even opening for the public, the exhibition Alexandre Castonguay - Elements has already been hailed by critics as the event of the coming visual arts season. It will be presented at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal from September 22, 2005 to January 8, 2006.
Elements
For his first solo exhibition at the Musée, Castonguay has produced a new interactive installation titled Elements, a work composed of recycled and altered projection devices. The circular, blurred images they produce simulate natural phenomena, such as shimmering, silting and rippling effects. Scattered over the floor, the devices project digital images on the wall, which change according to the visitors’ action or even inaction.
Picking up from his earlier media artworks Digital, 2003-2004 (Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain) and Generic, 1999 (Glendon Gallery, Toronto), here Castonguay engages visitors’ participation and elicits a critical consideration on the use of technological tools in our social environment and, in particular—as is noted by the curator, Sandra Grant Marchand—“on appropriating and experimenting with modes of interactivity by both artists and the public.”
For the past 10 years or so, Alexandre Castonguay has produced a multidisciplinary body of work centred around digital photography, video, computerized installation and the Internet. A native of the Outaouais region, where he lives and works, Castonguay teaches in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa. He is also a founding member and the artistic director of Artengine, a website run by and for visual and media artists. A politically committed artist, he contributes to developing the field of free software. He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Québec, across Canada and abroad, notably in New York, Los Angeles, Santiago and Mexico City. In 2004, he won the Graff Award instituted in memory of Pierre Ayot.
The installation Elements was produced in collaboration with Mathieu Bouchard, programmer.
Catalogue and meeting with the artist
A 24-page catalogue accompanies the exhibition. It contains an essay by exhibition curator Sandra Grant Marchand, a biobibliography and reproductions of the installation. It may be purchased for $11.95 at the Musée’s Olivieri bookstore or Librairie ABC Livres d’art, or from your local bookseller.
A meeting with the artist is scheduled for Wednesday, September 21, 2005, at 5:30 p.m., just before the official opening.
The Musée d'art contemporain is a provincially owned corporation funded by the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec. It receives additional funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council for the Arts. The exhibition Alexandre Castonguay. Elements has also received financial support from the Lichen advertising agency.
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