DOMINIQUE PETIT—OLIVIER ASSELIN—RAPHAËLLE DE GROOT
Penser la mémoire à trois voix
Round table hosted by Jean-Émile Verdier
During her presentation, the artist Raphaëlle de Groot will bring out the memory at work in her creative process, through different realizations. In her recent projects, she involves the other in a process in which he or she becomes a producer of traces, signs, marks and narratives. -Raphaëlle de Groot is notably the author of Plus que parfaites. Chroniques du travail en maison privée (1920-2000) [Centre d'histoire de Montréal, 2001], Dévoilements, [Galerie Occurrence, Montréal, 2001], Microcosme [le Lobe, Centre de recherche en art actuel, Chicoutimi, 2000], Reconnaissance [DARE-DARE, Centre de diffusion d'art multidisciplinaire de Montréal, 1997]; and participated in the group exhibitions Point de chute [Louise Déry (curator), Galerie de l'UQÀM, 2001], L'algèbre d'Ariane [Caroline Boileau and Stéphane Gilot (initiators), Centre d'art contemporain Les Brasseurs, Liège, Belgium and in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighbourhood, Montreal, under the aegis of DARE-DARE, 2000]. -Dominique Petit will present the different types of memory and the few biological processes that underlie them as well as the states that affect them.-Dominique Petit (PhD) is a research assistant at the Centre d'étude du Sommeil at the Hôpital Sacré-Coeur.-Olivier Asselin notes that art has often been given the function of representing history - of recording it, proving it, recalling it, commemorating it - for various, often political, purposes. He notes, however, that contemporary art does not fail to reflect on this question of the representation of the past, but in a different, often more critical way, which manifests all the complexity of reconstruction.-Olivier Asselin is a professor at Concordia University. He teaches the limits and possibilities of the different methods applied to the practice of art history. A specialist in art theories, his work focuses on a change in the conception of the body in the 18th century and its contemporary implications. He is the author of numerous scientific texts, including the catalogue of the retrospective of Charles Gagnon's work [Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, 2001]. Olivier Asselin is also known as the director of such films as Le Siège de l'âme (1996) and La Liberté d'une statue (1990).
As an introduction to this first of three discussion tables organized by Galerie B-312 on the occasion of its tenth anniversary, we will recall Erwin Panosky's famous iconographic analysis of Titian's Allégorie de la Prudence. The eminent art historian, allowing himself "a somewhat romantic hypothesis", suggested that the painting was intended to hide a small cupboard dug into the wall where important legal documents relating to the succession of the painter's estate would have been kept. A sentence is written at the top of the painting, it says in substance: "informed of the past, the present acts with caution, lest it should blush at future action". Born, then die. And, in the meantime, act. But don't act anyhow. Act with knowledge of the past. This is the meaning that was given at the time to the notion of "prudence"; a notion that presupposed this very close articulation between the faculties of memory, judgement and foresight. Do we not today find these three faculties under the respective traits of art, science and philosophy? And if so, many questions arise. For example, what kind of foresight can the artist's foresight be, compared to scientific projections, for us today to find the critical dimension of works of art so significant? And then, what does art have to do with meaning, in the manner of remembrance, in order to delimit the applications of scientific knowledge? And at a time when our society is setting up ethics committees in various sectors of activities such as medicine, law or teaching, should our society, for the occasion, take into account the knowledge of the artist, and even recruit him or her?-A number of questions, in addition to others that we invite you to come and ask, which will be debated in the company of Raphaëlle de Groot, Dominique Petit and Olivier Asselin, respective representatives of artistic, scientific and philosophical know-how.
—Translated from a text by Jean-Émile Verdier
During her presentation, the artist Raphaëlle de Groot will bring out the memory at work in her creative process, through different realizations. In her recent projects, she involves the other in a process in which he or she becomes a producer of traces, signs, marks and narratives. -Raphaëlle de Groot is notably the author of Plus que parfaites. Chroniques du travail en maison privée (1920-2000) [Centre d'histoire de Montréal, 2001], Dévoilements, [Galerie Occurrence, Montréal, 2001], Microcosme [le Lobe, Centre de recherche en art actuel, Chicoutimi, 2000], Reconnaissance [DARE-DARE, Centre de diffusion d'art multidisciplinaire de Montréal, 1997]; and participated in the group exhibitions Point de chute [Louise Déry (curator), Galerie de l'UQÀM, 2001], L'algèbre d'Ariane [Caroline Boileau and Stéphane Gilot (initiators), Centre d'art contemporain Les Brasseurs, Liège, Belgium and in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighbourhood, Montreal, under the aegis of DARE-DARE, 2000]. -Dominique Petit will present the different types of memory and the few biological processes that underlie them as well as the states that affect them.-Dominique Petit (PhD) is a research assistant at the Centre d'étude du Sommeil at the Hôpital Sacré-Coeur.-Olivier Asselin notes that art has often been given the function of representing history - of recording it, proving it, recalling it, commemorating it - for various, often political, purposes. He notes, however, that contemporary art does not fail to reflect on this question of the representation of the past, but in a different, often more critical way, which manifests all the complexity of reconstruction.-Olivier Asselin is a professor at Concordia University. He teaches the limits and possibilities of the different methods applied to the practice of art history. A specialist in art theories, his work focuses on a change in the conception of the body in the 18th century and its contemporary implications. He is the author of numerous scientific texts, including the catalogue of the retrospective of Charles Gagnon's work [Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, 2001]. Olivier Asselin is also known as the director of such films as Le Siège de l'âme (1996) and La Liberté d'une statue (1990).