Mohamed El baz Curator: Sylvie Fortin Bricoler l’incurable. Détails 1999
Courtoisie de l’artiste
Vernissage on Saturday, September 11, at 5 pm
Artist Public Presentation (in French) on Wednesday, September 22
Presented as part of Montreal’s Mois de la Photo and produced with the support of the Association Française d’Action Artistique and the General French Consulate in Québec
Mohamed El baz presents an installation “detail” from Bricoler l’incurable, an ongoing project taking shape through contextual works/anchors — installations, objects, images, texts, sound works, performances and artist books — produced since the early 1990s. With Bricoler l’incurable. Détails 1999, the artist invites us to “a room of sensorial, perhaps even socio-economic isolation. It is important for me to create an exhibition space where the data, ‘merchandise, circulations and time’ take form through simple objects.” They are translated through a détournement of common objects selected for their form, their original function and their redeployment in an environment where they cohabitate with inscriptions and audio inflections.
Courtoisie de l’artiste
Born in El Ksiba, Morocco in 1967, Mohamed El baz lives in Lille, France. As well as being included in important group exhibitions such as Le milieu du monde, Centre d’art régional, Sète, France (1993), Artfocus, Jerusalem (1996), Africus95, Johannesburg (1995) and Orientations, IV Biennial of Contemporary Art, Istanbul (1995), the work of Mohamed El baz has been shown in solo exhibitions namely Bricoler l’incurable – Détails, Centre d’arts plastiques, Saint-Fons, France (1999), and Les champs de la sculpture, Paris (1999).
Sylvie Fortin is Curator of Contemporary Art at the Ottawa Art Gallery where she has produced numerous exhibitions since 1996. Her writing has been published in various catalogues and magazines. She is active on OBORO’s board of directors, as well as a member of the advisory board of The Arab Foundation for the Image , Beirut/New York, and a Contributing Editor of Fuse, Toronto.