Barry Allikas Melanie Authier John Boyle Anthony Burnham Pierre Dorion Renée Duval Cynthia Girard Nicolas Grenier Philip Guston Dil Hildebrand Jennifer Lefort Michael Merrill Leopold Plotek Carol Wainio Etienne Zack Commissaire : David Elliott Between the Cracks (Picutring the Fourth Dimension)
Philip Guston, Untitled, 1975
Vernissage on Saturday, November 5, 2011 at 5 pm
Commented visit with the curator (in French with bilingual Q & A) on Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 1 pm
To transform three into two dimensions is for me an experience full of magic in which I glimpse for a moment that fourth dimension which my whole being is seeking. – Max Beckmann
Between the Cracks (Picturing the Fourth Dimension) explores the idea that paintings, with their intrinsic intermingling of time and space, can serve as vehicles to another dimension. It takes as its point of departure a passage from a 1938 lecture by Max Beckmann in which he suggests that in the irreconcilable task of translating a three-dimensional world onto a two-dimensional plane, artists will, on occasion, unlock the fourth dimension. Beckmann’s basic premise is that the failures to create a rationally readable pictorial surface provide the ruptures or glitches in the system that can lead us into deeper, transcendent spaces: the cracks.
My initial first-hand experience of a deeper dimension in a painting dates to my adolescence in London (Ontario), when I happened upon Jack Chambers’ Olga and Mary Visiting (1964-1965) at the local library, a marvelous domestic scene that warps into a dreamy netherworld. One of my interests in conceiving this show was to cross over normal stylistic boundaries, revealing how realism and abstraction can deliver similar kinds of suspended states.
Introduced by a Philip Guston drawing, this exhibition brings together the works of 14 contemporary painters who to my mind, each in their own way, follow Max Beckmann’s dictum of transcending space and time, by offering us fascinating and insoluble imagery: Barry Allikas, Melanie Authier, John Boyle, Anthony Burnham, Cynthia Girard, Nicolas Grenier, Pierre Dorion, Renée Duval, Dil Hildebrand, Jennifer Lefort, Michael Merrill, Leopold Plotek, Carol Wainio and Etienne Zack.
With the collaboration of: Banque d’oeuvres d’art du Conseil des arts du Canada, Sun Life Financial, collection Robert Côté, collection Robert Chénier, McCarthy Tétrault, Galerie Art-Mûr, Parisian Laundry, Galerie Division, Galerie René Blouin.
Further readings:
Philip Guston, Untitled, 1975
David Elliott (b. 1953) has lived and worked in Montreal since 1977, exhibiting his paintings both nationally and internationally. In 1993 the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City organized a retrospective of his work. Recent solo exhibitions include the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts (2002), Galerie McClure (2009) and Galerie Joyce Yahouda (2004, 2007, 2009, 2011). Elliott is an Associate Professor in the Department of Studio Arts at Concordia University.
Entre les fissures (représenter la quatrième dimension) Barry Allikas, Melanie Authier, John Boyle, Anthony Burnham, Cynthia Girard, Nicolas Grenier, Pierre Dorion, Renée Duval, Dil Hildebrand, Jennifer Lefort, Michael Merrill, Leopold Plotek, Carol Wainio & Etienne Zack – Photos Paul Litherland, 2011
Entre les fissures (représenter la quatrième dimension) Barry Allikas, Melanie Authier, John Boyle, Anthony Burnham, Cynthia Girard, Nicolas Grenier, Pierre Dorion, Renée Duval, Dil Hildebrand, Jennifer Lefort, Michael Merrill, Leopold Plotek, Carol Wainio & Etienne Zack – Photos Paul Litherland, 2011
Entre les fissures (représenter la quatrième dimension) Barry Allikas, Melanie Authier, John Boyle, Anthony Burnham, Cynthia Girard, Nicolas Grenier, Pierre Dorion, Renée Duval, Dil Hildebrand, Jennifer Lefort, Michael Merrill, Leopold Plotek, Carol Wainio & Etienne Zack – Photos Paul Litherland, 2011
Entre les fissures (représenter la quatrième dimension) Barry Allikas, Melanie Authier, John Boyle, Anthony Burnham, Cynthia Girard, Nicolas Grenier, Pierre Dorion, Renée Duval, Dil Hildebrand, Jennifer Lefort, Michael Merrill, Leopold Plotek, Carol Wainio & Etienne Zack – Photos Paul Litherland, 2011
Entre les fissures (représenter la quatrième dimension) Barry Allikas, Melanie Authier, John Boyle, Anthony Burnham, Cynthia Girard, Nicolas Grenier, Pierre Dorion, Renée Duval, Dil Hildebrand, Jennifer Lefort, Michael Merrill, Leopold Plotek, Carol Wainio & Etienne Zack – Photos Paul Litherland, 2011
Entre les fissures (représenter la quatrième dimension) Barry Allikas, Melanie Authier, John Boyle, Anthony Burnham, Cynthia Girard, Nicolas Grenier, Pierre Dorion, Renée Duval, Dil Hildebrand, Jennifer Lefort, Michael Merrill, Leopold Plotek, Carol Wainio & Etienne Zack – Photos Paul Litherland, 2011
Entre les fissures (représenter la quatrième dimension) Barry Allikas, Melanie Authier, John Boyle, Anthony Burnham, Cynthia Girard, Nicolas Grenier, Pierre Dorion, Renée Duval, Dil Hildebrand, Jennifer Lefort, Michael Merrill, Leopold Plotek, Carol Wainio & Etienne Zack – Photos Paul Litherland, 2011
Entre les fissures (représenter la quatrième dimension) Barry Allikas, Melanie Authier, John Boyle, Anthony Burnham, Cynthia Girard, Nicolas Grenier, Pierre Dorion, Renée Duval, Dil Hildebrand, Jennifer Lefort, Michael Merrill, Leopold Plotek, Carol Wainio & Etienne Zack – Photos Paul Litherland, 2011
Entre les fissures (représenter la quatrième dimension) Barry Allikas, Melanie Authier, John Boyle, Anthony Burnham, Cynthia Girard, Nicolas Grenier, Pierre Dorion, Renée Duval, Dil Hildebrand, Jennifer Lefort, Michael Merrill, Leopold Plotek, Carol Wainio & Etienne Zack – Photos Paul Litherland, 2011