Chloe Desjardins: Encounters - Patrice Loubier , Chloe Desjardins , A

Publication date: September 30, 2023

Catalog of the exhibition Rencontres by the artist Chloé Desjardins, presented at the Musée d'art de Joliette (MAJ) from June 19 to September 6, 2021.

“Desjardins asked MAJ employees to describe their connections to an object in the Museum’s collection and used their responses to create new artworks. In doing so, she was able to weave a conceptual web of referents that is both rich and innovative. By simultaneously exhibiting staff descriptions, “source” objects, and the new sculptures she created, Desjardins adds another thread to this narrative: that of public reception. Indeed, the exhibition, from its conception to its reception, was the starting point for countless conversations and reflections on the Museum’s stories. The public presentation of subjective points of view from people who work closely or remotely with works of art also helped to facilitate, enrich, and humanize the reading of the works in the collection and of Desjardins’ work.” – Excerpt from the preface by Jean-François Bélisle.

This publication brings together an essay by Patrice Loubier, an interview between Chloé Desjardins and Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre, views of exhibitions and all the documents associated with the project presented at the MAJ.

About the authors —

Chloé Desjardins holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University and a Master of Arts in Creation from the School of Visual and Media Arts at UQAM. In recent years, she has presented solo exhibitions in several cities in Quebec and Canada. Her work has been the subject of analytical texts published in several daily newspapers, specialized magazines and publications. Her works are part of the collections of the cities of Montreal, Laval and Longueuil, the Prêts d'œuvres d'art collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and the Musée d'art de Joliette. One of her works is permanently installed at the Jolicoeur metro station in Montreal. Chloé Desjardins is Chair of the Board of Directors of Galerie B-312. She has received numerous grants from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts, and is the recipient of the 2014 Plein sud Grant.

Patrice Loubier is an art critic, independent curator and associate professor in the Department of Art History at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). The author of numerous writings, he is interested in installation, in situ, intervention art and in particular so-called furtive practices, which his work has helped to bring to the forefront of critical discourse. With Anne-Marie Ninacs, he is also at the origin of Commensaux, a special program at the Centre des arts actuelles Skol (Montreal, 2000-2001) devoted to interventionist and relational approaches. As a curator, he contributed to the first edition of Orange in Saint-Hyacinthe (2003) and the third Manif d'art de Québec (2005), and has produced monographic exhibitions on the encounters between painting and photography at Martin Désilets (2012), and between painting and music at Mario Côté (2013, 2015). His more recent research focuses in particular on description as an artistic form. Willingly exploratory, his work tends to blur the boundaries between research, curating and creation. For example, he exhibited his practice as an art historian on the lookout for anonymous creations hidden in urban space during a residency at Skol (2012) and, more recently, he orchestrated interventions with fellow artists using the teaching of art history itself as a place of creation.

Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre holds a master's degree in art studies from the Université du Québec à Montréal and a bachelor's degree in visual arts from the University of Ottawa. Appointed curator of contemporary art at the Musée d'art de Joliette in 2017, she has since produced more than twenty exhibitions, including projects with artists Kapwani Kiwanga, Shannon Bool, Jin-me Yoon, Monique Régimbald-Zeiber and Irene F. Whittome, several of which have travelled throughout Quebec, Canada and internationally. She is particularly interested in identity, cultural issues and questions of performativity and representation that problematize the intersections between reality and fiction.

22 x 30 cm (8 ½ x 11 inches)

Soft cover, color illustrations

123 pages

Texts in French and English

ISBN: 978-2-921801-86-7