photo : Maxime Boisvert
Commissariat d'une exposition solo de Joshua Schwebel, A DREAM IN WHICH I AM YOU, Quartier Éphémère / Fonderie Darling, Montréal, 21 juin - 19 août 2018.
[English follows]
« La mémoire, pour lui, était un matériau vivant, non un ‘devoir’, et encore moins un objet pétrifié, fétichisé. »1
Dans la petite galerie de la Fonderie Darling, Joshua Schwebel propose une exposition conçue à partir d’une résidence de recherche qu’il a effectuée en 2015 à la Fondation du dramaturge polonais Tadeusz Kantor à Cracovie. Par le biais d’installations et d’un roman d’artiste, Schwebel intègre des références aux préoccupations conceptuelles et thématiques de Kantor pour interroger les enjeux de la transmission de la mémoire, des croisements narratifs, du déplacement, de la dislocation, de l’absence, de l’expérience et de la subjectivité.
Peintre, dramaturge, scénographe, metteur en scène et
auteur polonais inclassable, Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990) est l’une des
figures majeures du théâtre au 20e siècle.
Pendant son séjour dans la maison de campagne de Kantor, Schwebel a
effectué une série de gestes dissimulés et d’actions destinées à un
public limité en s'inspirant du concept d’emballage, une forme
artistique développée par Kantor afin de conserver, isoler et préserver
la mémoire d’un traumatisme continu. L'artiste a ainsi caché un
arrangement de fleurs séchées dans le grenier, un échantillon de
poussière extrait du plancher de bois dans la chambre à coucher, des
feuilles d’or à l’intérieur de la poche d’un pantalon de Kantor suspendu
dans une penderie, etc. L’exposition à la Fonderie Darling restitue ce
passage dans l’intimité de Kantor à travers une constellation de gestes
symboliques qui font écho à la pratique du dramaturge, mais aussi au
vocabulaire esthétique de l’artiste Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay qui devait à
l'origine accompagner Schwebel à la résidence en Pologne en tant que
collaborateur. Lorsque Nemerofsky s’est de lui-même désisté de la
résidence, Schwebel s’est approprié son absence pour en faire un
emballage qui exprime et contient l'absence de Kantor. Kantor devient
ainsi une figure emblématique de notions liées à la transmission de la
mémoire : l’idée de l’héritage de Kantor implique une perte et ce qui
remplace ou véhicule cette perte constitue le véritable sujet du projet
de Schwebel.
L'artiste aménage la galerie comme un espace scénique
dédié à la présentation des traces de ses interventions et de son
expérience personnelle, tout en établissant un jeu subtil de relations
entre les objets qui renvoient à son histoire personnelle en Pologne et
ceux qui évoquent la mémoire collective de Kantor. Loin d’un transfert
littéral, l'artiste reconstitue de mémoire des fragments de la maison,
crée des constructions éphémères en papier mâché, regroupe des
photographies, des livres, des documents, ainsi qu’un échange
épistolaire avec Nemerofsky. Ces objets s’entrelacent à des fils
narratifs qui font partie d’un processus ancré dans l’expérience de
Schwebel dans la maison de Kantor et à Cracrovie. À l’image de Kantor,
Schwebel pratique un art informel, non figé, en constante recherche,
dépourvu de hiérarchie entre les médiums et les objets, relevant d’une
esthétique arte povera.
Esther Bourdages
1 Scarpetta, Guy, Kantor au présent, Arles, Actes Sud, 2000, p. 11.
“Memory, for him, was a living material, not a ‘duty,’ and even less a petrified, fetishized object.”1
Joshua Schwebel’s exhibition in the Darling Foundry’s small gallery was conceived during a research residency that he undertook in 2015 at the Tadeusz Kantor Foundation in Krakow. Through installations and an artist’s novel, Schwebel explores, by way of embedded references to Kantor’s conceptual and thematic preoccupations, the issues involved in the transmission of memory, narrative intersections, displacement, dislocation, absence, experience, and subjectivity.
Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990), whose work evades classification, was a Polish painter, playwright, set designer, director, and author, and one of the major theatre artists of the twentieth century. During his stay in Kantor’s country house, Schwebel performed a series of hidden gestures and actions for small audiences, inspired by the concept of emballage, an artform developed by Kantor to keep, isolate, and preserve the memory of a continuing trauma. Schwebel arranged dried flowers in the attic, extracted the dust from between the floorboards in the bedroom, lined the pockets of a pair of pants in gold fabric, which he hung in a wardrobe in the bedroom, and more. The exhibition in the Darling Foundry reconstructs Schwebel’s stay in Kantor’s intimate space through a constellation of symbolic gestures that echo both Kantor’s practice and the aesthetic vocabulary of Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, the artist who initially accompanied Schwebel as a collaborator on the residency in Poland. Upon Nemerofsky’s autonomous withdrawal from the residency, Schwebel appropriated his absence, transforming it into an emballage that expresses and contains Kantor’s absence. Kantor thus becomes a figure emblematic of notions linked to transmission of memory: the idea of Kantor’s heritage implies a loss, and that which replaces or conveys this loss is the true subject of Schwebel’s project.
Schwebel arranges the gallery as a stage set for the presentation of the traces of his interventions and his personal experience, and at the same time he establishes subtle relations between the objects that refer to his personal history in Poland, and those evoking the collective memory of Kantor. Far from creating a literal transfer, the artist reconstructs fragments of the house from memory, creates ephemeral structures out of papier mâché, and groups together photographs, books, documents, and an epistolary exchange with Nemerofsky. These objects are intertwined with narrative paths that are part of a process anchored in Schwebel’s experience in Kantor’s house and in Krakow. Like Kantor, Schwebel practises an informal, mobilized art, in a constant search, with no hierarchy among media and objects, falling within an arte povera aesthetic.
1 Guy Scarpetta, Kantor au présent (Arles: Actes Sud, 2000), 11 (our translation).
REVUE DE PRESSE / PRESS REVIEW
Amber Bergson,
https://canadianart.ca/reviews/joshua-schwebel/
Jérôme Delgado, Quelque part autour d'un volcan, Le Devoir, 7 juillet 2018.
https://www.ledevoir.com/culture/arts-visuels/531813/critique-quelque-part-autour-d-un-volcan
Joshua Schwebel’s exhibition in the Darling Foundry’s small gallery was conceived during a research residency that he undertook in 2015 at the Tadeusz Kantor Foundation in Krakow. Through installations and an artist’s novel, Schwebel explores, by way of embedded references to Kantor’s conceptual and thematic preoccupations, the issues involved in the transmission of memory, narrative intersections, displacement, dislocation, absence, experience, and subjectivity.
Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990), whose work evades classification, was a Polish painter, playwright, set designer, director, and author, and one of the major theatre artists of the twentieth century. During his stay in Kantor’s country house, Schwebel performed a series of hidden gestures and actions for small audiences, inspired by the concept of emballage, an artform developed by Kantor to keep, isolate, and preserve the memory of a continuing trauma. Schwebel arranged dried flowers in the attic, extracted the dust from between the floorboards in the bedroom, lined the pockets of a pair of pants in gold fabric, which he hung in a wardrobe in the bedroom, and more. The exhibition in the Darling Foundry reconstructs Schwebel’s stay in Kantor’s intimate space through a constellation of symbolic gestures that echo both Kantor’s practice and the aesthetic vocabulary of Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, the artist who initially accompanied Schwebel as a collaborator on the residency in Poland. Upon Nemerofsky’s autonomous withdrawal from the residency, Schwebel appropriated his absence, transforming it into an emballage that expresses and contains Kantor’s absence. Kantor thus becomes a figure emblematic of notions linked to transmission of memory: the idea of Kantor’s heritage implies a loss, and that which replaces or conveys this loss is the true subject of Schwebel’s project.
Schwebel arranges the gallery as a stage set for the presentation of the traces of his interventions and his personal experience, and at the same time he establishes subtle relations between the objects that refer to his personal history in Poland, and those evoking the collective memory of Kantor. Far from creating a literal transfer, the artist reconstructs fragments of the house from memory, creates ephemeral structures out of papier mâché, and groups together photographs, books, documents, and an epistolary exchange with Nemerofsky. These objects are intertwined with narrative paths that are part of a process anchored in Schwebel’s experience in Kantor’s house and in Krakow. Like Kantor, Schwebel practises an informal, mobilized art, in a constant search, with no hierarchy among media and objects, falling within an arte povera aesthetic.
Esther Bourdages
1 Guy Scarpetta, Kantor au présent (Arles: Actes Sud, 2000), 11 (our translation).
REVUE DE PRESSE / PRESS REVIEW
Amber Bergson,
https://canadianart.ca/reviews/joshua-schwebel/
Jérôme Delgado, Quelque part autour d'un volcan, Le Devoir, 7 juillet 2018.
https://www.ledevoir.com/culture/arts-visuels/531813/critique-quelque-part-autour-d-un-volcan
