50 ANS D’ART VIDEO QUÉBÉCOIS
from 7 November to 4 December 2013
only on VisualcontainerTV
Curators: Fabrice Montal, Claudie Lévesque
of Conseil Québécose Des Arts Médiatiques
Montreal, QUÉBEC
In the frame of the 50th anniversary of videoart, VisualcontainerTV is honoured to present the special selection of experimental and historical videoart from Québec
Curatorial Statement
“It must be said: our historical look at video art in Québec is by no means fair. Born of the clash between what we know of this history and the constraints that emerged — constraints within which we nonetheless worked gladly — it represents a great many difficult decisions. Rather than attempt to compile a respectful inventory of everything that has ever been done, we opted instead for a more structural approach.
The works you see were selected from two sources: initially, the archives; and subsequently, the proposals submitted by Québec production collectives still active today.
From the earliest forays made by Vidéographe in the 70s to the present day, we knew we had much ground to cover. Accordingly, we set out to respect history but keep it to the background, focusing instead on the various parameters that have shaped Québec video art through the decades: experimental fiction, autobiography and performance of self, aesthetic and technical research into the medium, the immediacy of the medium, electronic poetry.
We omitted the documentary stream, including the activism that informed much production here in the 70s (and which, with the advent of digital technologies, is now closer to cinema in the broad sense). The selected works therefore attest to the varying degrees of research and experimentation that have marked the evolution of the art form in Québec.
Certain works also had to be set aside due to restoration issues. The preservation of independent creations is a critical issue that affects the entire media arts community. As they await digitization, many so-called “historic” works remain for the moment inaccessible, existing as they do on obsolete media or being in too fragile a state to use, despite the care taken to conserve them.
For us, this retrospective provided the opportunity to gaze back upon the past from our current-day standpoint. In compiling our selections, we came to realize that many once-celebrated works have held up less well, their evocative power dimmed. As a result, we repeatedly adjusted our sights, omitting works we had initially thought to include.
Creative within its constraints, then, this anthology takes a less didactic approach in the hopes of encouraging a fruitful dialogue between past and present.”
Fabrice Montal
Claudie Lévesque
Video Selection
10 x minutes
L’Amertube – Jean-Pierre Boyer, 12min 20s, 1972
9 – Éric Couture et Pierre Gaulin, 4min 10s, 2000
Danlku – DEI (Département d’Entrainement à l’Insanité; Jean Décarie, Louise Duranleau ,Michel Giroux), 10min 30s, 1988
En deça du réel – manon laBrecque , 11min 43s, 1997
VIHR – Nelly-Eve Rajotte, 4min 12s, 2006
Pure Juice – Boris Firquet, 11min 30s, 2001
Activated Memory 1 – Sabrina Ratté, 6min 28s, 2011
* Special thanks to
Conseil Québécose Des Arts Médiatiques – Montreal, QUÉBÉC
Marc Mercier – Les Instants Vidéo, Marseille