Pavillon du Musée, 27 rue Ambroise-Fafard
July 31 to August 24
Thursday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
_Choisir la joie In a world in crisis, disrupted by multiple threats, why continue to create?
Pierre&Marie is convinced that art can act as a rampart in the face of climate change, geopolitical conflict and misinformation. Art brings us back to our humanity, reminding us of the importance of marvelling and questioning. Faced with an uncertain future, art shows us what's worth saving.
In a setting halfway between an art gallery and an artist's studio, Pierre&Marie offers an overview of the themes at the heart of their approach, where social, environmental and political issues coexist with humor, tenderness and joy. Armed with works already created and in progress, the artists address the precariousness of their environment and bear witness to the difficulty of projecting themselves into the future. They present art as a symbol of resistance.
Resistance through wonder, beauty and joy.
_Biography Pierre Brassard and Marie-Pier Lebeau Lavoie are self-taught artists with a background in the artisan trades, who live and work in Quebec City. Forming the multidisciplinary duo Pierre&Marie since 2008, they have participated in over thirty solo and group exhibitions. Supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts, their work has been presented at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Musée régional de Rimouski, various artist-run centers, maisons de la culture and galleries in Quebec, France and Taiwan. Recipients of the Prix Art Public (2023 and 2024) and the Prix Videre Création en arts visuels (2023) at the Prix d'excellence arts et culture, they favor unifying projects, proposing varied experiences in both public spaces and specialized venues. Echoing the collective issues of our society, their works are part of numerous private and institutional collections.
_Approach Inspired by the presence of familiar objects chosen for their narrative potential, Pierre&Marie's practice gives rise to a variety of material explorations that take shape in photographic, sound, lighting, kinetic and sculptural projects. Accessible through their references to the collective imagination, their works reveal a reinvented everyday life marked by tensions, but imbued with poetry. The works take the form of ephemeral moments somewhere between expressions of joy and impending catastrophe, embracing the tenderness and gravity of existence. Tinged with the darkness of the current context (environmental, geopolitical and ideological issues), they are nonetheless the driving force behind a transformative energy, a form of benevolent resistance, and above all, a vindication of our necessary need for wonder.
