Portrait of a University Collection: Galerie de l’UQAM Presents Inventaires d’une collection
Curatorial Team: Lisa Bouraly, Marie Fraser, and Louis-Charles Lasnier
With the Participation of: asinnajaq, eunice bélidor, Manon De Pauw, Louise Déry, Dominique Fontaine, Audrey Genois, Romeo Gongora, Anne-Marie Ninacs, Anne Philippon, and Karen Tam
Works and Objects: David Altmejd, Ancestors, Eruoma Awashish, Pierre Ayot, Marcel Barbeau, Jean-Gérald Bertrand, Dominique Blain, Shary Boyle, Monic Brassard, Michèle Cournoyer, Davidialuk Alaasua Amittuq, Raphaëlle de Groot, Pierre Dorion, Suzanne Duquet, Chantal duPont, Paterson Ewen, Michel Fiorito, Yves Gaucher, Pierre Gauvreau, Lise Gervais, Gilbert & George, Amartey Golding, Guerrilla Girls, Angela Grauerholz, Alfred Laliberté, Serge Lemoyne, Emmanuelle Léonard, Kamissa Ma Koïta, Manufacture Henriot Quimper, Otobong Nkanga, Alanis Obomsawin, Alfred Pellan, Jean Pouzadoux, Monique Régimbald-Zeiber, Henry Saxe, Nancy Spero, Françoise Sullivan, Claude Tousignant, Angèle Verret, Janet Werner, Robert Wolfe, Xu Beihong (Hsu Pei Hung), and unidentified artists
Dates: November 13, 2024 – January 18, 2025
Opening: Tuesday, November 12, 2024, 5:30 p.m.
October 28, 2024 — Galerie de l’UQAM presents Inventaires d’une collection, an exhibition proposed by Lisa Bouraly, Marie Fraser, and Louis-Charles Lasnier as part of the activities of the New Uses of Collections in Art Museums partnership of the CIÉCO Research and Inquiry Group. The exhibition tells the invisible history of the Collection d’œuvres d’art de l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) through the inventories that have constituted and structured it over time. It highlights the life of objects, their provenance, and even their disappearance or destruction.
The Exhibition
Inventories are invaluable witnesses to how a collection is created, enriched, transformed, and exhibited. By assembling almost one hundred works from the Collection and archival documents, the project does not seek to show masterpieces but to reveal underlying narratives, from the first objects collected in the spaces of the École des beaux-arts de Montréal, between 1924 and 1968, to the most recent acquisitions.
With this research project, the curatorial team asks: “How do we deal with a collection of more than 4,000 objects? Which works should be brought out of storage? Which works should be exhibited for the first time or exhibited again?” In a way, the inventory represents the gateway to a collection. It is the main tool through which to understand its characteristics, clashes, shortcomings, exclusions, and strengths. Inventories are also markers of time, messengers that ferry the life of the collection.
Placed at the centre of the gallery, a table assembles the archives that the curatorial team used to conceive the exhibition while also showing the work that was carried out over the years to categorize, describe, and situate the objects. The incredible material transformation of the inventory over time becomes evident on the table: handwritten or typed lists annotated by hand in red pencil, black and white or colour photographs, piles of artwork records filed in boxes or binders, and digital databases.
Conceived as a collaborative exercise, the exhibition also seeks to make several voices coexist and to imagine improbable encounters between artworks. With this in mind, the curatorial team invited artists and curators to choose an object and enter into dialogue with the inventories, thus generating a polyphony that resonates with the very idea of the collection.
The Collection d’œuvres d’art de l’UQAM
When UQAM was created in 1969, it inherited the École des beaux-arts de Montréal’s art collection, which included objects from various periods and places, among them an Egyptian mummy and nearly 3,000 prints by students from the studio of Albert Dumouchel. When the university art gallery was established in 1975, the Collection d’œuvres d’art was assigned an initial space on Saint-Urbain Street; it remained there until 1979 when Galerie de l’UQAM was relocated to the recently inaugurated Judith-Jasmin Pavilion. The gallery has carried out its mandate there ever since, a mandate that focuses on research, the presentation of exhibitions and educational programs, as well as the consolidation of the institutional collection. Over the years, steps have been taken to better document and develop the collection, guided by a rigorous acquisition policy and an annually updated inventory. The collection now holds more than 4,000 objects and artworks.
At the same time, Galerie de l’UQAM has been developing a cabinet of curiosities since 2009: the Petite collection. Unique in Canada, it contains multiples of objects produced by nationally or internationally renowned artists, most often in numbered and signed limited editions. This collection encourages us to consider objects that have different types of status, to research a wider range of artists around the world, and to reflect on new modes of exhibiting.
About the Curatorial Team
Lisa Bouraly is a PhD candidate in museum studies, cultural mediation, and heritage at UQAM and Université Paris 8 and has received a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). As part of the New Uses of Collections in Art Museums partnership, her research focuses on curatorial practices and the restructuring of collections. Since 2020, she has been Research Coordinator of the Canada Research Chair in Curatorial Studies and Practices at UQAM. She has published several articles and book chapters, most recently in Lieux et milieux des arts vivants – Performer l’institution, edited by Anne Bénichou (Presses du réel). As an independent curator, she has curated The Impossible Museum (2020) and 50 Bits and Pieces: an MSVU Art Gallery Retrospective (2021).
Marie Fraser is a professor of art history and museum studies, Canada Research Chair in Curatorial Studies and Practices at UQAM, and cofounder of the CIÉCO Research and Inquiry Group. She manages the research project, “Muséologie d’enquête: repenser l’histoire des expositions à partir de la trajectoire des œuvres d’art” (2021–2026), as well as Axis 1 – Exhibited Collections of the New Uses of Collections in Art Museums partnership. She co-edited Réinventer la collection: L’art et le musée au temps de l’évènementiel (PUQ, 2023). She has curated almost thirty exhibitions in Canada and Europe and was Chief Curator of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2010–2013) as well as the curator of the Canada Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015).
Louis-Charles Lasnier is a professor at UQAM’s École de design where he teaches exhibition design and often collaborates on projects at UQAM’s Centre de design. He has worked for Bruce Mau Design (Toronto), CCxA (formerly Claude Cormier architectes paysagistes, Montreal), and Saucier+Perrotte architectes (Montreal). In 2000, he founded Atelier Louis-Charles Lasnier and managed the agency until 2014. Some of his projects have led him to collaborate with various institutions such as the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Ville de Montréal, and Place des Arts. He is currently working on the organization of the collections of the future Montreal Holocaust Museum with the Pelletier de Fontenay architectural firm.
Public Activities
Guided Tour with the Curatorial Team
Tuesday, November 19, 2024, 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Free admission
As part of the L’art observe series, Galerie de l’UQAM invites the public to a guided tour of the exhibition led by Lisa Bouraly, Marie Fraser, and Louis-Charles Lasnier. This activity will be an opportunity for the public to interact with the curators about the themes of the exhibition.
Symposium: La collection est-elle une ressource ou un fardeau?
Keynote Talk: Thursday, November 21, 2024, 5:30 p.m.
Location: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Auditorium Maxwell-Cummings, 1379-A Sherbrooke Street West or online
Registration required
Symposium: Friday, November 22 and Saturday, November 23, 2024 as of 9 a.m.
Location: Université du Québec à Montréal, Judith-Jasmin Pavilion, Room J-1450, 405 Sainte-Catherine Street East or online
Roundtable: Investigation at the Heart of the Collection
Tuesday, January 14, 2025, 5:30 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Participants: Research team of the Inventaires d’une collection project
In French
Free admission
This activity focuses on the investigation processes used in Inventaires d’une collection, an exhibition that examines the underlying narratives of the Collection d’œuvres d’art de l’UQAM. The public will have the opportunity to participate in an enriching round table discussion with some of those who contributed to the project’s development, especially master’s and PhD students who will share their research experiences and their perspectives on the collection and the life of objects.
Midis L’art observe
Tuesday, November 26, 2024, 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Thursday, December 12, 2024, 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Wednesday, January 8, 2025, 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
In French and English
Free admission
Once a month, a gallery mediator is on-site to discuss the ongoing exhibition with the public.
Educational Program
The cultural mediators of Galerie de l’UQAM will be offering guided tours of the Inventaires d’une collection exhibition to groups and faculty members. Flexible and open to all school and community groups, the tours can be adapted to meet particular needs and to complement material covered in the classroom, if needed. These activities are offered free of charge, in French or English. LSQ or ASL interpreters can be made available to groups wishing to visit the exhibitions with people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Please contact our staff as soon as possible, given the time required to book interpreters.
+ More information: galerie.uqam.ca/en/educational-program/on-site/
Reservation required:
Léa Lanthier-Lapierre
Cultural Mediation and Communications Coordinator, Galerie de l’UQAM
lanthier-lapierre.lea@uqam.ca
514 987-3000 ext. 20959
Partners
Address and Opening Hours
Galerie de l’UQAM
Judith-Jasmin Pavilion, Room J-R120
1400 Berri, corner of Sainte-Catherine East, Montreal
Berri-UQAM Metro
Tuesday – Saturday, 12 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Free admission
Information
Tel.: 514 987-6150
galerie.uqam.ca / Facebook / Instagram
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Source :
Julie Meunier
Communication Officer
Press Relations and Special Events Division
Communications Service
Tel.: 514 987-3000, ext. 1707
Cell.: 514 895-0134
meunier.julie@uqam.ca