Press Kit | no. 2402-04
PASSAGES INSOLITES 8th edition: art takes over!
EXMURO arts publics
Public Art Circuit
PASSAGES INSOLITES, produced by EXMURO under the artistic direction of Vincent Roy and presented by the City of Quebec, is taking place from June 26 to October 11, 2021. This 8th edition, unprecedented in scale, has met a great success.
More than 20 unique and surprising works by artists from Quebec and around the world have been adding a touch of magic to the urban experience and transforming how we see the city. PASSAGES INSOLITES is open and accessible to all, and the art walk is a safe activity that’s ideal for the whole family. From ephemeral installations to unexpected encounters, art is taking over the city and popping up a street corner near you!
The main circuit
From Petit Champlain and Place Royale, through the Old Port, and on to Saint-Roch and Saint-Sauveur, a yellow line painted on the road will guide visitors along the 5 km circuit of singular artworks. Intrigue, surprise, unexpected joys, and moments of poetry are the order of the day, as visitors enjoy 21 works that will make you see with fresh eyes. Artists and collectives have risen to the challenge with creativity, humour, and audacity, to make art take over the city and create a space of perpetual enchantment.
Public art showcases Quebec City heritage buildings
Exclusive to this year’s edition, works of public art will challenge how we see Quebec City landmarks:
- King of the Mountain, by Charles-Étienne Brochu, presented in front of the Quebec Parliament Building.
- ARENA by Benoît Maubrey, presented outdoors on the grounds of the Grand Théâtre de Québec.
- Through the Walls by Collectif Tel quel, winner of the student competition held through our first collaboration with the Maison des métiers d’art de Québec, presented at the Citadelle of Quebec.
In another exciting collaboration, historian José Doré has partnered with two collectives of emerging artists to provide detailed historical explanations of their exciting works:
- Last Stop, by Collectif du Tropique, winner of the student competition organized in collaboration with the Art School of Université Laval, is a sculptural installation featuring reproductions of commercial signage that once enlivened the streets of the Saint-Roch district.
- Delirious Québec, by the collective of the same name, winner of the student competition held in collaboration with the Université Laval architecture students’ association, is an architectural flight of fancy that reproduces and recombines many of Quebec City’s landmark buildings.
For the first time, the performing arts are part of the PASSAGES INSOLITES circuit
Like the artworks along the circuit, performing artists (dancers, circus artists, musicians, theatre artists, and multidisciplinary artists) are taking over the urban space to spark moments of magic in the Petit-Champlain, Place-Royale, and Old Port districts. This brand-new experience straddles the thin border between reality and imagination. Les embuscades – stealth performing arts pop-ups in public spaces conceived by EXMURO, in partnership with Théâtre Premier Acte and codirected by Marc Goudreau and Vincent Roy, will take place from July 14 to August 22, in collaboration with L’orchestre d’hommes orchestres (multi-arts), FLIP Fabrique (circus), Le CRue (dance), District 7 production (music) and Théâtre Kata (theatre).
Bringing the magic back to Espace 400e
This emblematic building designed for Quebec City’s 400th anniversary will welcome the Museum of Bad Art (MOBA), on tour from its Boston home for a first visit to Quebec City. For a single summer, the building will be transformed into an ephemeral museum housing a unique collection of the very best bad art in the world, work simply “too bad to be ignored.” Visitors are sure to find that there is a unique pleasure in work whose intent is serious but whose execution fails lamentably.
An international event bringing in public art from around the world
International artists at PASSAGES INSOLITES this year:
- Benedetto Bufalino (France): The Lawn Cars, in Petit-Champlain.
- Benoît Maubrey (Germany): ARENA, an interactive sound work, part of the Grand Théâtre de Québec 50th anniversary programming.
- Nicole Banowetz (USA): An Adaptive Moment in Bassin Louise.
- Mark Jenkins (USA): Untitled, characters scattered around the city.
PASSAGES INSOLITES is focusing on women artists through our first-ever partnership with the OpenArt biennial of Örebro, Sweden, which has brought work by three Swedish collectives and artists: STYRELSEN FOR STÖR KONST, Ulrika Sparre, and Susanna Hesselberg. In 2022, three Quebec artists will complete the exchange by exhibiting at OpenArt.
PASSAGES INSOLITES circulating works
EXMURO arts publics has also begun circulating works from PASSAGES INSOLITES to other cities in Quebec, Canada, and around the world as a means of promoting its artists, achievements, and expertise designing and presenting temporary public artworks. This year alone, Longueuil, Trois-Rivières, Terrebonne, Montreal, and Gatineau (as part of its Sentier Culturel initiative) are hosting works initially conceived and presented in Quebec City for PASSAGES INSOLITES.
The first-ever PASSAGES INSOLITES catalogue makes the perfect souvenir!
For the first time in our history, we are releasing a PASSAGES INSOLITES exhibition catalogue. It’s the perfect way to take some art home with you, learn more about the stories, works, and artists, and savour the memory of the 8th edition of this unique public art festival.
EXMURO and the City of Québec would like to thank the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Canada Council of the Arts, the Government of Canada, Québec City tourism, the Consulat general de France à Québec. We are also grateful to site and artwork partners : OpenArt, the Assemblée nationale du Québec, the Grand Théâtre de Québec, the Citadelle-Musée Royal 22e Régiment.
About EXMURO arts publics
EXMURO arts publics is a non-profit organization whose mandate is to design, create, and disseminate contemporary art projects in public spaces. Since 2007 EXMURO has constantly explored new avenues for presenting public artworks in the city. Through a range of projects, EXMURO works to expand the artistic possibilities of public spaces by reaching out to audiences to spark dialogue and foster critical thinking. For EXMURO, public art affords freedom of experimentation and expression that is a necessary counterweight to the forces of standardization and pragmatism that govern so many facets of urban life. By weaving artworks into the urban fabric, they create possibilities to break through uniformity and standardization to create original and surprising experiences and encounters.
EXMURO arts publics develops large-scale projects that build community and drive artistic development and is recognized as an international leader in the world of public art, thanks to:
- Nearly 15 years of experience designing and developing artworks and multidisciplinary projects in public spaces.
- Workshop and production spaces in Quebec City, and an experienced technical team. EXMURO has also successfully led remote co-productions with international artists.
- Presenter of major events such as PASSAGES INSOLITES (since 2014, Quebec City) and HUMANORIUM – The Strange Carnaval (since 2016; presented in Quebec City, Montreal (2017), Summerside, PEI (2018), Saint John, NB (2018) and Trois-Rivières (2019)).
- Developer of circulation projects to promote the work of participating artists and its achievements and expertise in designing and presenting temporary public artworks in other cities in Quebec, Canada, and internationally.
For more information
Media contact
- EXMURO arts publics
- Léa Petitcoulaud
- communications@exmuro.com
- 4182659572
Attachments
Terms and conditions
For immediate release
All photos must be published with proper credit. Please reference v2com as the source whenever possible. We always appreciate receiving PDF copies of your articles.
PASSAGES INSOLITES 8th edition - Public Art Circuit in Québec City. Expect the unexpected : from ephemeral installations to unanticipated encounters, art is taking over the city on a street corner near you!
Nicole Banowetz (Denver, United States), "An Adaptive Moment", 2021
A strange specimen overlooks the Bassin Louise. The inflatable installation reflects and magnifies the anatomical details of the rotifers, microscopic creatures that are able to dry out and be swept up by the wind to escape their predators. As they travel, rotifers absorb the DNA of nearby species and recombine it with their own, ensuring their survival. This exceptional creature with its surreal shape has a great deal to teach us about the transformative virtues of adaptability and resilience in the face of adversity.
Very High-resolution image : 33.59 x 16.83 @ 300dpi ~ 19 MB
BGL (Quebec City, Quebec), "The Trap", 2007
What artwork can hold us in its thrall like an ice cream stand, singing its siren song to young and old alike? Hold on, though – when you take a closer look, the stand turns out to be completely infested with dead insects! Between attraction and repulsion, the unsettling lure of this trap is a stark reminder that appearances can be deceiving, and what looks like the tastiest of treats may be no more than a mirage.
This artwork was first created for Artefact Montreal’s third edition, presented on Saint Helen’s Island by the Centre d’art public to highlight the 40th anniversary of Expo 67.
Very High-resolution image : 27.31 x 18.21 @ 300dpi ~ 11 MB
Charles-Étienne Brochu (Quebec City, Quebec), "King of the Mountain", 2020
A monumental house of cards with colourful illustrations stands before the Parliament Building. The work illustrates the precarious nature of social equilibrium and represents the duality of our precious institutions, which are at once fragile and robust. Much like the fabric of Quebec society, a house of cards requires great care and constant vigilance. All it takes is a gust of wind or one abrupt move to topple everything we have worked so hard to build.
Presented in partnership with the Assemblée nationale du Québec.
Very High-resolution image : 20.0 x 13.33 @ 300dpi ~ 14 MB
Benedetto Bufalino, (Lyon, France), "Lawn Cars", 2021
In a utopic new world where the car has become obsolete, a series of three parked cars are overturned, filled with earth, and covered with an immaculate lawn. It’s the perfect site for an afternoon in the sun, or a picnic. Street parking is taken over by a place where people live together playfully while greening the public space. The sight of cars reused and repurposed in this way is also a cogent criticism of consumerism and the climate emergency.
Produced with support from the Consulat général de France à Québec.
Very High-resolution image : 27.31 x 18.21 @ 300dpi ~ 7.5 MB
Delirious Québec (Quebec City, Quebec), "Delirious Québec", 2021
The Delirious Québec collective let its imagination run wild, reproducing and combining elements from various Quebec City buildings notable for their unique volumetric proportions and strong identity. In a promenade that juxtaposes buildings from hitherto widely separated locations and time periods, the built heritage is broken 6 down to its formal features through a reversal of perspective, and variations in scale and geometric abstraction of shapes complicate our perceptions.
Delirious Québec won the PASSAGES INSOLITES competition, organized in collaboration with Architecture Student Association at Université Laval.
This project is made possible by the Entente de développement culturel, a funding agreement between the Québec government and the Ville de Québec.
Very High-resolution image : 26.83 x 17.9 @ 300dpi ~ 11 MB
Yann Farley (Sainte-Justine, Québec), "Station A", 2021
"Station A" is a payment station that blends into the urban landscape, with its familiar interface and pictograms, along with the tantalizing promise of giving you something for free. But all attempts to operate the machine are fraught. The instructions seem increasingly absurd until we realize the nature of the twisted trial the artist has set out for us. This electroacoustic interactive sculpture pokes fun at our ambiguous relationship with the automated equipment we now interact with everywhere we go.
High-resolution image : 9.17 x 13.76 @ 300dpi ~ 1.1 MB
Charles Fleury and the students of École secondaire Vanier (Quebec City, Quebec), Parade of Imagination 2021
This merry menagerie of hybrid people/animals/objects has been exhibited on the walls of Côte de la Potasse. The dynamic composition of the pieces on display is the result of a collective work of collage. Fragments of visual and textual elements have been cut out and reassembled by high-school artists to represent various facets of their identity. Our self-image, and the one we project onto others, come together in this collective self-portrait.
This project is made possible by the Entente de développement culturel, a funding agreement between the Québec government and the Ville de Québec.
High-resolution image : 13.33 x 7.5 @ 300dpi ~ 1.3 MB
Susanna Hesselberg, (Malmö, Sweden), "When my father died it was like a whole library had burned down", 2015
Scarcely visible on the horizon, a library plunges deep into the abyss of an underground shaft. The riveting sight invites further exploration, but the wealth of knowledge and poetry we could fall into remains out of reach. The title references song lyrics by Laurie Anderson to evoke the all-consuming pain of losing a loved one. This buried library, not unlike a tomb, reflects the mourning for transmission interrupted, for knowledge now lost, irrevocably and forever.
Presented in partnership with the OpenArt biennial (Örebro, Sweden). EXMURO is grateful to the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Conseil des arts du Canada for its financial support.
Very High-resolution image : 14.11 x 21.16 @ 300dpi ~ 18 MB
Mark Jenkins (Washington, D.C., United States), Untitled, 2021
The city is a stage set for Mark Jenkins’s hyperrealistic characters, who adopt unusual postures and interact with the built environment in surprising ways. They pop up in the alleyways and hidden nooks and crannies of the historic Petit-Champlain neighbourhood, where they are always ready for playful hijinks. Cast at human scale, and dressed in a disarmingly realistic manner, these sculptures fool passersby, who need a double-take to see that they aren’t actually real people in alarming positions.
EXMURO is pleased to present the work of Mark Jenkins in collaboration with Manif d’art – the Quebec City biennial. In 2022, the artist’s work will be presented at Le Manif d’art 10.
Very High-resolution image : 20.64 x 13.76 @ 300dpi ~ 6.2 MB
Pascale LeBlanc Lavigne (Quebec City, Quebec), "The Bus Shelter", 2021
A dozen robotic arms with blue cloths and spray bottles are placed inside a bus shelter, and clumsily attempt to clean the glass walls. But this lacklustre contraption seems only to make the shelter walls dirtier. At a time when the hygiene practices in a sterilized city are growing ever more intense, in the midst of a looming labour shortage, Pascale LeBlanc Lavigne has created an irreverent and ironic attempt to automate the upkeep of urban furniture.
Made possible by the support of RTC.
Very High-resolution image : 13.76 x 20.64 @ 300dpi ~ 2.7 MB
Benoît Maubrey (Berlin, Allemagne), "ARENA", 2017
"ARENA" is a mobile, interactive, electroacoustic sculpture. It is built entirely from a mix of recycled speakers, and is open to audience participation: the public can create spontaneous performances or play music by making a phone call, connecting wirelessly, or plugging directly into the installation. This temporary installation imbues the public space with an unbridled spirit of creativity sure to inspire the entire community.
Presented in partnership with the Grand Théâtre de Québec, as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations.
Very High-resolution image : 20.64 x 13.76 @ 300dpi ~ 12 MB
Wartin Pantois (Quebec City, Quebec), "Phase I", 2021
Wartin Pantois makes an empty lot welcoming again by occupying it with a freestanding mural. "Phase 1", an eclectic group portrait, was spliced together from old photographs. Reminiscent of a tiered wedding cake, or perhaps a joyful Tower of Babel, the work is crowned with flowering plants. The layered construction stands like a lighthouse at the point of entry to the Saint-Sauveur district, a reminder of the inequalities created, then as now, by our hierarchical system of social classes.
This project is made possible by the Entente de développement culturel, a funding agreement between the Québec government and the Ville de Québec.
Very High-resolution image : 20.64 x 13.76 @ 300dpi ~ 8 MB
Valérie Potvin (Quebec City, Quebec), "The Sculptor Herself", 2021
A towering figure rises out of the alleyway, with the sculptor’s hammer in hand and the aspect of a heroine brandishing arms. The figure depicted in this playfully self-referential work is the sculptor herself, thereby affirming Valérie Potvin’s own status as an artist. Stoic and unshakeable on its plinth, the alabaster monument is also an homage to the strength of women and their incontestable position in public art.
Made possible by the support of the Conseil des arts du Canada.
Very High-resolution image : 18.21 x 27.31 @ 300dpi ~ 6 MB
Théâtre Rude Ingénierie (Quebec City, Quebec), "Rising Waters", 2021
A mysterious village lies in the waters of Bassin Louise. Where did it come from? Was it overrun by rising waters or purpose-built in these shallows? A plume of smoke, a ringing bell – small signs of life suggest the village is still inhabited. Rising Waters is a serene tableau of what may be no more than a becalmed, tide-swept life.
This artwork includes a portion of the following preexisting work: Le Clocher de la Providence, a creative production by ATSA for Fin November 2011.
Very High-resolution image : 27.31 x 18.21 @ 300dpi ~ 12 MB
Ulrika Sparre (Stockholm, Sweden), "I am the Light", 2021
Lightboxes with short poetic messages have been placed all around Quebec City, a literary circuit to be discovered during a stroll through town. These lyrical incursions in surprising locations enliven the urban landscape with charming but cryptic statements that are at once personal and evasive. Philosophical in nature, the excerpts open the door to existential contemplation and invite passersby to plunge momentarily into an introspective reverie.
Presented in partnership with the OpenArt biennial (Örebro, Sweden). EXMURO is grateful to the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Conseil des arts du Canada for its financial support.
Very High-resolution image : 18.21 x 27.31 @ 300dpi ~ 7.7 MB
STYRELSEN FOR STÖR KONST (Stockholm, Sweden), The Anti Embassy - “The Most Equal
Place in the World”, 2021
As part of a high-level diplomatic mission, the Board for Grand Art has opened an embassy in the Port of Québec. At first glance, the small structure seems to have everything such a building might need. But closer inspection reveals that the Swedish collective has deliberately subverted institutional codes in order to denounce the inequalities of Sweden’s art world. The critical discourse of this fictitious embassy has set out to break the illusions of a country often held up as the most equal place in the world.
Presented in partnership with the OpenArt biennial (Örebro, Sweden). EXMURO is grateful to the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Conseil des arts du Canada for its financial support.
Very High-resolution image : 27.31 x 18.21 @ 300dpi ~ 21 MB
Collectif Tel quel (Quebec City, Quebec), "Through the Walls", 2021
A monumental weaving project framed with interconnected hoops is stretching upwards and taking over the Citadelle de Québec. Its incongruous position on a site marked by martial grandeur and stark emptiness enhances the contrast between the synthetic art objects soaring above the austere face of the stone wall. By inviting us to look closely at this playful domestic universe in the rigid context of fortifications, the Collectif Tel quel gives us a way to momentarily break free from the imaginary fortifications that keep us apart.
Through the Walls won the PASSAGES INSOLITES competition, organized in collaboration with the Maison des métiers d’art de Québec.
Presented in partnership with The Citadelle of Québec – Royal 22e Régiment Museum.
Very High-resolution image : 27.31 x 18.21 @ 300dpi ~ 14 MB
Sarah Thibault (Quebec City, Quebec), "Monumental Impermanence", 2021
Aligned with the central entranceway of the Saint-Roch church, this sculptural arch provides
a passageway to the church’s forecourt, a central gathering place for neighbourhood residents.
The arch is covered with an haut relief of papier-mâché baguettes. This work combines
symbolic elements drawn from the lowly and ornate spheres, while echoing the gilded elements
of the church whose ground it occupies.
Very High-resolution image : 17.88 x 26.81 @ 300dpi ~ 23 MB
Collectif du Tropique (Quebec City, Quebec), "Last Stop", 2021
"Last Stop" is a sculpture installation in an open-air museum: multiple layers in time and space coexist with composite reproductions of the commercial signage that once graced the streets of the Saint-Roch district. Recalling Las Vegas’s Neon Museum, the work invites us to take a stroll back in time through the vestiges of our restored past using archival photos. The selection pays homage to the businesses that played a crucial role in the life of the neighbourhood, weaving together a richly varied social fabric.
"Last Stop" won the PASSAGES INSOLITES competition, organized in collaboration with the Université Laval faculty of art.
This project is made possible by the Entente de développement culturel, a funding agreement between the Québec government and the Ville de Québec.
Very High-resolution image : 27.31 x 18.21 @ 300dpi ~ 12 MB
Giorgia Volpe (Quebec City, Quebec), "Suitcases", 2021
These suitcases by Giorgia Volpe, set up in locations throughout the city, seem to have been left on the roadside – perhaps forgotten, or lost, or voluntarily discarded by their owners. But the suspect luggage does not contain personal belongings: they are solid blocks of cast concrete. Thus fixed in their inert, massive state, these unusable suitcases evoke the recent constraints placed on nomadic existences and human migration.
Very High-resolution image : 13.76 x 20.64 @ 300dpi ~ 4.7 MB
Advertising
