PFOAC is pleased to present an exclusive projection of Kota Ezawa's video LYAM 3D. This work is based on the classic 1961 French film Last Year at Marienbad by Alain Resnais. Kota Ezawa isolated scenes from the film in which the actors are unmoving while the camera pans and tracks around them. The scenes were redrawn and animated by Ezawa, removing much of the baroque details of the film, highlighting the movement of the camera and the statuesque poses of the actors in their static environment. The addition of anaglyphic 3D (red, cyan) brings depth to the flattened quality of Ezawa's animation, entirely transforming the original film.
Kota Ezawa was recently given an important retrospective at the Albright-Knox Museum, and has been exhibited widely including solo exhibitions at the St. Louis Art Museum, Hayward Gallery in London, ArtPace in San Antonio, among others. His work is featured in the permanent collections of MOMA, Metropolitain Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum (LYAM 3D). Kota Ezawa's work was previously shown at PFOAC Montreal in the 2013 curated exhibition Conflict Resolution.
This work is presented in collaboration with Anita Beckers Gallery, Frankfurt and blinkvideo.de
Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain is proud to present La Ligne, a new body of works by Toronto-based photographer and long-time collaborator of the gallery, Marc Audette. This will be the second presentation of this body of work. It was shown for the first time last Spring at Centre space in Toronto as part of Photography Festival Contact. Since then, several works from the series can be seen at the Toronto Pearson airport in an exhibition presented by No. 9 Contemporary Art and the Environment. Curator Cara Said writes:
"Marc Audette is a Canadian artist who studied at the University of Quebec in Hull and earned a Masters in Visual Arts from York University. Audette is a visual arts teacher at York University’s Glendon Campus, Curator of the Glendon Gallery, and is a member of Le Laboratoire (LE LABO). Audette is a multimedia visual artist working mainly with video and photography. Recurring themes in his work include nature, light, the human figure, and narrative. Audette’s work pushes the limits of a given reality through compositions that leave space for the imagination. Together, Audette’s medium and subject matter create a dichotomy between what each viewer sees, and the subjective narratives that are produced.
The works on display are selections from Audette’s series La Ligne. Selected works include: Castlegar, BC, 2012; Guerin, QC, 2013; Gatineau, QC, 2013; Nelson, BC, 2012; and Opasatika, ON, 2011. The images depict forests from across Canada with varying climates, flora, and fauna, lit up by a custom lighting installation that Audette carries with him into the landscape. The journey into the forest, difficulties of the terrain (density, water, swamps, insects), all affect where the artist chooses to stop. The process of arriving at the site is part of a larger experience that connects the artist with each location. Each seemingly ordinary landscape is transformed into something altogether mystifying by Audette’s installation. This mysterious feeling, paired with the occasional presence of a spectral human being, transforms each work into an intimate narrative between the subject and the setting, and the viewer and their own relationship to nature.
In each of these works, the subject is flat on the ground examining or becoming part of the landscape, there is a feeling of familiarity, and tenderness. The light becomes an expression of that intimacy, an embrace of the landscape. The focus here is not on human intervention or man versus nature, rather there seems to be the unfolding narrative of humanity’s need for green space. This work seems to emanate a connection between the human mind (or spirit), and nature, our place of tranquility, a relationship that must be preserved."
The artist adds:
"The bright line of light that runs through my photos like stroke of pencils engrave a drawing, stems from my desire to simplify my work in nature. I created my one portable lighting system that I can easily put on my shoulders to walk and explore the landscape. This way of doing things is also, for me, a nice way to approach and adopt a contemplative attitude toward my photography. Also, it is a good ploy for letting the light extend her presence and embrace the subject, the place, the scene, the natural landscape, and finally me the photographer placed in front or behind the camera."