Deux monuments à une étoile filante
Claude Mongrain
October 16, 1991 – April 15, 1992
Claude Mongrain, Deux monuments à une étoile filante, 1991; steel, stone, concrete; installed: 4 meters H x 7 meters W x 5 meters D
Artist Statement
This installation is composed of diverse elements taken from our everyday environment as well as from the formal repertory belonging to sculptural tradition. It is in the organization of this diversity that appear images combining references to landscape, to the body, to our technological environment, to history.
Each element is the result of a series of simple manipulations in which the action of piling up is a dominant pattern. The superimposition of different layers of objects creates an effect of sedimentation, reminiscent of stratum revealed by an archaeological cut. This cut effect is accentuated by variations in level between the sections, thus suggesting changing viewpoints and perspectives on a fictitious place, a sort of drifting landscape. To these suggestions of a fluid space are added those of a paradoxical time in which clues to the act of erecting are mingled with signs of a sculpture engaged in its own fall.
The installation suggests a reflection on the idea of monumentality and on the problematic relationship between sculpture and public space in our cultural context. The various modes of presentation allude to diverse functions sculpture has assumed historically. The superimposition of stools imitates and parodies totemic structure while citing the pattern of Brancusi's Endless Column. Elsewhere, a stack of shifted boxes suggests the shape of a pedestal and questions its traditional function. All these devices have, however, been subjected to modifications disturbing their original function. The column, on top of which a stone is placed, seems to invert itself, pointing to the ground, defying any possibility of transcendence. The pedestal itself, of which the upper part has been tilted, is left supporting but a few derisory fragments, thus losing its privileged status. The fragment of a sculpture, as if ejected from its base, lays directly on the ground, searching for a space to occupy.
Corresponding to the deconstruction of sculpture's devices is the emergence of images referring to our mediatized environment and the evocation of a television set, an antenna or a pylon reminds us of the pre-eminence of media in the constitution of our symbolic representations.
Translated by Stéphane Gregory
