5826 rue St-Hubert
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January 8th to February 26th
When I walk into the exhibit room for Corps Étranger at Galerie Art Mûr, I get the sensation that I'm seeing something I'm not supposed to see; that I found this place by accident and that if anyone found out I'd been here, they'd want an explanation. It's located at the very back of the gallery, after three other rooms full of unassuming paintings and photographs, right beside the freight elevator. So, because of this and mainly because of the content, I feel like I've stumbled into some mad-genius' attic full of botched experiments. Or remember the scene from Beauty and the Beast where Belle, ignoring the strong advice of the clock and the candlestick holder, tiptoes into the west wing of the Beast's castle and finds the enchanted rose? OK, I'm stretching it with that analogy, but really, this exhibit is riské. There's a tension in the room that could be finely sliced, but a personal curiosity that spreads like mayonnaise. I mean, it's taxidermy art.
The day I went to go see the exhibit at Galerie Art Mûr at 5826, Rue Saint-Hubert was the biggest blizzard the city had seen this year, so I bundled up and headed out (wait, didn't Belle brace a similar snow storm to get to the castle in the first place? Ok, ok, I'll drop it). When I get to Art Mûr, it provides the shelter from the storm I'm looking for. Well-lit with track lighting and staffy smiles, I chat quickly with an employee and no, the artist, Sarah Garzoni is no longer in Montreal. She's from Paris and went back last week but I can try to email her. I did try, but never heard back. Unfortunately. I had and have so many questions for her. But I did learn a couple things about her. I know that she is a visual artist who focuses on taxidermy and a connection between the human world and the natural world. Like I said, she's French, and she's young, only 29. Her website says that she has only been exhibiting since 2005. She studied art, mostly in Paris, but, there is a Canada connection; she also studied at OCAD in Toronto in 2007.
Corps Étranger isn't a big exhibition. In all, there are only 11 or so pieces. But it feels way bigger than that. It feels downright expansive. The first piece that got my attention, and will likely get yours, is the pig in the middle of the room. Taxidermied in mid-trot and titled Boudoir, this pig has gotten Ms. Garzoni a lot of attention, not just because it's so nicely stuffed, but because it's upholstered like a chesterfield. Ms. Garzoni punched buttons into its sides and back and connected them with seams. And it's shocking. Obviously, there's the statement about people making couches out of animal skins. For sure that's there. But the title is also revealing. A boudoir is a woman's bedroom and the word comes from the French verb bouder, to sulk. There are indications that Ms. Garzoni is targeting the human neurosis here. That people's own egos blind them from their habits and from ideas like the only difference between a stuffed, upholstered pig and a stuffed, upholstered leather couch is its form.
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| Boudoir by Sarah Garzoni, Taxidermied Pig 110 x 61 x 31 cm, 2008 Photo Greg Stone |
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| Mascarade by Sarah Garzoni Taxidermied Chicken, Rabbit 62 x 24,5 x 29 cm, 2005 Photo Greg Stone |
If Boudoir isn't the first piece you're drawn to, then it will likely be Mascarade. The tag on the wall lists the materials used to create it: a chicken, a rabbit, taxidermy materials, zipper. Ms. Garzoni took a rabbit, skinned it and put a zipper on it to make a tiny fur coat. Then she took a chicken, plucked it and taxidermied it to stand upright, and fitted it with the rabbit coat. It's Orwellian to an uncomfortable degree. And again, there's the obvious message about the de-naturalization of animals, and the ethics of fur but there's also this bigger question of neurosis. Fashion and clothing are things that cover us over. They can let you smother yourself with color and form. Not that this chicken is having neurosis problems, but there's no doubt that fashion, ego, and compulsion are becoming themes here.
Another focal point of this exhibit is Narcisse. Hommage à Isodore et Charles D. Using a taxidermied peacock grafted to a sewing machine, it presents the peacock sewing its own brilliant tail feathers. I really like this one a lot. In some ways, it's her most cynical piece. And it's just a really, really beautiful metaphor, both in how it literally looks and in how well the metaphor works. Narcissism. Proud as a peacock. It's almost mythological in nature; a peacock so in love with itself that it's punished to sew its own tail for eternity.
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| Narcisse. Hommage à Isodore et Charles D. by Sarah Garzoni, Sewing machine, stuffed peacocks 95 x 74 x 86 cm, 2010 Photo Greg Stone |
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| Breaching by Sarah Garzoni, 19th century corset, plaster, wax, shark teeth, 2010 Photo Greg Stone |
Another excellent piece is Breaching, a plastered corset lined with shark teeth on the inside. OK, I'm starting to hit you over the head with this narcissism thing, but I do really like how Ms. Garzoni uses animals to connect the gap between egos and the means of fulfilling them. And they can be judgmental, these animals. Like these shark teeth, the more you bite into your ego, the more these teeth bite back. And Boudoir, the pig. You can barely look him in the eyes. There's a lot of gravity involved with these pieces. Like I said, this exhibit's only 11 pieces, but it's dense.
Honourable mentions need to go out to a few other pieces. Mimésis, for example, is an assortment of real butterflies that Ms. Garzoni took, printed images onto their wings, and pinned them to a board. The images are usually corporate logos; there's a glimmering blue butterfly with the Playboy bunny logo on the tip of either wing, for example. Or the one with the Nike swoosh. Really great idea here, but maybe a little over-the-top, especially the one with the barcode. Rhéa is another beautifully delicate one. It's a stick-bug planted in a little flower pot like a tree with extra arms grafted on, and green-painted wings attached as leaves. The cherry for this one is the glass case it's under; a statement about ownership and human influence. And Homo-Faber, a Victorinox Swiss Army Brand Knife© with sterling silver insect parts for tools, acts in a similar manner.
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| Homo-Faber by Sarah Garzoni, Silver Casting, 16 x 12,5 x 2 cm, 2006 Photo Greg Stone |
Some people might say about this exhibit, 'Hey! Whadda? Where's PETA on this one? Where are all the animal rights activists?' And if they did say that, they would be wrong. They would be wrong because they didn't understand Ms. Garzoni's message. Because if this exhibit doesn't send a strong message about the proper treatment of animals, about the human exploitation of creatures, of the de-naturalization of animals, then I don't know what would. I once had a friend with a very big brain who, when we got on the topic of art, would say that the best thing that could happen to the Mona Lisa, and to art in general, would be for someone to walk into the Louvre, take the Mona Lisa by the frame and smash it. Of course, I thought he was full of shit. But I heard him out. He went on to say that when people go to see the Mona Lisa, they are certainly moved by it; that it elicits some emotions in them. But to what degree? Are people so moved by the Mona Lisa that they fall in love with art and are thus compelled to preserve all art forms? No, probably not. Are people really that stunned? I know that when I went to see Leonardo's masterpiece in Paris, I was underwhelmed. So, argues my friend, someone smashes it and the world erupts in response. Suddenly everybody and their dog feels more strongly about art than ever before. Stronger measures are put into place to protect our remaining masterpieces, and, more importantly, the Mona Lisa evokes the degree of emotion that its hype suggests (though a different type of emotion). I'm still not sure I agree with my friend. I mean, it's a pretty extreme example and a difficult idea to get on board with. However, you can't help but see this in Ms. Garzoni's work. Though instead of art being the beneficiary, she's doing it for animal rights. Actually, I don't want to say animal rights. That sounds too specific and wrong. She's doing it to show the complete lack of respect we have for anything non-human. And so when Ms. Garzoni upholsters a pig, she's destroying it. She's putting it in the last state we want to see it in. And when she prints corporate logos onto the wings of a butterfly, she's obliterating everything natural about them. Call it shock value if you want, but what she's doing is rattling raw emotion out of people, which happens too rarely in the art world. Or if it isn't rare, there are rarely artists who do it so powerfully, beautifully and poignantly as Ms. Garzoni has done with Corps Étranger.
Corps Étranger is on now at Galerie Art Mûr until February 26th. You should go see it.
