JEAN-PIERRE AUBÉ ET PATRICK BEAULIEU / EXHIBITION / GÉOPOLITIQUE DE L'INFINI

JEAN-PIERRE AUBÉ ET PATRICK BEAULIEU
18.01 — 03.03 / 2012

Opening reception : Wednesday, January 18, 2012

17h

The works of Jean-Pierre Aubé and Patrick Beaulieu gathered for the exhibition question our relationship to nature, space and the world. With Photo-synthesis (2004), Jean-Pierre Aubé makes sensitive the minute variations in luminosity in a given place while his new project shows and hears the elusive presence of Exoplanets (2011) located outside our solar system. Patrick Beaulieu’s Ventury (2010-2011) project tells the story of a transboundary odyssey in pursuit of the winds of America, while its installation, Battements (2007-2011), features a migratory bird feather subjected to movement and lighting that transform the state of matter. Intrinsically linked to the question of landscape, these unpublished projects establish a relationship with space marked by immensity and the elusive, which opens a breach of infinity. They formulate a geopolitics that focuses on the space between and above things.

A joint understanding of the artistic practices of these two artists makes it possible to establish several connections between their approaches. The attention given to the exploration of natural phenomena, based on the extraction or capture of elements from the landscape; the articulation of their works around the notions of movement, circulation, wave, flow, frequency, beat, interval, rhythm, density, saturation and circularity; the emphasis placed by their approaches on the process as a constituent element of the work; their shared interest in invisible or elusive circulations, here are some of these reasons that in turn suggest the interest of their dialogue.

While Patrick Beaulieu’s works seek to create a “contemplative vertigo”, the images and sound waves of Jean-Pierre Aubé’s installations generate a kind of perpetual crackling that unfolds its bewitching character. This aspect of the artists’ work evokes the poetry of the idea of infinity: would we look at the works of Jean-Pierre Aubé and Patrick Beaulieu as we would at a starry sky or a flight of birds, with an ever-changing fascination?
Véronique Leblanc, Curator.

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Sporobole invites you, as part of the exhibition Geopolitics of Infinity, to participate in Vents apparents, a walk and a discussion about the Ventury project with the artist Patrick Beaulieu and the author Daniel Canty. They suggest that we follow the signs of the wind during an exploratory walk in the heart of downtown Sherbrooke. The activity will begin with an introduction to the exhibition by curator Véronique Leblanc, and will be followed by a forty-minute exploratory walk (of varying length depending on the temperature).

Ventury is a 25-day transboundary odyssey guided by the winds of America, starting from Chicago. Interested in the influence of wind on human beings, nature, urban planning and geography, Patrick Beaulieu pursued the air currents aboard the Blue Rider, a “pick-up” equipped with wind observation tools – weather vane, meteorological flag and windvane. He was accompanied by three co-pilot authors who took over during the crossing: landscape architect Alexis Pernet and writers Daniel Canty and Dauphin Vincent. Together, these “wind researchers” have carried out a kind of land navigation by trying, as best they could, to combine the continent’s road configuration with the fluidity of air currents. / venturyodyssey.com

Ventury is the second part of a trilogy produced in collaboration with Daniel Canty. For Vecteur monarque (2007), the idea was to follow, in an obsolete postal truck, the migratory cloud of monarch butterflies on its annual trip from Quebec to Mexico / vectormonarca.com. The third part of the trilogy, entitled Vegas (2012), will be a poetic and intuitive journey in search of fortune.
Following the walk, exchanges around cross-border odysseys will continue at Sporobole.

FREE ENTRANCE
Hot drinks will be served.
Bring your thermos!
74 Albert Street (downtown Sherbrooke)

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Photos : Jocelyn Riendeau