Exhibition Raptors

R A P T O R S –

René Derouin’s recent works continue his observation of nature and today’s society. His many migrations have made him aware of the rapacity of our age. Drawing his inspiration from birds of prey, he has created works of great density in a poetic metaphor on the turbulence and voracity of our society. These keen-sighted birds have prompted a series of new works that capture the imagination. Derouin offers some disquieting thoughts on current society:  fragmentations and rapacity in an agitated world.

QUÉBEC – GALERIE MICHEL GUIMONT, April 17 to May 8, 2016
info@galeriemichelguimont.com

MONTRÉAL – GALERIE ÉRIC DEVLIN, September 8 to Octobre 2, 2016
artcontemporain@galeriedevlin.com

OTTAWA – GALERIE JEAN CLAUDE BERGERON, Octobre 14 to November 6, 2016
info@galeriejeanclaudebergeron.ca

Exhibition Ultimate territories

The exhibition ULTIMATE TERRITORIES by artist René Derouin will be inaugurated at the Musée des beaux-arts de Sherbrooke on June 11, 2016. It will continue there until next September 25, before moving on to Galerie Montcalm in the city of Gatineau from October 13 to November 20, and then to the Centre d’exposition de Rouyn-Noranda from December 2 to March 5, 2017.

The book ULTIMATE TERRITORIES, launched to coincide with this travelling exhibition, explores the questions raised by the artist’s creative process, as revealed in interviews at his Val-David studio. Produced with the collaboration of art historian Gilles Lapointe and graphic designer Gianni Caccia, the publication provides valuable insight into Derouin’s practice, expressed in the words of this man who sees himself, through his travels and observations, as a vehicle for a memory of the Americas.

In ULTIMATE TERRITORIES, the public is invited to discover a pivotal exhibition in Derouin’s career. With these works on paper and wood reliefs produced between 2000 and 2013, it touches on the main stages in a creative journey that has taken the artist ever farther from his studio, be it to Mexico City or Barcelona, Puebla or Percé, or Baie-Johan-Beetz on Québec’s North Shore. The first decade of the 2000s and the beginning of the next formed an important turning point in Derouin’s work, as he returned to black and white while delving deeper into the art of paper cutouts, both a Japanese and a Mexican tradition that made a powerful impression on him during his stays in those two countries.

In 1999, the artist’s retrospective at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts offered an overview of his North-South undertaking, ranging from Suite nordique to Équinoxe, along with Migrations and Largage (1994). This major exhibition, first presented at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, generated significant recognition by introducing a wide public to a body of work that broke new ground in its exploration of what it means to belong to this American continent, as well as the artist’s commitment to a knowledge and understanding of territories. This recognition subsequently led him to establish the Jardins du  Précambrien in Val-David, a site for exhibitions and installations which Derouin piloted for two decades. Following the retrospective, the awarding of the Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas and the Jean-Paul Riopelle career grant marked both a validation and the end of a cycle. Faced with the challenge of moving in a new direction after this success, Derouin turned instinctively to black and white, as he has in each of his periods of creative recharging. The exhibition ULTIMATE TERRITORIES illustrates this decade of intense research and reflection.

ULTIMATE TERRITORIES will travel to three important regions of Québec: Estrie, Outaouais and Abitibi. In this way, it reflects the essence of the practice of this exceptional artist. Exhibiting his works every three years, René Derouin remains faithful to his conviction that “time is the source of renewal.”

Book Les derniers territoires

LES DERNIERS TERRITOIRES

Livre sur la décennie 2000 des œuvres de René Derouin qui accompagnera l’exposition itinérante 2016 / 2017.

MUSÉE DES BEAUX-ARTS DE SHERBROOKE, 11 juin au 25 septembre 2016.
GALERIE MONTCALM, GATINEAU, 13 octobre au 22 novembre 2016.
CENTRE D’EXPOSITION DE ROUYN-NORANDA, 2 décembre 2016 au 5 mars 2017.

132 pages de 9 ½ x 12 pouces, une centaine d’œuvres de 2000 à 2013

Prix : 38,10 $ + 1,90 $ (TPS.) +  Frais postaux  15 $ =  55 $

Pour commander :
Éditions du Versant Nord inc. –   819 -322-6899
1303, Montée Gagnon Val-David (Québec) J0T  2N0
info@renederouin.com

 

Book Graphies d’atelier

GRAPHIES D’ATELIER, LE TRAIT CONTINU.
Writings edited and introduced by Gilles Lapointe. 456 pages, 500 colour reproductions. Éditions Fides.

For this new book published by Éditions Fides in fall 2013, René Derouin worked with art historian Gilles Lapointe to select various writings published throughout his career, from 1955 to 2012. Correspondence, lectures, opinion pieces and excerpts from private journals are put into context with the works produced over the course of his many creative periods. Readers are invited to follow the unique path of this artist who has lived and worked in places ranging from Mexico and Japan to Iceland, Spain and, of course, Québec

Info : info@renederouin.com

boitier2Limited edition box set, including Graphies d’atelier. Le trait continu, 456-page book with 500 colour reproductions, plus two linocuts, enhanced with watercolour, by the artist, an inscription bearing your name and an original drawing by René Derouin at the front of the book.

Info : info@fondationderouin.com

 

Le Phare

Le Phare by René Derouin, Hôtel La Ferme.

Originally exhibited in August 2009 as part of the International Symposium of Contemporary Art in Baie-Saint-Paul, the public artwork Le Phare is on loan from the Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, and is now permanently installed on the grounds of the Hôtel La Ferme, one of the liveliest cultural spaces in this Charlevoix town. The work was inaugurated on its new site, near the arrivals area of the new tourist train, in September 2013.

Created for the 2009 Symposium, Le Phare pays tribute to the river and to the Cirque du Soleil which was then celebrating its 25th anniversary. This 10-metre-high metal structure (aluminum, wood and ceramic) holds several hundred ceramic figures on 25 rings stacked one on top of the other, each layer essentially representing a year in the Cirque’s evolving history. It also alludes to the lighthouses that have guided navigators on the St. Lawrence over the past centuries.

 

Exhibition Fleuve

Exhibition Fleuve – Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ).

A major exhibition tracing the 50-year career of René Derouin and reflecting the main themes that have shaped his art. Presented at the Grande Bibliothèque from October 1, 2013 to March 23, 2014, this special event shed unique light on the artist’s journey, in the lead-up to the bequest of his personal papers to the BAnQ. A selection of these archival documents, never before shown in public, were laid out in five agoras organized around the following themes:

  1. Identité/Territoires Nord-Sud
  2. La rencontre de l’autre, métissage, Between/Paraíso
  3. Échographies/Terremoto/Équinoxe
  4. Migrations/Largage/Fleuve-mémoires/La mémoire de Jeanne
  5. Chapelle/Capilla, Les Jardins du précambrien – art public

The drawings, sketches, prints, writings and photographs on view have been gathered together to illustrate the genesis and creation of the works related to these various themes and reveal, along the way, the anxieties, hesitations and transformations inherent in the creative process. The presentation was designed to provide a direct connection between the public and the artist, a favourite approach of Derouin’s, whose interest in a broad and open dissemination of contemporary art is well known.

FLEUVE_coverTextes et cartels de l’exposition Fleuve-René Derouin © BAnQ

 

Exhibition Éclipse

Exhibition Éclipse – Montréal en lumière 2014.

An exhibition of René Derouin’s latest works, organized as part of the 15th edition of the MONTREAL EN LUMIÈRE festival, took place from February 13 to May 11, 2014. Titled Éclipse, featuring new works, produced in 2012 and 2013, revolving around the theme of light.

ÉCLIPSE 2014

Since the very early days of my career, I have developed a body of work based on cross-pollination, in order to reflect the Québec identity and society. My artistic journey has been guided by a resolutely continentalist approach as I have explored the territories of our being “American” – in other words, our belonging to this continent – following a north-south axis.

The exhibition ÉCLIPSE 2014 is the product of my investigation of light. These works were made using different types of Japanese and French paper which I cut out in order to let light shine through.

In my eyes, the word ÉCLIPSE has an enigmatic, inspiring meaning. Various avenues of interpretation can be explored: light/darkness, disappear/reappear, leave/return from afar, shadow of the lunar orbit. Through the forms of the circle and the unbroken line, I wanted to create an iconography constructed with mixed signs arising out of the diversity of cultures I belong to. These signs relating to air and earth are brought together here in a light-based work with a baroque spirit.

An eclipse is born of a continuous movement, like the ongoing movement from life towards death. It represents the moment that occurs in the perpetually renewed cycle of orbits, when the Sun temporarily disappears behind the Moon, and then becomes once again visible from the Earth, our anchor point.

The symbol of the eagle hovers over this exhibition. Its piercing gaze, its predilection for altitude and its boundless aerial vision are the embodiment of a sense of pride and independence.

René Derouin, multidisciplinary artist and rebel