The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal hits hard with the sculptures and videos of Lili Reynaud-Dewar. Creating complex, theoretical and poetic works – nourished by literature and activism – the renowned French visual artist is interested in a transgressive and evolving artistic practice. And it feels good…
The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal has unfortunately lost its luster since moving to smaller temporary spaces at Place Ville Marie. And its never-ending architectural transformation project… not to begin. “The new MAC is expected to open in Fall 2020,” it wrote on May 14, 2016! Discouraging. Under the circumstances, we can only be delighted that curator Mark Lanctôt had the flair (in 2018) to invite Lili Reynaud-Dewar to Montreal. Even before she received the prestigious Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2021. Hats off!
Because Lili Reynaud-Dewar oxygenates the mind. It is a real phenomenon, with its nude dance performances, its original and strong videos and its alternative engagements. “We started this discussion with Mark Lanctôt about coming to exhibit in Montreal while I was in residence in Rome and starting to work on my film on Pasolini,” says the artist, daughter of French poet Daniel Reynaud.
This film, Rome, November 1 and 2, 1975, which she took more than eight months to produce, is projected on four screens. “The MAC should have had the first of it had it not been for the pandemic,” she says. Finally, I showed it at the Center Pompidou, as part of the Duchamp Prize. »
The video was shot with Pasolini’s friends and the plastic artist’s mother, Mireille Rias, who introduced her to cinema in her youth. It starts from the prophetic interview that Pier Paolo Pasolini gave on November 1, 1975, a few hours before his death, to the journalist Furio Colombo. Lili Reynaud-Dewar was also inspired by the film Pasolini (2014), by Abel Ferrara, and Pasolini’s posthumous book, Petroleum, published 17 years after his tragic death. Rome, November 1 and 2, 1975 is thus an immersion in a social and political history which is also somewhat ours when we know, today, the evolution of the world and the planetary damage linked to our consumption of fossil fuels.
Because Lili Reynaud-Dewar is not content to return to the not completely solved assassination of Pasolini. She also interweaves a lot of elements of reflection in her video, to shake up our expectations and get out of the usual narrative frameworks.
In an adjacent room is broadcast about thirty of his silent videos which have made him famous for 10 years. Videos where Lili Reynaud-Dewar, who took dance lessons until the age of 18, dances within various cultural environments, in the simplest device. Dumb choreographies, pleasant to watch. The artist has a beautiful body, moves well, with flexibility. The performance has a playful side that gives these works a beautiful freshness. We even see her dancing in a field where sheep are grazing!
“I was a bit tired of only showing films shot in museums,” she says. Also fed up with institutional and conceptual criticism. »
Lili Reynaud-Dewar took advantage of her time in Montreal to create a new video in the deserted premises of the MAC. A 32 min film, I Want All of the Above to Be the Sun (MAC Montreal), little brother of a work of the same title, shot at the cultural center Tabakalera from Donostia/San Sebastián, in the Basque Country.
Lili Reynaud-Dewar also exhibits sculptures that echo her videos, in a desire to archive her creations and create cycles that are like personal diaries. It presents five aluminum sculptures that describe a citizen sitting on the ground, cellphone in hand. They stem from a sculpture she made for the city of Montpellier, France. The citizen is she, who posed “for hours” in the workshop of a Bulgarian foundry run by a woman. “A collective work done in 2019, 2020 and 2022,” she says. I loved the experience, even if it was long! And I will continue to create his sculptures…”
