Patrick Coutu

CONSTRUCTION DANS L’ESPACE
11.16–12.23.2000

Tatlin—as a Constructivist—presented us with his infernal tower a few decades ago. Coutu, as a builder-contractor, is preparing a launch site supported by a multitude of pylons, a mesh ceiling (all-ceiling-over), a wobbly, Camembert-shaped flying saucer, electrical and lighting connections, purposeful drawings, a greenhouse-like hut with neon lights, and a set of building blocks arranged in circuits for consenting adults (the visitors).

An experience that will nevertheless remain static: the designer has abandoned the site; his lair of pseudo-technological schemes remains as it is. But there is life here: a fanciful electric generator produces background noise. However, the energy it generates remains a mystery in terms of its network functionality. The energy circuit serves as a metaphor for positive to negative and vice versa, for fullness and emptiness, for inputs and outputs, for cutouts and collages.

The use of reclaimed wood with its natural grain rather than solid, massed forms suggests a particular approach to this intriguing construction site. Welcome to a stroll through this mental forest! Only a sort of mathematical formula marks and overlooks the whole: “AX4” = ?

This space station has all the hallmarks of a dovecote (spot the dove!) or an overflowing and decidedly uncomfortable bachelor pad. Following the delightful discovery of the installation “La Moderne” at the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts Gallery in 1999, the year 2000 heralds a new, unconventional beginning with this latest fictional endeavor. A year after the installation at the Clark Gallery and the physical presence of artist-operator Paul Lacerte in a work suit in Room 2, Patrick Coutu, in turn, enters the gallery as a conqueror of the space age. He sees life in red, green, and blueprints.

E.G. and M.B.