Marie-Claude Bouthillier
Alexis Desgagnés

TaRoT / Marie-Claude Bouthillier Ammoniaque / Alexis Desgagnés
06.02.2022
Library

TaRoT by Marie-Claude Bouthillier

TaRoT is a collection of short pieces, enigmas, poems perhaps, using word puns specific to the language of birds, that offers for each great arcana of the Tarot of Marseille a key of interpretation (among thousands).

“My calligraphic texts are accompanied by freehand reproductions of Paul Marteau’s cards published by Grimaud in 1980.”

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The interdisciplinary practice of Marie-Claude Bouthillier takes the form of paintings, drawings, installations, card games and video. Her works have been presented in major Québec institutions, including the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the McCord Museum. Marie-Claude Bouthillier is the winner of the Ozias-Leduc (2013) and Louis-Comtois (2011) awards. She holds a master’s degree from the Université du Québec à Montréal (1997). She lives and reads tarot in Montréal.

Soft cardboard cover, glued German binding 6.1 x 8.3 inches 60 pages, with bookmark La maison de la vouivre 2021

Ammoniaque by Alexis Desgagnés

Ammoniaque is a photographic and poetic meditation around a tin wall located in the west of the Hochelaga district in Montréal.

Covered with words written with markers, this wall has become a support for an equivocal writing, at time psychotic. What is there to understand, from these enigmatic inscriptions riddled with references to popular culture and an underworld, except the clear suffering of a person willing to speak out ?

With the publication of this work, Les Éditions du Renard wish to reaffirm their desire to publish photographic works whose deployment in book form is in keeping with the essence of their purpose. In the case of Ammoniaque, the images, grouped under several chapters that follow the artist’s journey chronologically, generate a reflection on the erasure of the voice of the marginalized in the social debate. We discover a neighborhood where the stakes of narcoprostitution remain very present, and this, in spite of the gentrification that is evident there. The title Ammoniaque, for its part, recalls the presence of the odorous Lallemand factory, located in the western part of the neighborhood, which some citizen groups consider dangerous and potentially toxic. In a raw and direct style, the artist’s images bear witness to the muffled cries of those who choose to make themselves heard in ways other than through the official voices of social engagement.

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Alexis Desgagnés holds a PhD in art history, which he obtained from the Université de Montréal in 2010. He is engaged in polymorphous research exploring various fields of creation, in particular writing, drawing and photography. Since 2007, Desgagnés has published nearly fifty texts on art, notably to highlight the importance of the book as a medium for photographic creation. Between 2009 and 2014, he worked as the coordinator of the artist-run centre VU in Québec City, before taking up the position of assistant editor at Ciel variable in 2014 and 2015, a magazine to which he regularly contributes. Supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Desgagnés was able to publish Banqueroute, his first artist’s book, with Les Éditions du Renard in 2016. Originally from Québec City, Alexis Desgagnés lives in Montréal, where he teaches art history at the CEGEP Edouard Montpetit.

Softcover with flaps, tipped-in image on cover and hot stamping 5.75 x 8 inches 172 pages Text (French only) : Alexis Desgagnés Design : Alexis Desgagnés | Les Éditions du Renard 2021