Yan Giguère

TRAVAIL EN COURS
08.26–09.26.1999

Yan Giguère’s work is characterized by a highly intriguing principle of discontinuity and digression. This is first achieved during the shooting process through technical methods—sometimes trivial—that make use of disposable cameras, old Polaroid cameras, or, by contrast, professional cameras. This is mirrored in the exhibition space by a profuse arrangement that blends mismatched photographic formats with varying tonal densities and utterly heterogeneous shades of color and textures. The theme at stake here is equally shaped by wandering and fragmentation. It concerns the very process of artistic creation, which the artist scrutinizes and captures at random during his discreet and indiscreet forays into studio spaces and even those of the Clark Center’s gallery. Admittedly, Giguère’s work initially appears to be that of a collector, but it would be a mistake to view it solely as a documentary endeavor. This collection is instead more akin to a kind of drift in which the narrative function inherent in each found object can intrude. It is a universe where a sense of liminality predominates. First, there is the ambiguity of intrinsic meaning, which—though certainly reworked and put into perspective—remains supremely elusive; but there is also the ambiguity of the formal arrangement, which brings to mind Sei Shônagon’s *The Pillow Book* and the absolute freedom in her way of creating categories: things that cannot be compared, things whose purpose is often overlooked, things that are merely fleeting…

Text by Patrice Duhamel