A coproduction of the Musée régional de Rimouski and EXPRESSION, Centre d’exposition de Saint-Hyacinthe. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication created in partnership between the two institutions.
The retrospective exhibition Mathieu Beauséjour, La révolte de l’imagination foregrounds an artistic approach where political, social, aesthetic and poetic concerns are closely interwoven. This career overview highlights Beauséjour's ever-evolving engagement towards anti-capitalist and anarchist values, as embodied in polysemous artworks that bring together conceptual inventiveness and and aesthetic attentiveness. Far from being subject to the demands of a fixed-meaning and utilitarian political stance, Beauséjour's works unite a romantic and revolutionary stance with a critical attitude towards artistic and political avant-gardes.
This overview of Mathieu Beauséjour's work between 1991 and 2014 showcases his solidly coherent interest in macropolitical issues, a recurrent theme in his aesthetic and formal trajectory, evolving at times in subtle shifts, other times in sharp turns. Beauséjour is an anachronistic figure in Québec contemporary art – where political involvement is more often than not manifest on the micropolitical level – tackling macropolitical questions with an approach where the spirit of revolt is carried forward by the imagination.
The revolt of the imagination is the expression of an attitude that is both revolutionary and romantic, exploring the real and our surpassing of it in favour of a utopian future. Citing Henri Lefebvre, we might say that it is a question of "a romantic sensibility – more important than an ideology – or perhaps an ideology lived out in a mode of sensibility."
The book launch for the retrospective publication Mathieu Beauséjour, La révolte de l’imagination will take place during the vernissage. The book includes essays by the curator, Andréanne Roy, and by Robin Simpson and Sonia Pelletier.
Opening and guided tour on Saturday, February 14, at 2pm.