La Petite Mort Gallery presents
LE CABINET DES CURIOSITÉS / GROUP EXHIBIT

July 5 – 28, 2013

Vernissage Friday July 5th / 7-10pm

Tunes Capital DJ Academy

Proudly Sponsored by CKCU 93.1FM & SPAO

 Le Cabinet des Curiosités (also known as Kunstkammer, Wunderkammer, Cabinets of Wonder, or wonder-rooms) was an encyclopedic collection of types of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Museums trace their history and origins to the cabinets of Renaissance princes and scholars. They were but one manifestation of a fascination with collecting which emerged in the fifteenth century out of an attempt to manage the explosion of materials disseminated upon the West’s contact with foreign nations. Collecting developed as a way of maintaining some degree of control over the natural word. Knowledge of the world could no longer be contained or explained by a set of canonized texts – such as the Bible – therefore a new form of containment was necessary to retain a position of power.

The catalogued contents of cabinets of curiosity deliberately annihilate narrative logic; one item follows the other in no rational order to reproduce the aesthetics of dislocation, irrationality, and impressionism. Such cabinets ignore causal connections by randomly juxtaposing items addressing different themes, and by linking them under the physical rubric of visual pleasure. Similarly, La Petite Mort Gallery hopes to feature the strongest of its painters – technically and thematically – whose work is both flawless and internationally respected. However due to the visual content, the work produced by these artists is often received as a curiosity, rather than as something to possess, cherish and enjoy. New ways of seeing must be explored and employed if one is to surpass a notion of high art which relies on adhering to canonized restrictions. Upon exploring La Petite Mort Gallery’s cabinet of curiosity one has the potential to discover the wonders that exist within each individual and his/her form of expression – regardless of how disjunctive or schizophrenic they may be. In unique ways, each artist’s expression aims to represent and comprehend physical reality through an interpretation of their experience of material culture.   

– written for La Petite Mort Gallery by Laura Carusi, 2013

ARTISTS:

Derek Stefanuk, Montreal

Daniel Barkley, Montreal

JeanPaul Mallozzi, Miami

Peter Shmelzer, Ottawa

Francois Escalmel, Montreal

Aleks Bartosik, Toronto

Andrew Moncrief, Montreal

Andrew Salgado, London

Martin Ouellette, Montreal

aleks bartosik. "chromophobia" (2013) 

acrylic and oil on canvas. 12.25 x 8"