Inventaires d’une collection

Artists: David Altmejd, Ancestor, Eruoma Awashish, Pierre Ayot, Marcel Barbeau, Jean-Gérald Bertrand, Dominique Blain, Shary Boyle, Monic Brassard, Michèle Cournoyer, Davidialuk Alaasua Amittuq, Raphaëlle de Groot, Pierre Dorion, Suzanne Duquet, Chantal duPont, Paterson Ewen, Michel Fiorito, Yves Gaucher, Pierre Gauvreau, Lise Gervais, Gilbert & George, Amartey Golding, Guerrilla Girls, Angela Grauerholz, Alfred Laliberté, Serge Lemoyne, Emmanuelle Léonard, Kamissa Ma Koïta, Manufacture Henriot Quimper, Otobong Nkanga, Alanis Obomsawin, Alfred Pellan, Jean Pouzadoux, Monique Régimbald-Zeiber, Henry Saxe, Nancy Spero, Françoise Sullivan, Claude Tousignant, Angèle Verret, Janet Werner, Robert Wolfe, Xu Beihong (Hsu Pei Hung), unidentified artists

Curatorial Team: Lisa Bouraly, Marie Fraser, and Louis-Charles Lasnier

With the Participation of: asinnajaq, eunice bélidor, Manon De Pauw, Louise Déry, Dominique Fontaine, Audrey Genois, Romeo Gongora, Anne-Marie Ninacs, Anne Philippon, and Karen Tam

November 13, 2024 - January 18, 2025

Opening: November 12, 2024, 5:30 pm

Galerie de l’UQAM presents Inventaires d’une collection, an exhibition proposed by Lisa Bouraly, Marie Fraser, and Louis-Charles Lasnier as part of the activities of the New Uses of Collections in Art Museums partnership of the CIÉCO Research and Inquiry Group. The exhibition tells the invisible history of the Collection d’œuvres d’art de l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) through the inventories that have constituted and structured it over time. It highlights the life of objects, their provenance, and even their disappearance or destruction.

The Exhibition

Inventories are invaluable witnesses to how a collection is created, enriched, transformed, and exhibited. By assembling almost one hundred works from the Collection and archival documents, the project does not seek to show masterpieces but to reveal underlying narratives, from the first objects collected in the spaces of the École des beaux-arts de Montréal, between 1924 and 1968, to the most recent acquisitions.

With this research project, the curatorial team asks: “How do we deal with a collection of more than 4,000 objects? Which works should be brought out of storage? Which works should be exhibited for the first time or exhibited again?” In a way, the inventory represents the gateway to a collection. It is the main tool through which to understand its characteristics, clashes, shortcomings, exclusions, and strengths. Inventories are also markers of time, messengers that ferry the life of the collection.

Placed at the centre of the gallery, a table assembles the archives that the curatorial team used to conceive the exhibition while also showing the work that was carried out over the years to categorize, describe, and situate the objects. The incredible material transformation of the inventory over time becomes evident on the table: handwritten or typed lists annotated by hand in red pencil, black and white or colour photographs, piles of artwork records filed in boxes or binders, and digital databases.

Conceived as a collaborative exercise, the exhibition also seeks to make several voices coexist and to imagine improbable encounters between artworks. With this in mind, the curatorial team invited artists and curators to choose an object and enter into dialogue with the inventories, thus generating a polyphony that resonates with the very idea of the collection.

The Collection d’œuvres d’art de l’UQAM

When UQAM was created in 1969, it inherited the École des beaux-arts de Montréal’s art collection, which included objects from various periods and places, among them more than 3,000 prints by students from the studio of Albert Dumouchel. When the university art gallery was established in 1975, the Collection d’œuvres d’art was assigned an initial space on Saint-Urbain Street; it remained there until 1979 when Galerie de l’UQAM was relocated to the recently inaugurated Judith-Jasmin Pavilion. The gallery has carried out its mandate there ever since, a mandate that focuses on research, the presentation of exhibitions and educational programs, as well as the consolidation of the institutional collection. Over the years, steps have been taken to better document and develop the collection, guided by a rigorous acquisition policy and an annually updated inventory. The collection now holds more than 4,000 objects and artworks.

At the same time, Galerie de l’UQAM has been developing a cabinet of curiosities since 2009: the Petite collection. Unique in Canada, it contains multiples of objects produced by nationally or internationally renowned artists, most often in numbered and signed limited editions. This collection encourages us to consider objects that have different types of status, to research a wider range of artists around the world, and to reflect on new modes of exhibiting.

About the Curatorial Team

Lisa Bouraly is a PhD candidate in museum studies, cultural mediation, and heritage at UQAM and Université Paris 8 and has received a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). As part of the New Uses of Collections in Art Museums partnership, her research focuses on curatorial practices and the restructuring of collections. Since 2020, she has been Research Coordinator of the Canada Research Chair in Curatorial Studies and Practices at UQAM. She has published several articles and book chapters, most recently in Lieux et milieux des arts vivants – Performer l’institution, edited by Anne Bénichou (Presses du réel). As an independent curator, she has curated The Impossible Museum (2020) and 50 Bits and Pieces: an MSVU Art Gallery Retrospective (2021).

Marie Fraser is a professor of art history and museum studies, Canada Research Chair in Curatorial Studies and Practices at UQAM, and cofounder of the CIÉCO Research and Inquiry Group. She manages the research project, “Muséologie d’enquête: repenser l’histoire des expositions à partir de la trajectoire des œuvres d’art” (2021–2026), as well as Axis 1 – Exhibited Collections of the New Uses of Collections in Art Museums partnership. She co-edited Réinventer la collection: L’art et le musée au temps de l’évènementiel (PUQ, 2023). She has curated almost thirty exhibitions in Canada and Europe and was Chief Curator of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2010–2013) as well as the curator of the Canada Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015).

Louis-Charles Lasnier is a professor at UQAM’s École de design where he teaches exhibition design and often collaborates on projects at UQAM’s Centre de design. He has worked for Bruce Mau Design (Toronto), CCxA (formerly Claude Cormier architectes paysagistes, Montreal), and Saucier+Perrotte architectes (Montreal). In 2000, he founded Atelier Louis-Charles Lasnier and managed the agency until 2014. Some of his projects have led him to collaborate with various institutions such as the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Ville de Montréal, and Place des Arts. He is currently working on the organization of the collections of the future Montreal Holocaust Museum with the Pelletier de Fontenay architectural firm.

Support by

 

Activités liées

Roundtable: Investigation at the Heart of the Collection

January 14, 2025

Participants: Hend Ben Salah, Marie Fraser, Louis-Charles Lasnier, Léa-Françoise Terrier In French Free admission This activity focuses on the investigative process deployed in the exhibition Inventaires d’une collection, which examines the underground histories of the Collection d’œuvres d’art de l’UQAM. The event gives the public an opportunity to talk with the curatorial and research teams, […]

Midi l’art observe

January 8, 2025

Galerie de l’UQAMFrench and EnglishFree admission Once a month, a mediator is on site to discuss the ongoing exhibition with the public. Take this opportunity to delve deeper into the works on display, ask questions and share your impressions!

Midi l’art observe

December 12, 2024

Galerie de l’UQAMFrench and EnglishFree admission Once a month, a mediator is on site to discuss the ongoing exhibition with the public. Take this opportunity to delve deeper into the works on display, ask questions and share your impressions!

Midi l’art observe

November 26, 2024

Galerie de l’UQAMFrench and EnglishFree admission Once a month, a mediator is on site to discuss the ongoing exhibition with the public. Take this opportunity to delve deeper into the works on display, ask questions and share your impressions!

Inventaires d’une collection: Guided Tour with the Curatorial Team

November 19, 2024

In French Free admission As part of the L’art observe series, Galerie de l’UQAM invites the public to a guided tour of the exhibition Inventaires d’une collection led by Lisa Bouraly, Marie Fraser, and Louis-Charles Lasnier. This activity will be an opportunity for the public to interact with the curators about the themes of the exhibition.

Video Tour