La ‘Pataphysique d’Alfred Jarry au Collège de ‘Pataphysique

In may 1989, Montreal will host a series of unprecedented events paying tribute to contemporary writers, painters, filmmakers, artists and thinkers marked by pataphysical aesthetics, lucidity and laughter, in the tradition of Alfred Jarry and the College of Pataphysics.

The large-scale exhibition La ‘Pataphysique d’Alfred Jarry au Collège de ‘Pataphysique, presented at the Galerie de l’UQAM, is a return to basics. One will find there not only works of famous painters and writers: Jarry, Picasso, Miró, Vian, Ernst, Dubuffet, Fontana, Queneau, etc., but also audio and written documents describing the first theories and activities of the College of Pataphysique, the OuLiPo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle), the OuPeinPo (Ouvroir de Peinture Potentielle) and the Institutum pataphysicym mediolanense in Turin.

Guest curator of the exhibition and specialist in the subject, Line Mc Murray has chosen to highlight, in addition to the classics of the genre, current works of OuPeinPo which, according to the example of OuLiPo, is dedicated to invention and experimentation with pictorial constraints. Among the artists of this cenacle, we find Carelman, Foulc, Gagnaire, Bastit, Dewasne. This is therefore an almost complete retrospective of their work, hitherto unknown to the general public.

Among the Italians, Ms. Mc Murray favored works which illustrate famous figures of Pataphysics: Father UBU, Doctor FAUSTROLL, chez Baj et Accame, and others who have some affinity with Spinelli’s OuPeinPo.

Invited to produce artworks, Quebec artists have become, for the occasion, pataphysicians. Among them we find: Michel Goulet, Serge Murphy, Danielle Sauvé…

As a first in North America, this exhibition should, by its eccentricity and its original character, make its mark in our imaginations under the aegis of none other than: Father UBU! Merde de Merde!