Artists Moreau and Velickovic see the world in darkness and in light
Vladimir Velickovic and Aude Moreau address state of the world differently
One artist lights the darkness with symbols of impending doom; the other projects his dark vision into an airy, light-filled gallery.
Aude Moreau uses images of architecture in her videos and photographs to evoke the present moment in history. Her work, being shown at both Galerie de l’UQAM and Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran, is meant to provoke reflection on the current state of the world.
Political Nightfall, Aude’s exhibition at UQAM, is a survey of the French-born, Montreal-based artist’s career in creating projects that move politics and economics into the realm of art.
La ligne bleue at Ertaskiran shows the windows of skyscrapers with a blue line that marks sea level in a world without the polar ice cap.
“We know climate change is happening,” Aude said in an interview, “but we don’t do what is necessary to change” its ultimate effects for the better.
Vladimir Velickovic, a French artist born in Serbia in 1935, experienced the bombing of Belgrade by Germany in the Second World War. He is showing paintings of broken human bodies — and animal predators — at 1700 La Poste, a post office turned into a stunningly beautiful art gallery on Notre Dame St. W.
Velickovic also reflects on the state of the world, particularly its violence.
Fortunately, the effect of the grisly paintings that dominate the main floor is moderated by his exquisite drawings in the balcony and the basement.
Although the drawings are as explicit as the paintings in their depiction of violated human bodies, they can be appreciated for the skill and beauty of their execution.
The rendering of figures in black ink on white paper evokes scientific drawings in old anatomy textbooks, and also provides the space needed to view them more dispassionately than the paintings, which are overly dramatic and strident.
The paintings were chosen for their common theme and large size to fit the space, Velickovic said in an interview. The much wider range of his art can be seen in the many monographs and catalogues that can be perused in the gallery.
Velickovic’s figures are all male — he said he respects women too much to depict them as victims of violence. So, if the depicted victims are symbols, why not paint in a way that half of the civilians of modern warfare can be depicted?
Velickovic said he is “trying to strip things down to the essentials. Not to black and white chalk, but I’m getting there.”
Velickovic is apparently highly regarded in Europe, where he has had many exhibitions and where war has been on home territory.
He has had only one previous exhibition in North America — in Los Angeles in 1989, where he said in an interview that he showed “more approachable” work.
“U.S. audiences find my work too disturbing and violent,” he said. If some of the work shown here doesn’t appeal, the pristine gallery surely will.
Isabelle de Mévius, owner of 1700 La Poste, writes in the catalogue that she was deeply moved by Velickovic’s tireless “effort to express the predicament of humanity’s inner struggles.”
She continues: “Despite the presence of this death drive that threatens to carry us along with it, the vital energy conveyed by Velickovic’s drawings restores dignity to humanity, reinvigorating it to confront its fears and terrors in the face of the unspeakable.”
Moreau also has a lot on her mind, expressing anguish in an interview at the failure of the world’s leaders to address the environmental catastrophes looming on the horizon.
But when I asked her if she was trying to dramatize the rise in sea level with the blue line she plans to create across the rows of skyscraper windows, she responded that the dramatization comes not from her but from the emotions created by journalists and politicians.
“My work is thinking about it, not dramatizing it,” she said in an interview.
Some of her works that light buildings in certain ways are documents of what has actually been done; others are plans. At UQAM, for example, Moreau shows works like Sortir, which was an collaboration with the owners of the Montreal Exchange building to spell out the word “Sortir” with lights near the top of the building.
Collaboration with people in the non-art world is part of Moreau’s way of working. I don’t doubt that she can pull off the New York blue line across 20 buildings.
The image of the New York blue line was done in post-production, as was a video of the Los Angeles Corps, Corbeaux, an ink on paper work by Vladimir Velickovic. Ink works by Velickovic evoke scientific drawings in old anatomy texts skyline shot from a helicopter that shows the words The End lighting up the night sky from the windows of a skyscraper.
The End is accompanied at UQAM by a video of the ending scenes from 35 Hollywood disaster films with end-of-world scenarios.
Louise Déry, curator of the UQAM exhibition, writes that by embedding film in architecture, writing in glass and the private in the public, Moreau refashions the stereotypes and iconography of the modern city “whose future shows no way around the gathering political darkness.”
Moreau claims that the architecture of the city reveals its own essence, including the materials of its construction, the technology that runs it and the work that goes on inside. “My art is political in how it reflects the meaning of the object and the
ideas that created it,” she said.
Vladimir Velickovic continues to June 21 at 1700 La Poste, 1700 Notre-Dame St. W. Information: 1700laposte.com.
Aude Moreau: The Political Nightfall continues until April 11 at Galerie de l’UQAM, 1400 Berri St. Information: galerie.uqam.ca
Aude Moreau: La ligne bleue continues until April 18 at Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran, 1892 Payette St. Information: galerieantoineertaskiran.com.
My art is political in how it reflects the meaning of the object and the ideas that created it.
AUDE MOREAU