Latitude 51° 27' 50" N Longitude 57° 10' 12" W
Pierre Bourgault
May 15 – September 30, 1996
Pierre Bourgault, Latitude Longitude, 1994; brass, steel, wood; 3.11 H x 11.63 L x 2.44 W meters
Artist Statement
This sculpture is an enlargement of a tiny model carved from soap using a pocket knife; its form is regular and asymmetrical. It is constructed like a body, with metal ribs sheathed in brass.
The work, which is narrative in character, has been developed around themes of intimacy, territory and memory. In Quebec City during the 1920's, my father built a structure that was to serve as a school on the Ile-du-Bassin around Blanc-Sablon, near Labrador. My father and his brother took this structure, which had been built in sections, loaded it onto a boat and transported it to the isolated Ile-du-Bassin, where they lived for three months.
The numerical title of the present work refers to a method of obtaining one's geographical bearings. It introduces one space into another; it evokes an immense and distant territory and inscribes it within an organized and marked-out environment.
This nomadic vessel makes it possible to rethink the notion of public space. The spaces opposed here are not inscribed within an open relationship; rather, the dialectic of inside and outside develops as a veritable scission, a gap forced open between an intimate space and a public one. The void that gives the sculpture its floating quality becomes an integral part of the work, a sort of natural, absent support. The enclosure of the work is thus only an imaginary border, like walls constructed on the sea. At a precise spot in the Garden, the waterfall occupies the space opened up within the sculpture.
Houses, which posses an oneiric function, are one of the greatest integrators of our thoughts, memories and dreams. This work functions metaphorically like a house whose body of images gives us reasons for stability; one keeps re-imagining its reality.
The Ontario-Quebec Commission for Co-operation provided additional funding for this exhibition.
