Poets Chairs

[Mordy]

I don't know whether this has been posted before, but just outside Quebec railway station we came across this work by sculptor Michel Goulet. It consisted of about 24 (sorry, didn't count!) aluminium chairs, each of which has a line by a Canadian poet engraved into the seat. They were mainly in French - but one in English caught our attention ...

[MaryB]

Thank you Mordy - I want that chair!!!

[sturgess66]

Thanks, Mordy - that's a very cool chair.

I found the sculptor, Michel Goulet, in the Canadian Encyclopedia -
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/ ... RTA0009381

And this article about him at CIAC -
http://www.ciac.ca/en/michel-goulet-0

Michel Goulet

Michel Goulet was born in 1944 in Asbestos, Québec. He lives and works in Montréal.

Since the 1970's Michel Goulet has become one of Québec's best known sculptors, and his fame has spread to the rest of Canada and abroad. He has had several solo showings including Michel Goulet : Un signe de la main, curated by Gilles Daigneault, at the CIAC in 1997, Circus at La Chambre blanche in 2003, Part de vie, part de jeu at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal in 2004, to name but a few. He has also been part of the Growth & Risk program designed by the CIAC in 2001, represented Canada at the Venice Biennial in 1988 and participated in the Biennale d'art contemporain du Havre, curated by Claude Gosselin, in 2006. In addition to creating significant sculptural works, Goulet taught this discipline at the University of Ottawa from 1976 to 1986, at the Université du Québec à Montréal from 1987 to 2004 and designed several sets for theatre and opera. Having received numerous scholarships and distinctions, he was awarded the Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas in 1990 and the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts in 2008. He is represented by the Galerie Simon Blais in Montréal and by the Christopher Cutts Gallery in Toronto.

Over the 1970's, Goulet worked on abstract forms and explored the main parameters of modernism in sculpture. However, his practice took on a totally personal turn in the 1980's as he attempted to make his works more accessible, integrating daily objects to his groupings. Taking inventory of cultural artefacts in his community, he adds a touch of "dailyness" while maintaining the conventional, classic elements of sculpture. Michel Goulet has in fact contributed to closing the gap between contemporary art and the general public by creating some twenty public pieces, including Les leçons singulières, a two-fold piece, one located at the Place Roy and the other in Parc Lafontaine, in Montréal. Lyon, Toronto and Vancouver also have Goulet's work in their collections.

[edlosi]

The chairs:
http://www.bancspublics.net/quebec_vieux_Quebec_4.htm

And another article:
http://www.michelgoulet.ca/fr/projets/rever.htm


Google translation:

Dreaming the New World - "chairs poems"

The work of Michel Goulet was chosen following a competition launched from Montreal artists last summer. It is key to the chair and the poem. The chair is a recurring motif in the work of Michel Goulet, and is, in some ways, the signature of his sculpture. "The chair has always been the pretext for meeting, sharing, exchange and reveals what our singles, but also what brings us together, we now rank, sharpens awareness. With the new dream world, I wanted to create a living work of which the subject and the material is people and their dialogues, attendance and absences, their commitments and expectations, "noted Mr. Michel Goulet.

The work consists in total of forty-four chairs made of stainless steel. The chair-chair the House and greet passers-world when they are strategically placed at the forefront of the work. We can read on the seat of one of them "Dreaming the New World." These chairs are arranged in a house and a bronze globe to illustrate the extremes of public and private space. Ensuing forty chairs, placed in pairs in all configurations, with the inscription of forty fragments of texts written by forty poets from the first day of the founding of Quebec today. La Chaise-Montreal-Quebec and chair complete the whole work and focus, embedded in their seats, a scaled-down representation of the river cast in bronze and oriented in the same axis as the St. Lawrence River.

The 40 participating poets: Claude Beausoleil, Michel Bibaud, Nicole Brossard, Paul Chamberland, Cecile Cloutier, Leonard Cohen, Hugues Corriveau, Louise Cotnoir, Octave Crémazie, Jean-Paul Daoust, Normand de Bellefeuille, Denise Desautels, Alfred Desrochers, Kim Doré, Hélène Dorion, Louise Dupré, Madeleine Gagnon, St-Denys Garneau, Claude Gauvreau, Roland Giguère, Charles Gill, Gérald Godin, Alain Grandbois, Anne Hébert, Dany Laferrière, Gatien Lapointe, Irving Layton, Félix Leclerc, Marc Lescarbot, Paul Chanel Malenfant Rita Mestokosho, Gaston Miron, Émile Nelligan, Pierre Nepveu, Emily Novalinga, Pierre Perrault, Joseph Quesnel, Jean Royer, Gilles Vigneault, Yolande Villemaire

[lizzytysh]

Such an innovative and creative idea. Great choice of lines, as well.

[LisaLCFan]

I want that chair, too (Mary will have to fight me for it )! That's awesome!

[mydoglorca]

I like this very much - very simple but effective.

[MaryB]

Bring it on Lisa

[LisaLCFan]

Bring it on Lisa

We could "thumb-wrestle" for it (the only thing Leonard said that he could beat Pierre Trudeau at!).