Multidisciplinary artist Louise Viger lives and works in Montréal. She holds a bachelor’s degree in visual arts from Université Laval and a master’s degree in fine art from Concordia University. Since 1978, Viger has had a number of solo exhibitions in Canada and abroad, including at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal in 2000, and at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, in 2010 and 2011. Her works have been in numerous group exhibitions, including Seeing in Tongues – Le bout de la langue, in 1995. She has created many public sculptures.
Artwork description
Parc Jean-Duceppe is transformed into an immense theatre in which this artwork, reminiscent of a stage curtain, echoes plant life. It pays tribute to the artistic commitment and values that guided Jean Duceppe throughout his life. One side reveals metal laths woven into the contours of a tree; on the other side are laurel leaves in arabesque, crowning the career of this man of the theatre. The figure of the tree is essential to the meaning of the artwork. It expands from its centre and opens out, thus symbolizing the actor’s career. The elevation of the artwork is measured against the elevation of the two stages erected at the north and south ends of the park. Rather than a likeness of Duceppe, it is a tribute to his artistic activities and the values that guided him throughout his professional life.
There is a bit of Québec in this “Je me souviens.” With the laughter of the children in the park. Among these strollers, and in this tangible, real, now inescapable mark made by the accumulated steps of the great actor who was Jean Duceppe.
– Louise Viger