Image from the project "Une Collection" by Chloe Desjardins

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Detail

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Plates 1-12 of L'Ecyclopédie

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Plates 13-24 of L'Ecyclopédie

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Installation view

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A Collection (detail)

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The elements of this collection originally presented at Verdun cultural centre were inspired by the plates of the _Encyclopédie_ ou _Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers_, directed by Diderot & d'Alembert from 1751 to 1765. Born from the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, this ambitious project brings together a considerable body of knowledge on the state of the natural sciences, trades and liberal arts as practised at the time, including sculpture which comprises 24 plates. The work _207 Objects from l'Encyclopédie_ actually brings together 207 porcelain tools (as represented in the encyclopedia) shaped by hand and made during a creation residency at the Banff Center. The work is now part of the Montreal art collection. 


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Détail

Planches 1-12 de L'Ecyclopédie

Planches 13-24 de L'Ecyclopédie

Vue d'ensemble

Une Collection (détail)

Les éléments composant cette collection originalement présentée au Centre Culturel de Verdun ont été inspirés des planches de _L’Encyclopédie_ ou _Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers_, dirigée par Diderot & d'Alembert de 1751 à 1765. Né des idéaux du siècle des Lumières, ce projet ambitieux regroupe un ensemble considérable de connaissances sur l’état des sciences naturelles, des métiers et des arts libéraux tels que pratiqués à l’époque, dont la sculpture qui inclue 24 planches. L’œuvre _207 objets tirés de l’Encyclopédie_ regroupe effectivement 207 outils de porcelaine (tel que représentés dans _L’Encyclopédie_) façonnés à la main et réalisés lors d’une résidence de création au Banff Center. L’œuvre fait maintenant partie de la Collection d’œuvres d’art de la ville de Montréal.


Une Collection

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A Collection

Exhibition

Image from the project "L'Atelier du sculpteur" by Chloe Desjardins

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Reflexion

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 Metamorphosis

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Appearance

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Elevation

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Elevation (detail)

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Origin

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Revelation

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Allegory

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Oblivion

Chloe Desjardins explores with this project the universe and the symbolism associated with the artist's studio. Representations of fixtures such as a worktable, tools, materials and reproductions of casting moulds reflexively turn the material process of sculptural creation back on itself. Together these works create a microcosm, independent of time and reality, which serves as a meditation on both the creative process and the germination of artistic ideas and forms. However, a deliberate formal blurring makes it difficult to ascertain how the works are made or what precisely they represent. Rather than a continuous narrative, an assorted collection of forms, processes and materials is presented here; all white—almost ghostly—the works are less a representation of specific physical forms, and more a materialization of the idea of such forms. Originally presented at the Maison de la culture du Plateau Mont-Royal, the exhibition was presented at Birch Contemporary Gallery in Toronto in 2015.


The sculptor's studio

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Modeling

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Small packaging

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Packaging

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Correspondence

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Gloves

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Unveiling

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Twins

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Confusion

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Presented at the Exhibition and exploration centre of the Master's degree in visual and media arts at UQAM (CDEx), _Counter-Motive_ is Chloe Desjardins MFA thesis show. This series of objects explores the idea of the impenetrability of the artwork: boxes that do not open, solid and opaque packaging, windows that prevent touching. The elements of this series are defined both in relation to artistic conventions and to a vocabulary constructed from ordinary objects and handling materials. The choice to use pedestals and showcases as devices amplifies the contrasts between the banal and the precious. The objects are highlighted by these displays, but their reading is blurred. The various material transformations and the displacement caused by the positioning of incongruous objects in a gallery context do not allow to get a precise idea of what is given to see.


Counter-Motive

Image from the project "Quelque chose" by Chloe Desjardins

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Relief

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Aloofness (detail)

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Double

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Nesting showcases

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Cut stone and Confusion

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Oblivion (detail)

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Box (detail)

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Somewhere

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To create this corpus of plaster casts presented at B-312 Gallery, the artist resorted to everyday objects, often industrial or manufactured, but which acquire a new presence when iterated through other materials. By this simple operation of transmutation of the material, a gap is created that recalls how much sculpture stages and places its subject at a distance. Simultaneously, these objects embody several paradoxes: familiar shapes that one would like to touch, become inaccessible, frozen in matter; unique works are developed from a copying technique. Placed on plinths of varying sizes or protected behind Plexiglass cases, these objects highlight the codes and conventions governing the appreciation of a work of art. The artist questions the presence, the status and the effect of these devices in contextualization of the works. — Mathieu Menard

Something

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Presence and absence (The image in question/Battat Contemorary)

Image from the project "Emballage et socle" by Chloe Desjardins

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Triptych (L’Odyssée d’Espace/Maison de la culture du Plateau Mont-Royal)

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Triptych (detail)

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Porcelain clod (Mesmerizing Matter/ Lilian Rodrigues Gallery)

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Cut stone (Mesmerizing Matter/ Lilian Rodrigues Gallery)

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Tournette (Mesmerizing Matter/ Lilian Rodrigues Gallery)

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 Diptych (Objects of all desires/SAS Gallery)

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 Diptych (detail)

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Something concealed (Objects of all desires/SAS Gallery)

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Something concealed (detail)

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 Statuts and postures/Caravanserail artists centre

This series of artworks around the figures of the packaging and the pedestal was presented in 2013 as part of several group exhibitions. “Shapelessness belongs to a category of concepts that are fleeting, hard to define, not to say ambivalent. Naming shapelessness is naming the inexpressible; it is unveiling what seems, in principal, indistinguishable. Far from dogmatic speeches on the limits between figurative and abstract art, contemporary artists seem more preoccupied by the ambiguity between the alike and the unalike, between the visible and the invisible. This ambivalence between shape and shapelessness is part of a will of reconciliation between the known and the unknown, between the meaning and the absence of meaning.” — Fred Laforge (Ambivalence: shape and shapelessness/SAS Gallery)


Packaging and pedestal

Image from the project "Chef-d'oeuvre" by Chloe Desjardins

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Masterpiece

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This installation was presented in the exhibition _Orderly objects/Unbuilt spaces_ with artist Simon Rochon at FOFA Gallery. _Masterpiece_ depicts four life-size scaffolds around an empty space. Its title and making refer to a tradition relating to the Renaissance; era that saw the birth of the great aesthetic canons of Art history. This device is usually used to build monumental sculptures, except here there is nothing to erect. The structure somewhat becomes the matrix of a potential artwork. Entirely done in wood and assembled with handmade wood joints, this piece embodies many paradoxes. Indeed, scaffolding, which is usually a temporary construction is presented as a permanent artwork. The work is carefully made and finished to amplify the doubt about what is given to see. The scaffolding thus possesses the double identity of object and support, of a positive and negative space at the same time.


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Image from the project "Réflexion" by Chloe Desjardins

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Mirror image

Chloé Desjardins has a particular interest in sculpture, shapes and materials, with a marked predilection for casting and moulding, a technique that allows her to reproduce common or generic objects, sometimes resulting from industrial mass production. This choice then raises the question of the value of the object and its uniqueness. A choice that also confronts preconceived ideas about the status of artwork. The sculpture-objects of the artist are staged in compliance with museum exhibition conventions that apply more particularly to sculptures. On the one hand, these institutional codes of presentation amplify the idealization of the work, and on the other hand, place them in a deliberate mode of seduction. In her exhibition at Plein sud, the artist takes this strategy to another level by placing each work facing its double, inverted like a reflection in a mirror. – Jérôme Delgado


Image from the project "Échafaudages" by Chloe Desjardins

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Temporary structure that serves as a support in the construction of buildings, a scaffolding understood in the metaphorical sense also designates a complex assembly of elements, or even what supports a system in a more or less stable way. In this exhibition presented at Maison des arts de Laval, Desjardins invests the formal and conceptual potential of scaffolding in order to question the fragile interdependence between the artwork and the artistic institution. Literally, the sculptural elements depend on the structure of the space to support themselves. In return, they seem to support the gallery. The pieces are arranged in such a way as to delimit an interior and exterior space. Through an installation representing adjustable support posts in plaster – these industrial structural elements, here reproduced in an artisanal way in a fragile material – the artist presents an installation where coexists multiple references to architecture, the figure of the column and the history of sculpture. – Katrie Chagnon


Scaffoldings

Image from the project "Papier" by Chloe Desjardins

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Untitled crumpled

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 Untitled folded

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Drafts

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 Digital draft 

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Translation

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Correspondence (detail)

Series of works around paper as material, image and container; exploring themes of the blank page, imperfection, equivalence and exchange.

Paper

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Front cover

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Extract from the text by Jérôme Delgado

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Spread

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Pages 14-15

Recipient of the 2014 _Plein sud honorary award_, Chloe Desjardins presented the exhibition _Reflexion_, at Plein sud from May 23 to July 4, 2015. Text by Jérôme Delgado: “Mirage, me trompe-tu? (English translation by Donald McGrath: "Mirage: Are You Deceiving Me?"). Plein sud edition. You can get the publication [here](https://plein-sud.org/edition/en/booklets/20-chloe-desjardins-reflexion.html) or read the text by Jérôme Delgado [here](https://strapi-uploads-chloe-desjardins-live.s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com/Text_Delgado_Reflexion_en_df22207bac.pdf?updated_at=2022-10-29T21:22:23.489Z).

Booklet: Reflexion

Image from the project "Opuscule/Échafaudages" by Chloe Desjardins

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Pages 12-13

This publication accompanies the exhibition _Scaffoldings_ by artist Chloe Desjardins presented at the Salle Alfred-Pellan of the Maison des arts de Laval from February 18 to April 22, 2018. Text by Katrie Chagnon: “L’étaiement précaire de la création". Graphic design: Atelier Mille Mille. Embossed cover. 250 copies stamped and printed. _Clearface_ and _Post Grotesk_ fonts. Publisher: Salle Alfred-Pellan. It is available online (in french) [here](https://strapi-uploads-chloe-desjardins-live.s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com/Publication_Echafaudages_7bf1e7c4f8.pdf?updated_at=2022-10-26T23:22:58.648Z). The text in english is available [here](https://strapi-uploads-chloe-desjardins-live.s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com/Text_Scaffolding_b30b07e846.pdf?updated_at=2022-10-30T01:45:39.321Z).

Booklet: Scaffoldings

Image from the project "Archive" by Chloe Desjardins

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Scanned archive: Musée d'art de Joliette's Lobby in 1985

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Pulpit (Bernard-F. Clavel, 1990 (1983))

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Documentation on the intervention in the Museum hall

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Scanned archive: blueprint by Bernard-F. Clavel, 1990 (1983)

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Scanned archive: Musée d'art de Joliette's exhibition hall in 1978

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Marking (Jean Dubeau, 1974)

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Scanned archive: blueprint by Jean Dubeau, 1974

This series of in situ interventions was presented at the Musée d'art de Joliette (MAJ) as part of the exhibition “Rencontres”. Chloe Desjardins was interested in the building of the MAJ and its history. We have Father Wilfred Corbeil to thank for the first building, inaugurated in 1976, whose original structure still exists today. Inspired by the work of Le Corbusier and traditional church architecture, Corbeil created a model that led to the construction of the museum. The building was renovated in 1985 and in 1992, transforming and adapting its spaces to better meet the new needs of the growing institution. Following another major renovation, the current incarnation of the MAJ reopened in 2015, and is a manifestation of its yearning for openness. A structure that evokes the pulpit that was once built into the staircase and markings made by Desjardins on each floor draw attention to the building’s history and the modifications that have been brought to it over time. — Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre

A Collection 2013