source: obviousmag

Since 2004, this strange sculpture can be found in the middle of the Vosgues forest in France. Actually, it’s is not really a sculpture or, perhaps, an installation. It is something hybrid, unqualifiable, simultaneously heavy and light. Upon seeing the huge rock in the middle of the forest, the Canadian sculptor Michel de Broin had the idea of covering it with mirror fragments. Afterwards, with cement and glue, he put them together and adapted them to the irregular volume of the rock. The underlying concept in this work is very interesting. Michel de Broin is able to, with a pretty simple process, subvert the notions of mass and transparency, manipulating our perception. Also, the contrast between what’s natural and artificial, often times shocking, is achieved here in an harmonious way, stirring up a visual experience of great beauty. The pictures speak for themselves…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: micheldebroinorg
Ranging from assemblage to video and photography, Michel de Broin has developed a constantly expanding visual vocabulary. Piece by piece, the objects involved are sometimes universally recognizable but their behaviour defies their functions and uses taken for granted. Crafting new relationships between waste, productivity, risk and consumption, established modes of signification are endangered, yielding retooled technological environments that feed a constant questioning.
De Broin has exhibited widely in Europe and North America. The first mid-career institutional survey of his work was mounted by the Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montréal, earlier this year. De Broin has held solo exhibitions and projetcs like Reciprocal Energy, at Musée d’art contemporain Val-de-Marne, France; Machinations at Musée national des beaux arts du Québec, QC; Reverse Entropy at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; Disruption from Within at Plug In, Institute of Contemporary Art (Winnipeg, MB) ; Épater la Galerie at Villa Merkel, Esslingen, Germany. Group exhibitions include Beyond the Crisis, The 6th Curitiba Biennial, Brazil; Car Fetish. I drive, therefore I am, Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland; Acclimatation, Centre d’art Villa Arson, Nice, France; Untethered, Eyebeam, New York, NY; De-con-struction, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON; Canada Dreaming, Kunstverein Wolfsburg, Germany; Damage Control, Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art, Toronto, ON; and Au courant, Center for Curatorial Studies, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
In 2014 de Broin will unveil Mehr Licht, a newly commissioned 20-meter project in Berlin for the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus, at the Bundestag federal parliament. His public art works and commissions in the last decade have included Possibilities, 2012, Mississauga; Interlace, 2012, Changwong; Majestic, 2011, New Orleans; Revolution, 2010, Rennes; Arc, Montréal, 2009; La maîtresse de la Tour Eiffel, 2009, Paris; Overflow, 2008, Toronto; Encircling, Christchurch, 2006; Shared Propulsion Car, 2005, New York and 2007, Toronto; and Révolutions, 2003, Parc Maisonneuve-Cartier, Montréal.
Recipient of the 2007 Sobey Art Award, De Broin has also received grants from the Harpo Foundation (Los Angeles) and Krasner-Pollock Foundation (New York). His works are part of several private and public collections in France, Germany and Canada. Most recently, he has been awarded a residency at the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York, which will begin March 2014.
Michel de Broin currently lives and works in Montreal, Canada.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: adeltocouk
The selection of works from the last decade on display in the exhibition Michel de Broin attests to the artist’s persistent interest in the notions of resistance, appropriation and recycling. Over the past twenty-plus years, this multidisciplinary artist has continually challenged systems of all kinds and the way they operate. Adopting a critical yet playful point of view toward everyday objects and preconceived ideas, de Broin applies analogies and metaphors to reveal the forces that frame and direct our actions and interactions in our day-to-day environment. The artist explores the coexistence of opposing elements and the relationship between the strange and the familiar, explaining: “One of the premises of my practice involves introducing a foreign element into a normative system to see how that agent produces an unexpected reaction in its new setting.” A notable example is Silent Screaming, a seminal work from 2006−2007 that features a device designed to muffle the sound produced by an alarm system by creating a vacuum⎯an environment where sound cannot travel. Visitors can see the movement of the hammer striking the bell jar, but the alarm “scream” is inaudible.
De Broin favours an experimental approach, so that his works are perpetually evolving. Often, the boundaries between preparatory sketch and model, documentation and finished piece, become merged and blurred. A model may in fact be presented as a work in itself, only to be reborn later in the form of a sculpture, photograph or video. This exhibition includes updated versions of some pieces previously shown, such as Embrase-moi, 1993−2013, and Objet perdu, 2002−2013.
The works newly created by the artist in 2013 for this show are the monumental Blowback⎯two 2/3-scale replicas of World War II Howitzer cannons looped together at their front ends⎯Anthropométrie, Étant donnés, L’Abîme de la Liberté, L’Étendue de l’abîme, Tenir sans servir c’est résister and Têtes de pioches.
Born in Montréal in 1970, Michel de Broin was the winner of the 2007 Sobey Art Award and took part in the first Québec Triennial at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal in 2008. He has exhibited in Europe, the United States and Canada, and has presented a number of major public-art projects (both permanent and temporary), among them Majestic (New Orleans, 2011), and Révolution (Rennes, 2010).
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: macmorg
En plus de 20 ans de pratique, cet artiste multidisciplinaire n’a eu de cesse de remettre en question divers systèmes et leur fonctionnement. Adoptant un point de vue critique mais ludique à l’égard des objets usuels et des idées toutes faites, de Broin s’emploie à mettre en lumière, par le biais d’analogies et de métaphores, ce qui guide et encadre nos actions et interactions dans notre environnement quotidien. Interrogeant la coexistence d’éléments opposés, le rapport entre l’étrange et le familier, l’artiste explique : « Une des prémisses de ma pratique consiste à introduire un élément hétérogène à l’intérieur d’un système normatif pour voir comment cet agent produit dans son nouveau contexte des réactions inédites. » À titre d’exemple, mentionnons Silent Screaming, une œuvre phare créée en 2006-2007 qui présente un dispositif conçu pour étouffer le son produit par un système de sécurité en créant le vide – un environnement où le son ne peut voyager. Le visiteur observe alors le mouvement du marteau qui frappe la cloche, mais sans en entendre le cri d’alarme.
Michel de Broin préconise une approche expérimentale de sorte que ses œuvres sont en constante évolution. Souvent, les limites entre l’esquisse préparatoire ou la maquette, le travail de documentation et l’œuvre achevée se confondent et se brouillent. Il arrive, en effet, qu’une maquette soit présentée comme une œuvre en soi et qu’elle prenne subséquemment la forme d’une sculpture, d’une photo ou d’une vidéo.