Lemieux-Pilon: artists in perpetual emergence

The second edition of the exuberant Biennale internationale d’art numérique (BIAN) opens in grand style with a retrospective of the celebrated duo Lemieux-Pilon at the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts.

Victor Pilon jokes that when you get up in the morning, you have to be emerging; otherwise you are dead. Presenting this exhibition means showing themselves through all these memories, rediscovering forgotten things and links between their shows. It is an exercise in memory to return to the past, but they are far from stopping and remain turned toward the future of creation.

Nathalie Bondil, director general of the MMFA, is pleased to welcome this labyrinth of visual projections into the museum. The multidisciplinary installation-works explore the fourth dimension. She notes that such works may be unexpected in an encyclopedic museum, yet they are part of the museum’s mandate and avant-garde DNA. Lemieux-Pilon are major pioneers and continue to be soafter 30 years of work.

BIAN returns under the original theme Physical/ité. Around fifty artists interpret it in their own way by placing the spectator’s body in relationship with the work, making the immaterial material and visualizing the invisible. Alain Thibault, artistic director of BIAN, hopes the event will communicate to the public that digital art exists and that very strong artists are active in Montréal. He insists that digital creation is not a subgenre and that Montréal, as a smart city, must include culture.

Michel Lemieux is energized by the BIAN program. For him, it is a unique opportunity to discover what is being done here and elsewhere. When the duo began, they used analog tools; over time their work evolved toward digital technology, allowing them to create truly complete performances. Technology, he says, must serve better communication and create openness to the world and to diversity.

According to Nathalie Bondil, Printemps

[youtube id=”yw_CwD1W_a0″ width=”640″ height=”360″ autoplay=”no”]

numérique, the Lemieux-Pilon exhibition and BIAN place digital creation at the forefront. These complementary events reach many different audiences and enrich everyone’s experience. Today’s digital art is tomorrow’s contemporary art, and the ancient art of the future. Territoires Oniriques presents 30 years of stage production at the

MMFA from  May 1 to August 31, 2014. BIAN Physical/ité runs from May

1 to^June 19.