Valérie Blass, Montreal
Valérie Blass
Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal
February 2, 2012 – April 22, 2012
Valérie Blass is one of the most captivating artists to have emerged in Québec in the last ten years. She is a sculptor in every sense of the word: she is concerned with the object, with the way objects relate to one another and with their placement in space. Employing virtually every sculptural technique—from moulding, casting, carving and modelling to assemblage and bricolage—she explores the territories between animal, human and inanimate forms, creating strange, hybrid objects. She uses sculpture as a means to ponder her, and our, place in the world. Found and recycled objects are also a source of inspiration for Blass, who takes them as a point of departure. Her recent pieces speak of her current concern with the double, in transfer, translation and metamorphosis. Blass is a master of trompe l’oeil and faux-fini. This presentation will showcase around twenty-five works, a number of them new. Born in Montréal in 1967, Valérie Blass holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in visual and media arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal. Since the first Triennial at the MAC in 2008, where her works garnered considerable attention, interest in her practice has grown steadily in Québec, across Canada and internationally.