17.Oct.2003 A reminder for the upcoming vernissage:
Plan Cartésien Monday October 20 at 18:00hr
@ cegep du Vieux Montreal, 255 rue Ontario Est.
The Mechanics General [MG] stable is pleased to invite you to the Plan Cartésien exhibit, a gallery show of Comix Art & stories on the theme of the City. Seen from the sky, a city somewhat resembles a comic strip. Boxes overflowing with life; networks of corridors & cubicles. Street as the gutters between panels in comics; place reserved for the imagination of the reader. The panels of a page could be seen as a wall of windows. Windows that let in the air and the light, & make it possible to be devoted to the guilty pleasures of voyeurism. To some at first glance both can resemble a monotonous grid, but if one looks closely, they discover a generous anthill of surprises!
We [MG] asked several authors living in Quebec to speak to us about the city. How do we live together, in prisms with rectangular bases? Made out of concrete? How to improve our lot without running up against each other? How co-inhabit, satisfying both the interests of the individual and those of the community?
The resulting collection of stories will be published in an anthology of sequential art, with which Mechanics General seeks to shine a spotlight the new generation of authors living in Quebec for whom urban life is already a subject of some preoccupation. By considering the stories mounted on the walls of the exhibit or in the pages of Plan Cartésien it’s possible to observe some overarching tendencies for this group of authors. The first, strongest, is the echo of a feeling of insecurity visa-a-vie the brittleness of world balance. The second is the great constant of the comic strip québécoise: absurd, cynical or poetic humour. But most astonishing to us is the appearance of a form of transparent unabashed sentimentalism. An almost dangerous honesty.
The show will include work by Sherwin Tjia, David Turgeon, Daniel Plaisance, Djieff, Boo, Valérie Morency, Billy Mavreas, Jean-Nicolas Vallée, Carlos Santos, Christian Daigle, Sebastien Trahan, Salgood Sam & more! (a lot more, this is a big show!)
In addition there will be two new small MG books launched at the gallery opening
Moins 22 degrés Celsius- A simple story, Drawn over three days for a Showing of “the general mechanical stable” in February 2003: A young woman rises one morning and prepares to go to work. She lives with a cat but one feels that this companion is not enough to fill her loneliness, she seeks, in the music which she listens to and films she watches, traces of a male presence. A small book of desire describing the environment and time that passes, telling an unspoken story. A story of a hart.
Petits Mensonges- The year 1977 revisited through the childhood eyes of PhlppGrrd. The author evokes anecdotes from his history by introducing us into a world were truth and the fog of memory merge. The narration can be rich in spite of a disconcerting economy of means that lends to the air of childhood experience, capturing moments that make us smile and that move us.
Update: At 7pm I returned from helping Jimmy, Sebastien, Kurt & Co. hang the show. Here are a few tidbits from he walls…
…Sorry the images are a bit fuzzy, you’ll have to come by the show for better for now…:)
See you there!
