Launch of a virtual exhibition
Viewing Claude Tousignant

Montréal, March 23, 2006 – The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal is pleased to launch the virtual exhibition Viewing Claude Tousignant. This exhibition, the first of its kind ever created by the museum, is presented in conjunction with Place à la magie! The Forties, Fifties and Sixties in Québec. The project was carried out in collaboration with Université Laval’s laboratory of museology and cultural engineering(LAMIC),  and with support from Québec’s Ministère de la Culture et des Communications. Access is via the museum’s website: www.macm.org.

The virtual exhibition Viewing Claude Tousignant affords researchers, students and other cybervisitors an opportunity to discover the artist’s 36 works acquired by the museum between 1967 and 2005, and now part of its permanent collection. These are mainly paintings, although they also include one sculpture and a number of works on paper: prints (serigraphs) and drawings (watercolours and inks). They are accompanied by texts and biographical notes. The starting point is Gong ‘64’ (1966), currently on display at the museum.

Visitors browsing through the website presentation (available in French only) can click on the “Exposition” heading to view all these works, laid out in chronological order or grouped together in categories. The “Découvertes” heading leads to a new interview with the artist, along with a section called “Pour en savoir plus” which provides viewers with greater insight into a selection of works through brief texts written specially for this virtual exhibition, previously published by Tousignant, or excerpted from catalogues and audioguides produced by the Musée d’art contemporain. Under “Témoignages,” a recent video made up of artist testimonials paying tribute to Tousignant gives an appreciation of the legacy of this major figure. In the “Biographie” section, visitors will find biographical notes on the artist and an essay offering an in-depth analysis of his practice. All the specialized terms are explained in a glossary in the “Ressources”  section, which also includes a selective bibliography.

Claude Tousignant, a painter and sculptor, was born in Montréal in 1932. From the beginning of his career, he was associated with the Montréal movement known as the Plasticians, who advocated an abstract, geometric art. Tousignant explored the expressive power of colour the most rigorously and boldly of all this group. He has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in the major Canadian museums, where his target paintings and large-scale compositions have become an essential reference in Canadian abstract painting.

The firm lab)idéeclic! created the visual design for the virtual exhibition Viewing Claude Tousignant. Boris Chukhovich, a researcher at LAMIC who holds a Ph.D. in art history and produces virtual projects, contributed to the texts written for the project, which are essentially in French.

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Source:       Christine Bernier, Educator – Cultural Programs
Information: Danielle Legentil, Media Relations Officer
Tel.: (514) 847-6232