Uprisings makes a final stop
in Montreal this fall

Collective emotions at Galerie de l’UQAM and Cinémathèque québécoise

Until November 24, Galerie de l’UQAM and Cinémathèque québécoise present Uprisings, an impressive exhibition curated by renowned art historian and philosopher Georges Didi-Huberman. This exhibition, first presented at Jeu de Paume in Paris, will make a final stop in Montréal this fall, after a tour that took it to Barcelona, Buenos Aires, São Paulo and Mexico City.

The exhibition

Uprisings is a cross-disciplinary exhibition on the themes of collective emotions and political events where they involve crowds of people in revolt. It will be about social disorder, political agitation, uprisings, rebellions, revolts, revolutions, racket and riots – disturbances of all kinds. In order to anchor the project in the Canadian historical and political context, the Montréal version of the exhibition will be enhanced with archives, press photos and contemporary works by Québec and Canadian artists.

Uprisings

What makes us rise up? It is forces: mental, physical, and social forces. Through these forces we transform immobility into movement, burden into energy, submission into revolt, renunciation into expansive joy. Uprisings occur as gestures: arms rise up, hearts beat more strongly, bodies unfold, mouths are unbound. Uprisings are never without thoughts, which often become sentences: we think, express ourselves, discuss, sing, scribble a message, create a poster, distribute a tract, or write a work of resistance.

They interact in dialogue beyond the differences of their times. They are presented according to a narrative in which there will appear, in succession, unleashed elements, when the energy of the refusal makes an entire space rise up; intense gestures, when bodies can say “No!”; exclaimed words, when speech rebels and files a complaint with the court of history; flared-up conflicts, when barricades are erected and when violence becomes inevitable; and indestructible desires, when the power of uprisings manages to survive beyond their repression or their disappearance.

In any case, whenever a wall is erected, there will always be “people arisen” to “jump the wall,” that is, to cross over borders. If only by imagining. As though inventing images contributed—a little here, powerfully there—to reinventing our political hopes.

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Georges Didi-Huberman, curator

Born in 1953, Georges Didi-Huberman is a philosopher and art historian. A lecturer since 1990, he currently teaches at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. In 2015, the Theodore W. Adorno Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions in the fields of philosophy, music, theater and film, was awarded to him. Starting 1982, Georges Didi-Huberman has authored fifty books and essays mixing philosophy and art history, such as L’Œil de l’histoire, composed of 6 volumes published between 2009 and 2016. Since the exhibitions Atlas. Comment porter le monde sur son dos?, successively presented in Madrid, Karlsruhe and Hamburg in 2011, and L’empreinte, organized at Centre Georges-Pompidou in 1997, Georges Didi-Huberman has been the co-curator, with Arno Gisinger, of the exhibition Nouvelles histoires de fantômes at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, in 2014.

PUBLIC ACTIVITIES (selection)

Under the label L’art soulève, Galerie de l’UQAM offers a program of public activities that aim to deepen the issues raised by Uprisings. This series continues the interdisciplinary anchoring of the exhibition by involving people from various fields of thought.

On September 7, the first of a series of public events organized as part of the Montreal presentation of Uprisings proposed to start from the question formulated by Georges Didi-Huberman in the introduction to the catalog of the exhibition, namely: “How do images draw so often from our memories in order to give shape to our desires for emancipation? And how does a “poetic” dimension manage to be created in the very heart of our gestures of uprising and as a gesture of uprising?” This dialectic between memories and desires, which Didi-Huberman conceives according to a distinction between power and political potency, allows to deepen the theoretical stakes that underlie his project while situating the problematic of uprisings in the historical and political context of Canada and Québec.

Upcoming Talks

Artist Talks: Enrique Ramírez, Étienne Tremblay-Tardif

Wednesday, October 2, 2018, 5:30 – 7pm
Galerie de l’UQAM
In French

Symposium Des voix qui s’élèvent

Organized by the Département d’histoire de l’art, UQAM
Thursday, November 8, 2018, 9am – 5pm
Room D-R200, Athanase-David Pavilion, UQAM
In French, with simultaneous interpreting in Langue des signes québécoise (LSQ)
Organizing committee: Marie Fraser, Annie Gérin, Dominic Hardy, Vincent Lavoie, Edith-Anne Pageot and Thérèse St-Gelais.

Des voix qui s’élèvent is a one-day transdiciplinary symposium gathering research and creation works around the theme speaking out, as well as testimonies of artists and activists whose works and actions provoke uprisings and social upheavals. The presentations will take the form of lectures, round tables and performances, and will address a multitude of issues including oppression, social marginalization, history exclusions and memorial wounds.

FILM PROGRAM

All the film screenings will take place at
Cinémathèque québécoise
335 De Maisonneuve Blvd. East
Berri-UQAM metro
Tickets: $10 – $12
Details and reservations :cinematheque.qc.ca

A Grin Without A Cat
Chris Marker
France, 1977, 240 min, OFV
Sunday, September 30, 2018, 7pm

The Strike
Sergeï Eisenstein
URSS, 1925, 95 min, OVFST, piano accompaniment
Friday, October 19, 2018, 7pm

Soy Cuba
Mikhaïl Kalatozov
URSS, 1964, 143 min, OVEST
Monday, October 22, 2018, 9pm

Flights
Programme of experimental and artists films selected by Christophe Bichon, Light Cone, France
Wednesday, October 24, 2018, 7pm

Ninth Floor
Mina Shum
Canada, 2015, 70 min, OEV
Saturday, October 27, 2018, 5pm

Uprisings: collective emotions, social disorder and political agitation

See the full program of activities:  galerie.uqam.ca/en/uprisings/publicactivities.html

Galerie de l’UQAM
Pavillon Judith-Jasmin, salle J-R120
1400 Berri Street, corner St-Catherine East, Montreal
Berri-UQAM Metro Station
Tuesday to Saturday, 12 – 6pm

Cinémathèque québécoise
335 De Maisonneuve Blvd. East
Berri-UQAM metro

ABOUT GALERIE DE L’UQAM

Galerie de l’UQAM is a university gallery dedicated to contemporary art. The institution is committed to research and to the production of knowledge, which gets disseminated through exhibitions, public activities and a diverse range of publications. Galerie de l’UQAM produces and presents exhibitions of contemporary art from Quebec, as well as from elsewhere in Canada and from abroad, curated by experienced professionals. galerie.uqam.ca

ABOUT CINÉMATHÈQUE QUÉBÉCOISE

Cinémathèque québécoise is Montreal’s museum of moving images. Its mission is to acquire, document and preserve the world’s audiovisual heritage, with an emphasis on Quebec and Canadian works as well as international animation, and to make it available for cultural and educational purposes. cinematheque.qc.ca

CREDITS

Production
The exhibition Uprisings is organized by Jeu de Paume, and realized by Galerie de l’UQAM in collaboration with Cinémathèque québécoise for the presentation in Montréal, and with the participation of Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelone, MUNTREF – Museo de la Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Buenos Aires, SESC São Paulo, MUAC – Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo – UNAM, Mexico.

Support provided by

Uprisings is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter program. With this $35M investment, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.

ADRESSES AND OPENING HOURS

GALERIE DE L’UQÀM
Judith-Jasmin Pavilion, room J-R120
1400 Berri, corner of Sainte-Catherine East
Berri-UQAM metro
Tuesday – Saturday, 12 – 6pm
Free admission

Information
Phone: 514 987-6150
galerie.uqam.ca
Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
#Soulevements

CINÉMATHÈQUE QUÉBÉCOISE
335 De Maisonneuve Blvd East
Berri-UQAM metro

Monday – Friday, 12 – 9pm
Saturday – Sunday, 2 – 9pm
Free admission to the exhibitions

Information
Phone: 514 842-9763
cinematheque.qc.ca
Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
#Uprisings

Images : Centre de Design UQÀM Read also: Nonconforming poster designers at UQAM