Diaz Contemporary is pleased to present BGL’s first solo-show with the gallery.
The Quebec trio: Jasmin Bilodeau, Sébastien Giguère and Nicolas Laverdière, form the artist collective BGL, an acronym composed of the first letter of each surname. BGL’s practice is influenced and determined by their work environment and surrounding culture and is underpinned by a relentless critique of consumerism. At once disconcerting and playful, the installation, sculpture and photography conceived and constructed by BGL for their Diaz Contemporary exhibition will redesign the architecture of the gallery, catching viewers off guard and eliciting a more active engagement with the space.
Just one element of BGL’s intervention is the work Domaine de l’angle which poses as yet another culprit in contemporary art’s hot trend for big photos until, without warning, the photograph loses its balance and crashes to the feet of stunned viewers. As cords harness the photograph back into its precarious position, BGL’s ruse is exposed: “We like to put the work of art somewhere else than where people expect it. If we think about the photographs the viewer walks in and thinks, ‘Ah, what do we have here?’ But for us, the photos are not what is important. We don’t care. For us, the work of art is the piece falling.”
BGL gives its audience environments and artworks and then pulls the proverbial rug out from under their feet. Simulating and deconstructing the real, appropriating and juxtaposing recycled materials, displacing the everyday and familiar and filtering into the realm of the absurd- BGL sets out to unhinge the limits of the gallery’s otherwise empty space as well as the art-viewing process itself, prompting one to take the time to watch for details and surrender fixed notions on the boundaries between art and life.
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