Véronique Savard

DataffectS, exhibition at the Galerie de L’UQAM, from February 11 to April 9, 2022. Opening: February 10, 5:30 pm. Curator: Nathalie Bachand

Having responded in 2018 to a public invitation from NASA to add her name on a memory card incorporated in the Parker Solar Probe, the artist made this conceptual gesture the starting point for a series of large-format oils, the human scale of which harmonizes with the immersive dimension of the cosmos. Over a million names are currently approaching the sun, so to speak. Constructed from satellite data emitted from the probe, these oils are information carriers, linking the spectator to deep space with a capital S. Integrated into the abstract pictorial environment, the perihelions – that is, the data representing the orbital points nearest to the Sun – gathered by the space vehicle as it moves through our galaxy, are the basis for compositions evoking this expedition into the heart of the solar wind – defined by NASA as a cascade of energy composed of a complex system of plasmas, magnetic fields and energy particles. The paintings thus become spaces for possibilities and thought projection. The disseminated presence of the perihelions in the exhibition venue, which will be implemented between now and the closing of the exhibition, will complete this project, the scope of which transcends the physicality of the painting. The production of this series will continue until 2025, that is, until the moment when the space craft plunges into the sun’s atmosphere. Each of the names carried by the probe – including that of the artist – will blend science and myth in the thousandth of a second before dissolving into the fires of the Sun.

Text written by the curator Nathalie Bachand (2021)

 

 

The artist thanks NASA’s A Mission to Touch the Sun for the inscription of her name on the embedded memory card aboard the Parker Solar Probe. She also thanks the NASA [PSP Position Calculator] team for the use of their data.

 

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User Agreement, from March 16 to April 15, 2017. Opening: Thursday, March 16, 5 p.m. @ Galerie Graff, BELGO, 372 rue Ste-Catherine Ouest – Espace 216, Montréal. 

With User Agreement, Véronique Savard continues her research on the paradigmatic structures generated by the technicization of languages in the digital age. Her paintings, through textual appropriation and détournement, aim to archive, reformulate and rebroadcast online cultural representations by shedding light on our relationship with others, the world, within a complex media environment. The works’ expressions and patterns highlight the issues inherent to the terms and conditions of online search engines like Google, and various social media such as Facebook or LinkedIn. By replaying textual contents for functionality criteria, community guidelines, and privacy policies, these spark debate over the question of data mining – the automated bulk collecting and analysis of data about the consumption habits and behaviors of users –, as part of advertising and political strategies.

Although for many years now Savard’s work has revolved around an attempt to exhaust digital textualities through painting, with User Agreement the artists renews her visual code, evacuating discursive structures by using colorful plane-spaces and abstract motifs, allusions to symbols used in online conversations (emoticons or emojis) and symmetrical shapes, Savard reveals how our collective imagination was impacted by Big Data.

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@ Feature: Contemporary Art Fair, October 22-25, 2015, represented by Galerie Graff (BOOTH #103), Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Opera Center, Toronto, Canada

LUNCHTIME TOUR: 16/12/14, 12:15 at the Musée d’art contemporain of Montréal

I will do a reading of the 2014 Montréal Biennal: L’avenir (looking forward). This event will take place at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal on december 16 from 12:15 to 1:10 PM. Hope to see you there!

Solo Show: Click Here to Enter (Second part of the exhibition) 6/4/14 -15/6/14, National Exhibition Centre, Saguenay (Can)

A second part to the exhibition Click Here to Enter which was presented at the Graff Gallery from 22 May to 22 June 2013 in Montreal, is presented at the National Exhibition Centre, 4160 rue du Vieux Pont (Jonquiere), Saguenay (QC), Canada, from April 6 to June 15, 2014. 

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Solo Show: Click Here to Enter (first part of the exhibition), 22/5/13 -22/6/13 at Galerie Graff, Montréal

Through this exhibition comprising her recent paintings, Véronique Savard, by giving form to messages found in unsolicited emails (spam), proposes a reflection on the social concerns behind various online propositions. Waiting for you, Certified by Doctors, The scientific Breakthrough is here, Miracle or science, You need to Know This, etc. are good examples of the both fantastical and delusory nature of these emails, collected by the artist since 2009 so that she might then translate them into paintings. Véronique Savard, through this revisiting of the pictorial codes used for the online marketing of pharmaceutical drugs, questions the paradoxical structures of adequacy and offensiveness underlying the issue of individual ideality. While proposing to extend to these texts of undesirable characters with a duration which was not plan for them, these sharply contrasted paintings  juxtaposed a rhythm of brightly colored lines with a signage generally associated with Internet communications. Considering that marketing strategies often mirror their contemporary social imperatives, these paintings act as conduits for a singular form of information.

Further reading:  Peinture partout, an article by Jérôme Delgado for Le Devoir, June 15, 2013

The exhibition is accompanied by a monograph published by Graff Editions under the direction of Madeleine Forcier; Monique Régimbald-Zeiber signs the text “ By Way of a Foreword” and Jean-Émile Verdier the main text “A Different Modernity“ 

It is thanks to the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art that this exhibition, as well as its accompanying publication, were made possible. The artist wants to thank the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Family Foundation and the Faculty of Arts at the Université du Québec à Montréal for their support in this project.

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The artist invited by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal to present her work in its 2012 SéminArts program. (24/10/12)

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Solo Show: Priorie Online, 3/02/2009- 8/03/2009, Maison de la culture Frontenac, Montreal (QC) Canada

In developing a set of exchange between abstract painting, eroticism and current communication technologies, Véronique Savard proposes with Priorie online to question, by the displacement of writing (SMS, texto, acronyms), the mechanisms of contemporary individualizations inserted into daily life. The writing she refers to in her large format paintings seeks to reflect a still more marked exposure of the private sphere and even more its democratization in the sphere of the public. She uses the impersonal aspect of conversations via the Internet as well as the abrupt exchange of sexual solitudes that are played out and introduced through the subsequent tensions that occur by moving the text to the painting. Repetition, reduction of plastic language, referring to Cybersex as pictorial pattern and pixellation are the source of what the artist calls her screen paintings.