3rd MNBAQ Contemporary Art Award - Announcement of the five finalists and for the first time, a shared award! Français
QUÉBEC CITY, April 3, 2018 /CNW Telbec/ - The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ), in collaboration with its outstanding financial partner RBC, is proud to announce the five finalists for the third MNBAQ Contemporary Art Award, a unique biennial award in Canada. Numa Amun, Nicolas Grenier, Jennifer Lefort, Geneviève and Matthieu and Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn have been selected by a jury comprising Maxime Coulombe, a Université Laval professor of art history specializing in contemporary art; artist David Elliott, a member of the external acquisition committee of the MNBAQ; Ji-Yoon Han, exhibition curator at the Darling Foundry in Montréal; Marie-Hélène Leblanc, Director of the Galerie UQO at the Université du Québec en Outaouais; Dominique Sirois-Rouleau, an art critic, independent curator and lecturer at the UQAM; and Bernard Lamarche, Curator of Contemporary Art (2000 to the present) at the MNBAQ.
A prestigious award to spur a career
RBC's generous contribution to the MNBAQ and its Foundation in 2013 led to the establishment of the MNBAQ Contemporary Art Award, which vividly showcased the work of two Québec artists, Diane Morin, in 2015, and Carl Trahan, in 2017. On both occasions, the award winners were offered a solo exhibition at the MNBAQ, a retrospective publication, the purchase by the MNBAQ collection of the artist's works worth up to $50 000, and a cash grant.
For the first time, the five finalists will share the cash grant
For the first time this year, the $10 000 cash grant previously awarded to the winner will be shared equally by the five finalists, each of whom will receive $2 000. "In addition to significantly rewarding the winner, we were seeking a way to more broadly recognize the finalists. At this stage in the competition, that is, after the first round, the five artists are praiseworthy since the quality of their work sets all of them apart," noted Annie Gauthier, Director of Collections and Research at the MNBAQ. "Sharing the cash grant in this way enables us to emphasize that each artist has the potential to win the Contemporary Art Award," Ms. Gauthier concluded.
A second jury will convene shortly to determine the overall winner according to the established criteria (a career spanning more than 10 years, the quality and sustained nature of the artist's output, and recognition by the arts community of a genuine artistic contribution) and the MNBAQ team will announce the winner's name. The exhibition of the future winner is planned in the spring of 2019 at the MNBAQ, at which time the monograph will be launched. This special award will support the winner's career and, above all, give it considerable momentum.
Profile of the five finalists
Numa Amun
Numa Amun was born in 1974 in Montréal, where he is now living and working. His work displays a magnetic precision and stems from a skillful blend of figurative abstractions and optical illusions. While it appears to result from digital manipulations, Numa Amun's painting owes nothing to digital technology. The rendering of his work results from extraordinary meticulousness and creates contemplative meditations and questioning by viewers subjugated by a wealth of precision. A graduate of the UQAM (bachelor's degree) in 1998 and Concordia University (MFA) in 2004, the artist has already participated in 10 group exhibitions, including La Biennale de Montréal (2007) and La Triennale d'art québécois (2011), as well as six solo shows in Québec, Canada and Northern Ireland. He also produced in situ works in churches in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve in Montréal, in 2004 and 2018. Several specialized articles focus on his work, which is found in the public collections of the MNBAQ (Art Loan Collection) and the Canadian Art Foundation.
Nicolas Grenier
Born in Montréal in 1982, Nicolas Grenier lives and works in Los Angeles and his native city. He seeks inspiration in both population centres to sustain artistic work that oscillates between painting, installations and video art in order to raise questions about the economic and social structures that govern life in society and the role that urban planning and architecture play in it. A graduate of Concordia University (BFA) in 2004 and the California Institute of the Arts (MFA) in 2010, Nicolas Grenier has participated in more than 60 group and solo shows in Europe, Canada and the United States. His work was selected at La Biennale de Montréal in 2014, presented at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal. It is also found in numerous collections, including those of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Loto-Québec and the Progressive Art Collection, based in Ohio. Winner of the Prix Pierre-Ayot in 2016, Nicolas Grenier is represented by the Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran in Montréal and the Luis De Jesus Gallery in Los A.
Jennifer Lefort
Jennifer Lefort was born in Montréal in 1976 and lives and works in Gatineau. Her explorations of spaces of abstraction hinge on reflection on the current media environment and the encounter of abstract lines and vivid colours in an ephemeral chaos that is nonetheless strangely well-ordered. A graduate of Concordia University in 2002 (BFA) and York University in Toronto (MFA) in 2006, Jennifer Lefort has to her credit more than 40 solo and group exhibitions in Montréal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver and New York. She was a finalist in the RBC Painting Competition in 2007. Her works are found in numerous public and private collections such as those of the Art Loan Collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Hydro-Québec and Abbott Laboratories. She received the Joseph Plaskett Foundation Award in 2005. In 2016, she was awarded Le Prix du CALQ for work of the year in the Outaouais region. The artist is represented by the Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami and the Division Gallery in Toronto.
Geneviève et Matthieu
Geneviève Crépeau was born in 1974 and completed her bachelor's degree in visual arts at the UQAM in 1997. Matthieu Dumont was born in 1977 and obtained an interdisciplinary bachelor's degree in visual creation at the UQAT in 2000. The duo Geneviève and Matthieu, which originated in Rouyn-Noranda in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region, was established in the late 1990s. Their work embodies an encounter between art, performance, music and everyday life. The collective relies on interdisciplinarity, from happenings to musical compositions and from performance to installations. The artists create collective representations and produce social settings that are occasionally festive and always human. Moreover, since 2001, they have made five sound recordings. Their work, which oscillates between minimalism, abstract expressionism and arte povera, has been exhibited more than 40 times in the United States, France, Belgium and Québec. Their latest performance, L'Empire de la création, a polyphonic writing project, has been presented all across Canada, from Vancouver to Montréal, and will be presented in the near future in France. Geneviève and Matthieu are actively involved in their community and are also in charge of the coordination of events at L'Écart, a current art artists' centre, and have directed La Biennale d'art performatif de Rouyn-Noranda since 2004.
Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn
Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn, a Quebecer of Vietnamese origin, was born in the late 1970s and divides her time between Montréal and Stockholm. Based on a context of feminist thought, her work hinges on archival research that calls into question the relationship between humankind and politics, history, the community and multiculturalism. A graduate of Concordia University (BFA) in 2003 and the Malmö Art Academy & Lund University in 2005, she pursued her training under the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of American Art (2010-2011). She has participated in 60 exhibitions, including 15 solo shows, across Canada and in Sweden, the United States, Germany, France, England, Finland and Iceland. Several publications and reports focus on her work.
The MNBAQ Contemporary Art Award is granted every two years to a Québec artist. The outstanding partnership between the MNBAQ and RBC will continue until 2021.
The MNBAQ Contemporary Art Award is given every two years to a Québec artist. The remarkable partnership between the MNBAQ and RBC represents a commitment until 2021.
The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec is a government corporation which receives funding from the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec.
SOURCE Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec
418 643-2150 or 1 866 220-2150 /mnbaq.org
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