Curator: Louise Déry
Dates: November 7, 2025 -- January 17, 2026
Opening: Thursday, November 6, 2025, 5:30 p.m.
MONTREAL, Oct. 23, 2025 /CNW/ - This fall, Galerie de l'UQAM invites visitors to the highly-anticipated exhibition by UQAM alumnus David Altmejd. Work by this internationally renowned sculptor will be presented in Montreal for the first time in ten years. Curated by Louise Déry, Director of Galerie de l'UQAM, the exhibition David Altmejd. Agora unites almost thirty heads and busts, which are emblematic of the artist's sculptural practice and were made between 1999 and 2025. Forming a remarkable assembly of mythological and real characters, spiritual and terrestrial figures, as well as human and non-human creatures, this body of work reveals the extent to which Altmejd brings about a metamorphosis of the living, induced by creative and unconscious forces, to construct a world.
The Exhibition
For over thirty years, Altmejd's work has developed in an organic, viral, and exhilarating manner. In the agora representing the concept of the exhibition, he displays independent busts and heads that seem linked by an unlikely genealogy, a filiation asking to be deciphered.
The sculptures were selected from almost 300 pieces made since the late 1990s. They represent different periods, styles, materials, and techniques and reveal Altmejd's vision of how beings are born, gather, metamorphose, come apart, regenerate. This agora of figures in ancient or futuristic, archetypal or surrealist, amusing or provocative styles forms a rich hybridization of human and non-human. Through this work, Altmejd continues his exploration of identity, cloning, species mutation, as well as unconscious and creative energy. Influenced by the spirit and soul inspiring his subjects and by the hands and fingers shaping the materials, the sculptures demonstrate the range of a practice obsessed with the body and flesh, the skull and its cavities, the eye and its connections.
The exhibition also includes several drawings related to the artworks' conceptual development, as well as a space envisioned as a work studio where visitors can learn about the various techniques, tools, and methods used to create the sculptures. Three bronze pieces complete the exhibition: Hand Bird I (2007), the first bronze Altmejd made for the Venice Biennale; Pixel (2025), his most recent one; and La charge (2016), an imposing figure recently acquired by the Collection d'œuvres d'art de l'UQAM with the support of the UQAM Foundation.
The Publication
David Altmejd. Agora is the third monograph on his work edited by Louise Déry for Galerie de l'UQAM. In her essay, she focuses on the precedence of anthropomorphic figures in the connection between the human and the non-human that Altmejd explores, on his conception of sculpture and its apparatuses as a real space rather than a representative one, and on the work in the studio where manual gestures occur, materials are transformed, a certain energy is at play, and the eye is omnipresent. The essay concludes with the question of incompletion. The 240-page publication is both an illustrated catalogue of the Agora exhibition and an encyclopedic list of all the individual heads and busts that Altmejd has created so far (except those that have been integrated into boxes and reliquaries). Almost 300 reproductions illustrate this vast production. The publication will be available for purchase at Galerie de l'UQAM and will be distributed in bookstores by Diffusion Dimedia.
History of Collaborations Between David Altmejd and Galerie de l'UQAM
Having graduated from UQAM's École des arts visuels et médiatiques in 1997, David Altmejd has exhibited about a dozen times at Galerie de l'UQAM, which has notably contributed to his renown. Of note is his first solo exhibition in 2007, accompanied by the first monograph on his work, a project realized in parallel with his participation in the Venice Biennale that same year, under the aegis of Louise Déry who was the curator of the Canada Pavilion. A few years later, in 2011, Altmejd created an immense sculptural installation for the chamber opera Conte crépusculaire, which featured singer Pierre Lapointe, the Quatuor Molinari musical quartet, and several other collaborators. Déry has also curated a few group exhibitions over the years that have presented his work at Galerie de l'UQAM, as well as in Brussels and Istanbul.
About the Artist
Born in Montreal in 1974, David Altmejd lives and works in Los Angeles. Holding visual arts degrees from UQAM and Columbia University, he is one of the most renowned Quebecois artists of his generation, both nationally and internationally. In 2007, Altmejd represented Canada at the Venice Biennale with work curated by Louise Déry. Since then, he has presented exhibitions in some of the world's most prestigious institutions. His work is in many private and public collections, including those of UQAM, the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, and Musée d'art moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Luxembourg). Altmejd won the Sobey Art Award in 2009 and was made a Compagnon of the Arts and Letters of Québec in 2015. He is represented by Xavier Hufkens (Brussels), White Cube (London and New York), and David Kordansky (Los Angeles).
About the Curator
Louise Déry (PhD in art history) is the director of Galerie de l'UQAM and an associate professor in the Department of Art History at UQAM. Previously, she worked as a curator for the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and was the director of the Musée régional de Rimouski. She has curated about a hundred exhibitions and edited just as many publications in Canada and abroad, dedicated to Rober Racine, Nancy Spero, Dominique Blain, Sarkis, Françoise Sullivan, Michael Snow, Jean-Luc Nancy, Enrique Ramírez, and Emmanuelle Léonard, to name just a few in addition to Altmejd. She has received several awards and distinctions, including the Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Curatorial Excellence (2007), the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts Prix (2015), the Ordre des arts et des Lettres de France (2017), the Ordre des arts et des lettres du Québec (2021), and the Ordre national du Québec (2023).
Public Activities
Artist Talk by David Altmejd
As part of Programme ICI – Intervenants culturels internationaux
Wednesday, November 5, 5:30 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Salle Pierre Bourgault (J-1450), Judith-Jasmin Pavilion, 1400 Berri, Montreal
Places are limited
In French
On November 5, Galerie de l'UQAM and Programme ICI are hosting David Altmejd for a presentation titled La tête enceinte. A major international contemporary artist who began his studies at UQAM's École des arts visuels et médiatiques, Altmejd is known for his sculptures that combine science-fiction, magic, biology, and metamorphosis. He will discuss his view of art as a technology capable of giving form to the invisible, while suggesting that perhaps it is the invisible itself that seeks to be embodied through this technology. In this sense, his works are not simply finished objects, but entities in the making, in which the processes of growth, decomposition, and transformation remain perceptible.
Programme ICI is an initiative of UQAM's École des arts visuels et médiatiques that hosts speakers from different art disciplines and countries.
David Altmejd in the Gallery
Friday, November 7, 3 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Galerie de l'UQAM
In French and English
The artist will be on-site to speak with visitors in a friendly atmosphere.
Guided Tour with Émile Riopel
Tuesday, December 2, 5:30 p.m.
Galerie de l'UQAM
In French
Artist and student Émile Riopel will be present in the gallery to share his experience of working as an intern for David Altmejd, as part of UQAM's École des arts visuels et médiatiques program. By collaborating closely with the artist, Riopel assisted in and contributed to various aspects of making the sculptures, while also applying his theoretical and technical knowledge. This will be an opportunity to discuss the challenges related to producing the exhibition, therefore offering a glimpse into Altmejd's creative process and his role in this context.
Guided Tour with Louise Déry
Wednesday, January 14, 2026, 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
In French
Free admission
As part of the L'art observe series, Galerie de l'UQAM invites you to a friendly tour of the exhibition organized by curator Louise Déry. This activity will be an opportunity to discuss the themes raised by the exhibition.
Publication of David Altmejd. Agora
The monograph of essays and more than 300 colour reproductions will be published at the end of the exhibition.
In French and English
February 2026, 240 pages
Stay tuned for the launch date: galerie.uqam.ca
Virtual Exhibition
A virtual exposition will take over from the on-site exhibition for a period of five years and will be released online at the launch of the publication in February 2026.
Educational Program
The cultural mediators of Galerie de l'UQAM will be offering guided tours of the David Altmejd. Agora exhibition to groups and faculty members. Flexible and open to all school and community groups, the tours can be adapted to meet particular needs and to complement material covered in the classroom, if needed. These activities are offered free of charge, in French or English.
More information: https://galerie.uqam.ca/en/educational-program/on-site/
Reservation required:
Léa Lanthier-Lapierre
Cultural Mediation and Communications Coordinator, Galerie de l'UQAM
[email protected]
514 987-3000 ext. 20959
Partners
- Galerie de l'UQAM
- Canada Council for the Arts
- Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec
- Fondation de l'UQAM
- École des arts visuels et médiatiques de l'UQAM
- Programme ICI
Upcoming Exhibitions at Galerie de l'UQAM: https://galerie.uqam.ca/en/statut/upcoming/
Address and Opening Hours
Galerie de l'UQAM
Judith-Jasmin Pavilion, Room J-R120
1400 Berri, corner of Sainte-Catherine East, Montreal
Berri-UQAM Metro
Tuesday – Saturday, noon – 6 p.m.
Galerie de l'UQAM will be closed for the holidays from December 21, 2025 to January 5, 2026.
Free admission
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SOURCE Université du Québec à Montréal
Information: Tel.: 514 987-6150; Source and Interview Requests: Olivier Lapierre, Press Officer, [email protected], 514 583-3868
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