The Musée d’art de Joliette (MAJ) is launching its fall season this Saturday, October 2nd, 2021 with four new exhibitions and projects, including one of the most ambitious group shows of its history. The theme for this program is the role and nature of emotions in the world of work and, more generally, throughout our capitalist technological culture.
The main exhibition called Smile! Emotions at Work is a group show of 30 artists from Quebec, Canada and abroad, curated by Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre, curator of contemporary art at Musée d’art de Joliette, and Maud Jacquin, an independent curator from France. The exhibition is articulated around the following interrogations: What is the impact of the transformations of the market and of working conditions on the bodies, gestures, emotions, and behaviour of workers? How are emotions worked upon and how are they commercialized in a service economy where workers’ ability to master their emotions (what we call emotional work) plays an important role and where technology is used to transform what we feel into exploitable capital?
This fall program at the Musée d’art de Joliette is also composed of these other exhibitions:
ᓴᕐᖀᒋᐊᓪᓚᓂᖅ : ᐸᑎᒃᑎᒐᓕᐅᕐᓂᖅ ᓄᓇᕕᒻᒥ (2014-2019) | Revival: Printmaking in Nunavik (2014-2019)
Curators: Maggie Napartuk, Qumaq M. Iyaituk, and Lyne Bastien
The exhibition Revival: Printmaking in Nunavik (2014-2019) brings together some sixty linocuts produced by 28 artists during touring workshops given in nine Nunavik communities. To curate the exhibition, Maggie Napartuk and Qumaq Mangiuk Iyaituk, two Nunavik artists involved in the project since its inception, have joined Montreal artist Lyne Bastien, who has contributed to the revival of printmaking in the region.
Fifty years after the first experiences of engraving in Puvirnituq in the late 1960s, one thing can be said: Inuit artists remain true to themselves and to their values and ancestral symbols. Most of the images created by contemporary artists conjure Inuit traditions and customs, testifying to an abiding desire to preserve this living culture. Revival presents current practices in Nunavik, with a collection of prints that present Inuit reality in all its richness and diversity.
This exhibition, presented by the Musée d’art de Joliette in collaboration with the Biennale internationale d’estampe contemporaine de Trois-Rivières and the Avataq Cultural Institute, is supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Makivik Corporation.
Constellation, by Les Impatients
Curator: Simon Zagari
Les Impatients is an organization that creates and disseminates art that is out of the ordinary, singular and raw. Its main mission is to help people with mental health problems through artistic expression. The organization welcomes more than 850 participants per week in 20 service points in Quebec, one of which is located in the heart of the Musée d’art de Joliette.
The pieces in the Constellation exhibition present the authenticity, aesthetic originality as well as the anthropological, sociological and patrimonial potential found in the Impatients’ collection. These portraits, houses and abstractions also provide a glimpse into the diversity of the singular worlds found in both the studios and the collection.
What the fragrant lilies are trying to cover up, by Vicky Sabourin
Curator: Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre
What are the impulses that awaken our remembrance and bring memories—images, sounds, scents—to the surface? Artist Vicky Sabourin has had several experiences of grief over the past few years, which have led her to examine the process of reminiscence. Through a series of symbolic objects, collected by her uncle and grandmother and retrieved from their homes after their death, Sabourin has reproduced an intimate, domestic olfactory landscape that is on the verge of disappearing.
Several options are available to those who want to experience this project at home. Simply borrow the box, for free, from the reception desk at the entrance to the museum. Three boxes are available and can be borrowed for up to two weeks, after which they must be returned to the museum.
More information about these exhibitions and a variety of activities at the Musée d’art de Joliette can be found at www.museejoliette.org/en