“Territorial Re-Marks”

Montreal/Brooklyn Exchange with articule gallery

Exhibition in Montréal : October 19 – November 25, 2012



Opening reception : October 19, 6pm


Exhibition in Brooklyn : January 11 – February 3, 2013 




The exhibition “Territorial Re-Marks” will feature works by Front Room artists Emily Roz and Patricia Smith in conjunction with Articule artists jérôme havre, michelle lacombe.



As part of the project Montréal-Brooklyn organised in collaboration with : Parker’s Box, Momenta Art, Pierogi, Smack Mellon, Front Room Gallery, A.I.R Gallery, Causey Contemporary, Residency Unlimited & Interstate Projects, Centre CLARK, articule, Optica, Les Territoires, Galerie [SAS], Galerie de l’UQAM, MACM, Galerie Division.



The first major artistic and cultural exchange between Montreal and New York City in over 10 years, Montreal – Brooklyn will reveal cultural similarities and differences between two major cities and beacons of North American contemporary art, via a series of exhibitions in galleries and museums in both cities.



For this exchange, artist-run center articule and The Front Room Gallery collaborate to organize an exhibition that will be presented in both Montréal in and Brooklyn. This exchange was developed as an occasion for both organizations to explore and share each other’s concepts about art, artists, the working styles and cultural variances between the two cities. The concept of the exhibition, “Territorial Re-Marks” grew from this exchange and became the focus for the curation of representative artists and artworks from Brooklyn and Montréal. Artists were selected whose work deals with the idea of territory: territory of the mind, territory of the body, territory of societies, territory of wilderness. By presenting a range of working styles from performance to painting, drawing and sculpture, each artist explores the complexities of desire, social organization, hierarchy, and mark-making relative to the various forms of territories. 

Michelle Lacombe

With, Where we touched; A drawing of places to meet authors, Michelle Lacombe explores the encounter between author and reader and the way one contributes to shaping the mind of the other. In a performative action, Michelle Lacombe will translate onto a wall, marks she made to emphasize important passages while she was reading. By reenacting the action of underlining, she will be tracing a horizon of the mind.

Patricia Smith

In Plot Plans for an Ideal City, Patricia Smith proposes un-realistic plans for city developments that will never be realized. Drawing delicate psychological maps, she uses the movement of desire to prescribe domains, territories and unattainable plot plans. Patricia Smith's map-like drawings reflect how inner architecture can constrain our action in society.

Emily Roz

Emily Roz paints territories in which wilderness and domestic domains intertwine. Wild animals act ferociously – feeding upon each other, fighting, and roaring – in luxurious domestic flora. Their instincts of survival and territorial control can be viewed as human actions in relation to the space they share, competing against each other to control the land, to feed, and propagate.

Jerome Havre

Jérôme Havre proposes a fiber baroque sculpture exploring the use of power to create hierarchy. Referring to colonization, he associates artifacts of luxury with objects of war; he utilizes light and flames to reflect how behind power lays domination. Havre uses the underlying metaphor of The Enlightenment to examine how rational discourse can be used to justify                  violence and abuse when explained by the dominant.

In the exhibition, “Territorial Re-Marks,” each artist examines the conditions of control over territory. Havre’s sculptural installation considers the materiality of desire as illustrated through opulent objects – and how this desire for control can taint the reality of actions. Roz’s paintings reference our own underlying desires, and the impulses of survival that can fuel wild actions, even in the calmest of people. Dominion over these base impulses drives an internalization of territorial control. Lacombe’s visually striking wall installation expands the internal relationship inherent in reading and writing and exposes the insulated realm between the two. Smith transforms the internal and private realms of desire into publicly displayed architectural plans. Both Lacombe and Smith cross the boundaries between the hidden internal thoughts and methodologies expanding the territory of the mind to that of the physical world.