This publication features images from the Dans l'ombre de l'artifice exhibition presented at Centre SAGAMIE during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the closure of the exhibition venues, this event was virtually unseen by the public. Instead, the exhibition existed in image form for viewing almost exclusively on screen, and this new virtual reality prompted the artists to reflect on the relevance of viewing artworks and their materiality. Author Pierre-Marc Asselin has written a text in which fiction and reality make us lose our bearings. A book that brings creativity to the fore, against a backdrop of artistic criticism and digital anxiety.
Excerpt Dans l'ombre de l'artifice:
I know: it's a question that sounds like a provocation. But on the pandemic November evening it came to me, I was cold. My tea, brewed too long, was spilling the bitterness of its tannins. I was once again trapped in front of the screen, existing for images. My "friends" were showing off their latest formal experiments on the networks. Outside, a walker was being pulled by his black dog, reminiscent of Churchill's in my eyes, and I envied him for being able to go out at this hour. I was insensitive to everything I saw: the window, the screen, the police. I was profoundly indifferent. I needed to believe in something, and the question came as an answer: "When it comes down to it, does contemporary art need to be seen?"
