A native of Asbestos, Québec, Goulet studied at the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal and l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) in the early seventies. Since then, Michel Goulet has had a successful career as a sculptor and installation artist. With multiple solo exhibitions in
Installed in 1990 at Place Roy (corner of Roy and St. André), Les leçons singulières (part 1) incorporates nine of Goulet’s trademark stainless steel chair sculptures and a large flat fountain made of bronze and stainless steel. From a distance the chairs invite wanderers to take a load off, but upon closer inspection only three of them actually offer seating. The others serve as supports for small sculptures which call attention to the sense of space in the city, and to its frequently alienating anonymity. A chair dubbed “The Twins,” for instance, supports two identical sculptures in the shape of houses that have no distinguishing features. This cleverly points out the exclusory facades of private spaces and repetitive nature of residential architecture. The chair’s location in a public space, on the other hand, invites interaction and conversation as a way of overcoming the typically urban alienation it alludes to. Meanwhile, the chairs are all set at different angles throughout the square, suggesting the multitude of perspectives and possibilities open to people in our privileged socio-economic position. The installation’s centerpiece, similarly, invites viewers explore the world from multiple angles.
The massive flat fountain that provides the focus of the installation depicts a map of the world in the form of a giant bronze puzzle. The suggestion that cities become puzzles made up of small section of the larger global community recalls the architectural and urban theories of Rem Koolhas. At the same time, the puzzle-map illustrates the unprecedented accessibility of even the most distant corners of the globe. Meanwhile, the piece’s function as a fountain alludes to Place Roy’s earlier role as a square where carriages could stop for their horses to drink from the public troughs. Goulet’s fountain redeploys water as a source of life, taking on the symbolic function of giving the surrounding neighbourhood a focal point and a space for public interaction. Just as drinking troughs once made Place Roy an important meeting place, now Goulet’s installation brings people back into the public space, giving it new life. Nonetheless, the fountain’s puzzle-map urges the viewer to keep moving, to go on and make connections. Water, then, becomes a metaphor for fluidity, movement and transportation.
Overlooking the artificial lake at nearby Parc Lafontaine, Les leçons singulières (part 2) makes completely different allusions to nature, water and public space. Dating from 1991, it is only two blocks east on the Belvedere Léo-Ayotte, and clearly echoes the earlier work. Goulet’s sequel explicitly addresses its setting in a public park. The materials, like in part 1, are stainless steel and bronze, and testify to the installation’s permanence and solidity. The shiny reflective surfaces, meanwhile, also give the sculptures a certain lightness and cleanliness that defies their dimensions and durability. In this permutation, however, the chairs are all accessible, their singular sculptures sheltered underneath them rather than resting on top. Furthermore, their positioning serves a more rudimentary function, providing beautiful and unique vistas over the park. In this case the large bronze plate, rather than showing a puzzle of the world, is a topographical map of the park. While providing a useful way of locating oneself in downtown
From its deliberately dominant place in the park, and with its landscaped view out onto the artificial lake, the installation calls into question man’s desire to dominate and contain nature. Again taking water as an important metaphor, Goulet’s second Leçons points out that the manipulation of water is of utmost importance for the success of contemporary civilization. Taking this principle as a metaphor for humanity’s distancing from nature, the work underlines that through culture and a self-involved civilization we erase and deny our dependence on the planet’s resources. Furthermore, the containment, shaping, manipulation, and creation of “natural” oases within urban spaces stand as an ultimate expression of our superiority over environmental forces. Goulet’s work calls attention to this inherent tension, while also allowing viewers to enjoy the artificial nature of the park. In so doing, Les leçons singulières (part 2) urges greater exploration and appreciation of genuinely natural and urban spaces.
Despite the multitude of messages that can be extracted from these two installations, the city’s way of adapting the sites of Goulet’s works is didactic and condescending. The plaques that accompany the artworks have useful descriptive and logistic information, including brief biographies of the artist. Unnecessary analytic sections, however, come off as proscriptive and posit certain interpretations of the installations as “correct.” In so doing, the plaques may limit viewer’s ways of reading Goulet’s artworks. Despite their titles, the installations are anything but singular in their meanings, and any supporting documents should encourage creative engagement with them. After all, different publics bring different meanings. What is the point of public art if not to give all viewers the ability to meet and discuss singular objects from multiple perspectives?
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