Essentially, Jos\u00e9e Dubeau views her work with sculptures, installations and drawings as a laboratory for investigation into human living conditions. With her installation in Studio 2 of the K\u00fcnstlerhaus, the artist has created a space that one could describe as the topography of office architecture: desks, some shelves and filing cabinets appear to be waiting for the appropriate civil servants. Finally, at the centre of the room there is a waiting area with seating for potential clients. But Jos\u00e9e Dubeau\u2019s \u201cOffice\u201d is not usable as such. Assembled from delicate strips of wood, the objects merely draw the outline of each individual piece of office furniture, meaning that the overall arrangement loses its three-dimensionality; in the viewer\u2019s perception, it takes on the character of a drawing in space. In this way, the installation becomes a model of the structures supporting bureaucracy.<\/p>\n
Exhibition Statement<\/p>\n
“Born in Montreal and based in the Ottawa region, Jos\u00e9e Dubeau is the first grant recipient from\u00a0The Conseil des arts et des lettres du Qu\u00e9bec<\/em>\u00a0and the Minist\u00e8re des relations internationales du Qu\u00e9bec to participate in the International Studio Program at the K\u00fcnstlerhaus Bethanien.<\/p>\n With her installation ESPACEMENT, Jos\u00e9e Dubeau has developed a series of sculptures based on the notion of \u201cnegative space\u201d which can be looked at as a space absent of mass and gravity, a space more or less invisible. Jos\u00e9e Dubeau has designed a generic public space which one could identify as a topography of office architecture, a model working environment derived from the modular uniformity of conventional furniture. Desks appear to await employees, as do the shelving units and filing cabinets, a conference table, and in the middle of the exhibition studio, a waiting area with seating possibilities.<\/p>\n Made of fine sticks of pine wood, Jos\u00e9e Dubeau has created an artificial social structure which corresponds with the outline of the surfaces and volumes of furniture. The demat-erialization here obtained becomes an instrument for transparency. ESPACEMENT is able to loose its three-dimensionality and take on the visual sensation of the observer as a drawing in space. Therefore, Dubeau\u2019s reduction of her sculptures down to contour lines becomes much more, with much less material, than simply a model of organisation : it reveals the underlying structures that support bureaucracy.<\/p>\n Implosive systems and short-circuited objects with signs of inadequate or excessive performances characterize Jos\u00e9e Dubeau\u2019s works. She seeks within spatial social patterns the increasing distance between space and feeling.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","categories":[],"class_list":["post-12349","kb_exhibition","type-kb_exhibition","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"article_image":15606,"article_image_bu_de":"","article_image_bu_en":"","datum_suche":"2014-06-27 15:47:10"},"yoast_head":"\n