Josée Dubeau at AXENÉO7 in Gatineau

L'Occupation des sols is the title of an ongoing project initiated by Jonathan Demers at AXENÉO7 in Gatineau, just across the river from Ottawa. In the spirit of open-ended experimentation and artistic research promoted at the gallery, Demers invited a number of artists to respond to a text with the same title by the French writer Jean Echenoz's as well as to the site itself. Josée Dubeau was the first artist to participate in the project that, ultimately, stages the act of reading, implicating each reader, both artists and viewers, in a performance that gives body to the meaning of the text. Dubeau's intervention in the space, drawn directly on the wall in non-photo blue pencil, offers a sensitive and economical reading of the text, matching both its emotional weight and its slightness of form.

Josée Dubeau, L'Occupation des sols (installation view), 2014, wall drawing in non-photo blue pencil

I wrote about the exhibition for Akimblog on March 11. To read the complete review, click here.