Slowly wandering into the black-walled gallery space at Rouyn-Noranda's exhibition centre, spectators investigated a room full of sculptures and large canvases as they waited for Abitibi duo Geneviève & Matthieu to perform songs from their new album, La Jamésie Ostie/Les enfants du plomb. What they didn't know was that the artwork around them was about to be smashed to smithereens.
Entering the space individually and greeting each other with call-and-response operatic cries, Geneviève and Matthieu themselves approached their art pieces and observed, absorbed them. Not long after, they stationed themselves behind a keyboard and a guitar, respectively, and set about playing their space-pop. Then things got weird(er).
After Matthieu smeared some blue paint over a face on a large circular canvas resembling a coin, they rolled the painting across the room and turned it around to reveal a mass of nudes in front of a mountainous landscape. Then Geneviève started throwing her body into the image, repeatedly. Apparently filled with air, it eventually deflated, and the musician crawled onto it to lie down. The destruction radius expanded from there, and as the duo set about casually demolishing the art around them; babies cried, and their parents had to take them out of the room.
Obliterating their surroundings between their musical asides, they constructed a realm that was otherworldly and gleefully nonsensical.
Entering the space individually and greeting each other with call-and-response operatic cries, Geneviève and Matthieu themselves approached their art pieces and observed, absorbed them. Not long after, they stationed themselves behind a keyboard and a guitar, respectively, and set about playing their space-pop. Then things got weird(er).
After Matthieu smeared some blue paint over a face on a large circular canvas resembling a coin, they rolled the painting across the room and turned it around to reveal a mass of nudes in front of a mountainous landscape. Then Geneviève started throwing her body into the image, repeatedly. Apparently filled with air, it eventually deflated, and the musician crawled onto it to lie down. The destruction radius expanded from there, and as the duo set about casually demolishing the art around them; babies cried, and their parents had to take them out of the room.
Obliterating their surroundings between their musical asides, they constructed a realm that was otherworldly and gleefully nonsensical.
