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| Alain Bublex |
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For L.F.D.A. 02.Alain Bublex presents Glooscap, shown for the first time in 1992 at his Paris gallery, Georges Philippe & Nathalie Vallois. Glooscap, named for a deity of the north American Wabanaki peoples, is an imaginary town. Based on a real site – the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, in south-east Canada – the project draws on the history and geography of the region, mixing fiction and reality in a seemingly perfect, coherent ensemble. A film, 49 Miles Drive (1994-2009), featur a slowes progress through the streets of this invented city of three million people. The piece is a montage of location shots recorded by the artist in the urban, industrial landscapes of the American north-east during a study trip in 1994, superimposed with “subtitles” – the captions of plans, drawings, watercolours, photographs and objects that form the town’s archive and document its history. The antichamber leading to the projection room presents an identical reconstruction of the project’s first exhibition in 1992. Placed at a distance, like a diorama, the exhibit is inaccessible to the public. Outside the projection room, a panoramic view of a landscape untouched by the presence of humans (Passamaquoddy Bay, North Shore, 2008), reveals Glooscap’s “prehistory” – the real site for this virtual town – while a voice speaking in the language of the Abenaki people tells how the god Glooscap formed the landscape occupied by the town, by turning to stone a giant wolf. [V.Th] Alain BublexAlain Bublex conceives the artistic process as a "work" acting on the real and transforming it; the gallery or the museum is a platform the artist uses to show this process to the public. Artist-engineer, mechanic, photographer, urban planner, he does not hesitate to initiate himself in the techniques of all types of professions permitting him to carry out his urban experiments, and to produce his projects and hybrid objects, travelling and filming the modern world in movement. [V. Th.]
 Alain Bublex |
