Sébastien Cliche
Sébastien Cliche's installations are hybrid workspaces combining function and fiction; evolving situations based on generative chemical, mechanical or computerized processes. In his studio, digital tools interact with obsolete technologies and traditional know-how. He practices a form of bricolage that offers a critical distance from the tools and networks that shape our daily lives.
Through his devices, he questions the notion of control and its social and psychological implications. The artist seeks to experiment with the contradictions inherent in the feeling of mastery (of oneself or one's environment) by approaching this theme through the prism of a paradox where control is linked to its antinomy: letting go.
Sébastien Cliche also explores non-linear narrative frameworks through a variety of strategies: closed-circuit cameras, scale games, loops, recursive motifs. The way in which the narrative is constructed thus becomes an essential component of his work, exposing the viewer to the construction of the story in which they become one of the agents.
Biography
Sébastien Cliche is a multidisciplinary artist based in Montreal. His practice, which takes the form of performative installations, also integrates photography, textual works, video and sound creation. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions - notably at Centre d'art contemporain de Meymac (France, 2008), Momenta Art (New York, 2013), AXENÉO7 (Gatineau, 2019), VU (Québec, 2023), CIRCA (Montréal, 2024) and established festivals such as MUTEK (Montréal, 2005 and 2010). Winner of the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman bursary for contemporary art (2012), in 2014 he published La doublure, a monograph extending the project of the same name presented at the Galerie de l'UQAM (Montreal, 2012).
Recent exhibitions
| 2024 | Déliquescence, group exhibition, Fonderie Darling, Montréal, CA La température de l’information, group exhibtion, Circa, Montréal, CA Atlas, Nébuleuse du Sphinx, group exhibtion, Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides, Saint- Jérôme, CA |
| 2023 | La température de l’information, solo exhibition, VU, Québec, CA |
| 2021 | Les entretiens, solo exhibition, Espaces F, Matane, CA |