Cooke-Sasseville, in collaboration with the Musée régional de Rimouski and
EXPRESSION, Centre d’exposition de St-Hyacinthe, presents État mortifère
and Les Deux pieds dans le patrimoine.
Now known for its humorous, irreverently exuberant sculptures, the duo composed of Jean-François Cooke and Pierre Sasseville has been active on the Canadian art scene for some twenty years. Cooke-Sasseville’s world, which has been called off-the-wall, incongruous, and polymorphous, constantly oscillates between absurdity and exaltation, between good-natured amazement and black humour. Situated well beyond the simplicity of jokes, Cooke-Sasseville’s art can be interpreted on various levels, is rooted in the specificity of Québec, and offers winks and nods at art history, popular culture, and political and economic current events. Critical, self-critical, and resolutely postmodern, Cooke-Sasseville fits within the long tradition of farce – or more specifically, physical comedy, from theatre to burlesque film, from pantomime to cartoons.
Concocted for the occasion by Cooke-Sasseville and Ève De Garie-Lamanque, curator of contemporary art at the Musée régional de Rimouski, this “double program” comprises a curated exhibition that looks back at the duo’s last ten years of practice Les Deux pieds dans le patrimoine, and a new monumental installation, État mortifère.
Cooke Sasseville, video of the exhibition État mortifière et Les deux pieds dans le patrimoine presented at EXPRESSION, 14 min. © NousTV
Opening Saturday, January 28, 2023, from 2pm to 5pm