CRG is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Jasmin Bilodeau (Cdn, b. 1973, lives Quebec). He is primarily known as one of the three founding members of the artist collective BGL (an acronym derived from Bilodeau, Giguère, and Laverdière), alongside Sébastien Giguère (b. 1972) and Nicolas Laverdière (b. 1972).
Bilodeau and his collaborators met while studying visual arts at Université Laval in Québec City, where they completed their degrees in 1996. That same year they formed BGL which quickly gained recognition for its provocative, humorous, and often large-scale installations, sculptures, and site-specific works. The collective's practice frequently critiqued consumerism, North American culture, politics, and everyday excess through absurdist, playful, and sometimes destructive interventions-described variously as "insolent, critical, and explosive", blending performance, set design, and social commentary. From 1996 to 2021 the trio presented more than 34 individual exhibitions and nearly 100 group exhibitions in Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia. BGL represented Canada at the 56th Venice Biennale with their immersive installation, Canadassimo. BGL also carried out major public art projects in Montreal and Toronto and received numerous distinctions including the CALQ Prize (Council for Arts and Letters Quebec); the York-Wilson Prize; the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Prize, two OAAG Best Installation and Design prizes; the Graff Prize; the Videre Événement Prize in visual arts as well as the Duchamp-Villon Prize. In 2021 Bilodeau completed a residency in Nantes, France and began pursuing a solo career.
For many years Bilodeau has been fascinated by the visual marks made on surfaces and objects with the passing of time and has collected a vast image archive of these effects. At CRG, the artist will present four monumental prints of fictionalized architectural bricolage: a cinema, a hardware store, a depanneur and an electronics shop, each with their own atmosphere and distinct visual language. These small, aging businesses, familiar to everyone, their façades rich with emotional and reflective qualities, are the local casualties of large chains, online migration and sweeping change in human behaviour and economics. To make the images Bilodeau fabricated everything that is photographed, transformed these photographs into bas-reliefs, physically altered them, reprinted them, altered them again, and finally reprinted them at real architectural scale. The result is an uncanny, handcrafted environment rich in textures, hidden details, and layered meanings. With this project Bilodeau taps into his abiding interest in Quebec's long-standing patenteux tradition of DIY. Emerging strongly from rural and farming backgrounds, patenteux applied creativity to solve practical problems in isolation, adapting to their environment with available, often recycled, materials. This tradition is deeply rooted in Quebec's history, reflecting a spirit of survival, resilience, and "débrouillardise" (resourcefulness).
