A major figure in contemporary art in Quebec, COZIC, the duo of Monic Brassard and Yvon Cozic, has left a profound mark on the art scene since the late 1960s. Swimming against the current of art conventions, COZIC has contributed to breaking down barriers between art practices and to the emergence of contemporary art by transgressing disciplinary categories, experimenting with atypical materials, and questioning the status of the artwork.
With its conceptual, experimental, and accessible artworks, COZIC has constantly sought to bring art closer to life. Monic Brassard and Yvon Cozic, with their four-handed practice, manifested this intention through an unprecedented collaborative approach that helped pave the way for new forms of collective creation. This way of working, unique for its time, inspired many artists to rethink the modalities of creation. The artist duos featured in recent programming – Geneviève Matthieu, Chloë Lum and Yannick Desranleau – embody the vitality of this legacy.
Presented as a tribute to Yvon Cozic, who died in June 2025, this exhibition of the series Les Zigotos, from the collection of the Musée d’art de Joliette, reflects the freedom of spirit and inventiveness that characterize COZIC’s work. Made around the turn of the 1990s, these sculptures indicate a pivotal moment in the duo’s practice, as Brassard and Cozic, having exploring folding and flatness, shifted their focus to three-dimensionality and experimentation with solid materials.
Assembled from heterogeneous materials – natural (wood, stone), manufactured (acrylic, plastic), and of animal origin (feathers, wings, bird feet) – these playful composite sculptures depart from traditional sculptural codes. Suspended in midair in the space, they play with solids and voids, mobilize trompe-l’oeil effects, and evoke a sensation of precarious balance.
Curator: Ariane de Blois