Marcel Barbeau was initiated to culture and the arts when he was a student at the École du meuble. Not yet 20 years old, from a working-class family without much use for the arts, he was captivated by the teaching of Paul-Émile Borduas. He soon joined the students who gravitated around the master, and it was through this group, which would become known as the Automatists, that he discovered poetry, theatre, dance, music, and painting. Reacting to the rigid society in which they lived, the Automatists tried to find pure creative freedom through spontaneous, gestural art that drew on the unconscious. Barbeau was born as an artist through his adventure with the avant-garde, and his production would always be marked by that experience.
In keeping with this early involvement and true to his solitary, timid personality, Barbeau remained a free and independent spirit. Although he was associated with different groups and art movements during his career, they were marginal to his production, as he always followed his own rules. The great diversity of his body of work, seen by some as eclecticism, is explained by his constant questioning of his acquired knowledge and his pressing need to be in the present. His artistic production, offering a clear and sensitive vision of his times, made him more than a witness: Canadian art history has elevated him to the rank of a true pioneer.
This exhibition, designed around Barbeau’s works in the collection of the Musée d’art de Joliette, is concentrated on the creative period from 1958 to 1967. It was at this time, following the dissolution of the Automatists, that his production was oriented toward a new search for movement in painting. No longer the result of spontaneous actions and gestures, his work gave rise to hallucinatory visions in which mystery – which had been so dear to the Automatists – asked only to be unveiled.
Curator: Marie-Hélène Foisy