Gilles Bissonnet received a BFA in visual arts and an MFA in art history from the Université de Montréal. Trained as a teacher, interdisciplinary artist and sculptor, he intervenes in public space with a focus on architecture and urban design/street furniture. Bissonnet’s work centres on social relationships, exchange and communication. L’Urbaine Urbanité (2002, 2003 and 2005), for example, explored issues of gentrification in certain neighbourhoods while demonstrating that general interest can produce a kind of dynamic in public art. Bissonnet has collaborated with magazines specializing in contemporary art on a number of critical texts and articles that reflect his professional engagement. He is one of the founders of Galerie FMR, whose name (when read in French, the letters FMR sound like the word for “ephemeral”) illustrates the organization’s aim to provide a space for displaying ephemeral artwork in both time and space; it seeks to bring art out of museums and to the people, promoting a committed form of multidisciplinary urban art that welcomes interaction.
SEE:
« Gilles Bissonnet : Oeuvres présentes » by Claude Paul Gauthier, ESPACE #51, p. 45.
« The Year of Public Sculpture » by Serge Fisette, ESPACE #53, p. 8.
« Sans titre », ESPACE #58, p. 36.
« L’Urbaine Urbanité : Social Interaction and Public Space » by Gilles Bissonnet & Michel Fournier, ESPACE #64, p. 15.
« Sculpture for Everyone » by Serge Fisette, ESPACE #67, p. 5
« L’Urbaine Urbanité IV, Géométrie sociale : Entretien avec Gilles Bissonnet », by Serge Fisette, ESPACE #80, p. 26
« “Rupture”, You Say? » by Serge Fisette, ESPACE #92, p. 5.
