Melvin Charney studied at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal and held degrees in architecture from both McGill and Yale University. At once an artist, architect, author and professor, he created sculpture-constructions, temporary and permanent urban installations, photo documentaries and prints. Notable examples of his architecturally integrated works are the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) Garden, the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights in Ottawa and, at Place Émilie-Gamelin in Montreal, a monumental sculpture commissioned for the city’s 350th anniversary. In 1979, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MACM) celebrated his body of work in an exhibition entitled Oeuvres 1970-1979, and he would represent Canada at the 1986 Venice Biennale. He was featured in a second major exhibition at the MACM in 1992 that assembled three sculptures and more than one hundred works on paper, affirming the importance of the artist’s use of photography right from his earliest pieces. Charney was awarded the Prix Paul-Émile Borduas in 1996 and presented UN DICTIONNAIRE… at the seventh International Architecture Exhibition, curated by Phyllis Lambert of the CCA, at the Venice Biennale in 2000. In 1976, he organized Les maisons de la rue Sherbrooke, which would later become the infamous Corrid’Art affair.
SEE:
« Melvin Charney : la sculpture et l’écho » by Serge Fisette, ESPACE, vol. 7, n° 4, p. 25.
«Le jardin du Centre Canadien d’Architecture : La beauté transversale » by Elizabeth Wood, ESPACE #31, p. 6.
«Melvin Charney : Hérouville-Saint-Clair » by Melvin Charney & Catherine Millet, ESPACE #41, p. 13.
« The Mark of a Place » by Manon Regimbald, ESPACE #50, p. 19.
« La place de l’Assemblée nationale de Melvin Charney : Face à face. Entre le pays vivace et le pays qui s’efface » de Manon Regimbald, ESPACE #56, p. 32.
« Sculpture, Around and About » by Serge Fisette, ESPACE #70, p. 5.
« 1987, Melvin Charney : The Canadian Centre for Architecture Garden (1987-1990) » by Manon Regimbald, ESPACE #81, p. 11.
« Was Quebec’s Cultural Revolution Accomplished by Tossing Art in the Trash? » by Fabien Loszach, ESPACE #89, p. 12.
