The partnership between Martha Fleming and Lyne Lapointe began in 1982 with the presentation of Projet Building/Caverne #14 on Plateau Mont-Royal. Throughout their collaboration, which lasted until 1996, the pair examined the notions of colonization and abandonment, things forgotten and remembered, determinism and mutability. They transformed disaffected buildings – including fire stations, former post offices and the Corona theatre in Saint-Henri – into large-scale installations, imitating the practices of museums while simultaneously calling them into question. Their “found objects” became displays that defied any form of classification; through a kind of archaeology of modernity, visitors were forced to contemplate the reasons for a site’s abandonment and to reflect upon the changes that had since taken place. In 1998, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal presented Studiolo, a retrospective charting the artists’ fifteen-year exploration of historical and sociopolitical concerns through a feminist lens.
SEE:
« Martha Fleming & Lyne Lapointe : And why not l’amour? » by Rose Marie Arbour, ESPACE #46, p. 16.
« 1995, Lyne Lapointe, Martha Fleming : La Salpêtrière » by Peter Dubé, ESPACE #81, p. 19.
« Lyne Lapointe : See, Hear, Touch » by Rose Marie Arbour, ESPACE #87, p. 19.
« The Instrumentalists » by Jean Gagnon, ESPACE #92, p. 16.
