LAFRAMBOISE, Alain (1947)

Alain Laframboise holds a BA and an MA in art history from the Université de Montréal (1974). He received his PhD in philosophy and aesthetics from the Université Paris X-Nanterre in 1980. An art critic and specialist in the Italian Renaissance, he is a former professor in the art history department of the Université de Montréal (1976-2008) and founder of the magazine and publishing house Trois (1985). Laframboise creates boxes akin to small theatres in which he assembles scattered objects and figurines, evoking the grand masters of art through the principle of citation. In 1989, he presented Vedute, a series consisting of large colour photographs of model Venetian façades. In 1992, at Montreal’s Galerie Graff, he presented his “noir series” of trompe-l’oeil sets and décor – façades that resembled scenes from a detective novel. Also at Galerie Graff, his 1997 Visions domestiques featured detailed interior scenes that served as metaphors and projections of interiority. A retrospective of Laframboise’s work was organized by the Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides in 2014: entitled Le sens du quotidien, the exhibition assembled a sort of cabinet of curiosities in which the familiarity of everyday life became almost strange.