Armand Vaillancourt

Armand Vaillancourt is a Québécois sculptor, painter and performance artist born on September 3 1929 in the city of Black Lake, Quebec, Canada.

Major Sculptures

Public Sculptures

1953: L'arbre de la rue Durocher (Montréal)
A real public performance, during two years, Armand sculpted directly from the street, that tree on Durocher street, in Montreal. Very controversial, this sculpture made passersby curious, not knowing how to label it. Symbolising the relationship between art and nature, the sculpture remained there for several years before being finally moved to the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. This work of art would awaken the conscience of many artists concerned by ecology and is now considered by many to be a key work of modern Quebec sculpture.

1980: Intemporel (Chicoutimi)
Vaillancourt created a field of white stones surrounded by "cages" for an environmental sculpture symposium at Chicoutimi. 1500 tons of rocks were used for this monumental work of art. The white stones, representing nature, were put into metal cages, symbolising humanity's efforts to control everything.

Public Sculptures (commissioned)

1967: Je me souviens (Toronto, esquisse)

1971: Québec libre ! (San Francisco, United States)
One of his best known sculptures, Québec libre ! is representative of the relationship between Vaillancourt's art and his political convictions. It is a huge concrete fountain, 200 feet long, 140 feet wide and 36 feet high sitting in the city's financial district at the Embarcadero Center. The night before its inauguration, Vaillancourt inscribed "Québec libre!" in red letters, to note his undying support for the Quebec sovereignty movement and more largely, his support for the freedom of all people. The following day, seeing that the city's employees erased the inscription, he jumped on the sculpture to reinscribe the sentence many times. [cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,876984,00.html|title=War Whoop for Freedom|accessdate=2008-01-25] Some years later, the fountain became the object of a polemic involving U2's singer Bono. During a free concert, Bono climbed the sculpture to write "Rock & Roll stops the traffic", referring to the power of rock. [cite web|url=http://www.u2source.com/2007/08/19/bono-press-conference-regarding-graffiti/|title=Bono press conference regarding graffiti|accessdate=2008-01-25] 20,000 people were in fact in attendance and blocked some of the neighbouring streets.

Reacting to the act, the city's mayor declared that she deplored the sculpture's vandalism and that this kind of act could be punishable by a fine and/or imprisonment. Vaillancourt was then contacted to learn if he supported the gesture, which he answered by going to U2's concert in Oakland the following day, where he wrote "Stop the madness" on the stage, in front of 70 000 people. He defended Bono's gesture, after a speech on injustice, declaring that graffiti is a necessary evil as young people do not generally have the same access to newspapers, and media in general, as politicians do to express themselves.

1983: Justice

Political Monuments

1985: El clamor (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
Described by Vaillancourt as a "symbol of vital energy of every oppressed population […] , of real freedom, the freedom that is inside and that we cannot imprison", this monumental sculpture, 23 feet long, 7 feet wide and 10 feet high, surrounded by barbed wire surmounted by 92 steel hands, symbolizes the struggle of people against repression and imprisonment. A 5 foot dove sits on top of the sculpture. It was constructed in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republicm for the 500th anniversary of the coming of Christopher Columbus.

Honors

* 1993 - Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas.
* Member" of l'Ordre national du Québec.

References