Down home art

>>Quebec folk art implosion at Mccord

By KEITH MARCHAND

The public perception of folk art tends to conjure up images of a drooling yokel whittling away at a piece of driftwood that will one day become a crude bust of Carl Perkins. Indeed, Webster's has defined the word folk as "the great mass of common people that make up a nation, produce its unsophisticated art and continue its traditions." It is impossible not to encounter such patronizing adjectives as quaint, charming or naïve when examining the world of folk art. These types of labels automatically suggest that because a work originating from a rural area is crude, whimsical or downright bizarre, it was done out of benightedness or naïveté.

True, most of the makers of folk art have no contact with the art establishment common to urban centres, but this doesn't necessarily make their visual language child-like or primitive. On the contrary, the unselfconsciousness of their art can be celebrated as a refreshing change to the overwrought navel-gazing that often gets passed off as serious art.

At the McCord Museum until March 1 there is an exhibition that just might make a dent in whatever popular misconceptions surround folk art. Entitled "Les Paradis du monde: Quebec Folk Art," it is an ambitious but manageable showcase. Organized by the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the show presents 112 pieces culled from the museum's three main collections of folk art: the Patenteux Collection, the English Amateurs Collection and the Marius Barbeau Collection. Each presents different (yet interrelated) styles and periods.

The term "patenteux" was originally used in a derogatory manner to describe someone who tinkers with gadgets--a directionless handyman, if you will. However, patenteux works tend to be whimsical figurines, gadgets and sculptures capturing the spirit of rural Quebec and the term is now used with respect. The English Amateurs Collection comprises works that are a little more sober, tending to be decorative pieces collected with a romanticized ideal of French Quebec. The Barbeau collection is interested in folk art's ties to classical French culture and focuses more on fine furniture and craftsmanship.

Noteworthy in the exhibition are works by a patenteux, Hosanna Dupuis. His painted pressboard cutouts of angels and his oversized salmon-coloured Sacred Heart pierced by a sword depict a singularity of vision and poetic sense born of devotion. The title of the exhibition comes from a poem written out on one of his pressboard Angels of Paradise.

Maria Laplante-Joyal is represented by two peculiar throw rugs that chronicle everyday events. "Up to the Slaughterhouse" is a delightfully disturbing scene depicting two farmhands trying to coax a cow onto a truck destined for the abattoir. "René Lévesque in Conference" shows an enormous René Lévesque sitting at a desk surrounded by much smaller characters who appear to be cronies. And yes, René is smoking a cigarette.

Archelas Poulin, perhaps the best known of Quebec folk artists, is represented by his masterwork, "The Ballroom." This is a piece that took him 23 months to create, using only a carving knife, after he was crippled in a logging accident. A glass box houses a scale representation of a crowded and lively ballroom in which the band, the bar staff and the dancers once moved by a rudimentary mechanical system.

As with each show along its tour, the last phase of the exhibition houses a work by a contemporary folk artist-in-residence. Florent Veilleux's "Post Modern Romanticism" is a mammoth installation filling an entire room, which allows visitors to interact with a series of bizarre and hilarious living sculptures that perform tasks at the push of a button. The room is awash with beeps and whirs, flashing lights and drum solos, kitsch objects and cast-off computer parts going under names like: "The Wet Firecracker," "The Sulkynose Breathometer" and "The Mad-as-Heck Trophy." Veilleux proves that folk art is still alive and kicking in Quebec.

Les Paradis du monde: Quebec Folk Art is on until March 1 at the McCord Museum, 690 Sherbrooke W.