A BOY’S OWN STORY | SWING PAST PROGRESSIVE

2004 | Optica Contemporary Art Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Silly Ensemble 2003 two figures, ceramic and cotton, base : steel and cement. 122 X 61 X 213 cm, Collection of the Musée national des Beaux-arts du Québec
Tail too, 2003, ceramic and cotton, 32 x 35 x 20 cm,
Collection of the Musée national des Beaux-arts du Québec
Anonima Fluffy, 2003 céramique, 22 x 48 x 30 cm,
Collection du Musée national des Beaux-arts du Québec
Anonima Shaved, three times, 2003, ceramic, base : wood and steel

Photo © Paul Litherand.

2002 | Swing Past Progressive

Swing Past Progressive, 2002
hydrocal, pigments and steel, 261 x 460 x 147 cm
Collection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal

Photo © Richard-Max Tremblay.

“I’m interested in an imaginary world of youth which is somewhere between toys and tools. More specifically, I’m interested in the misdirected projection of sexual want onto the things that occupied the banal suburban home of my own story. The sculptures of this exhibition are an odd grouping of objects that I remember as being marvellous; some were mechanical, some crystalline, some furry and others smooth yet all are about self-absorption. Closing down the world around you, intensifying every gesture gives a boy a terrible and ridiculous power. It seems to me that self-absorption is marked by sudden shifts in scale, irregular and convoluted forms, twisted spaces and artificial colour, which is why I wanted to make these pieces both repulsive and beautiful.” Stephen Schofield 

Text of the exhibition communiqué, A Boy’s own Story, Optica, Centre of Contemporary Art, March 5 – April 10 2004