A cultural platform for exploring critical ideas of our time through art and dialogue.

A survey exhibition by Toronto based artist François Xavier Saint-Pierre, including his most recent body of work following a residency at the Villa Medici in Rome.

Examining our ability to see, process and recognize the visual forms of the past in a visually over-saturated and ‘post-historical’ era, Saint-Pierre’s work, with its summary paint handling, privileges perception. His approach centres on historical dislocation and perceptual ambiguity and a preoccupation with fragmentation, seriality and the metonymic function of emblematic forms. Using classical architectural and sculptural forms as a starting point, he creates hypothetical landscapes that evoke the history of painting while teetering on the edge of legibility.

Addressing the legacy of modernist painting and the persistence of classical tropes, this exhibition examines the myths, continuities and fractures of Art History's model of artistic innovation and progress. It leads us to consider, also, how certain cultural forms are repeated for political use. The exhibition title makes reference to the 17^th century debate between the ancients and the moderns – between an approach to innovation that is inspired by what has come before and one that favours technological advances and the supremacy of the new.

Images at top: (left) François Xavier Saint-Pierre, Capital. Oil on panel, 83 X 74 cm, 2017. (right) François Xavier Saint-Pierre, Capital in Evening Light. Oil on linen, 83 X 74 cm, 2017.

The Spiders and the Bees

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