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bv John Grande

During the summer of 1987, while visit- and original sculptures made in Canada well as from an anonymous Hindu ing Quebec City, I first met Armand at the time, but if you ask curators, in poet and Martin Luther King ("We Vaillancourt as he was working on Quebec or across Canada, about Vail- have to learn to live together like Drapeaz Blanc, a monumental sculp- lancourt's work, they usually avoid the brothers, otherwise we'll die together ture composed of over 92 tons of calcite question, shrug, or laugh, as if it's too like idiots") sandblasted and carved brought in from the Saguenay Lac-St. painful to talk about. He has never been into its elements. Another quotation Jean region to Laval University in Ste. given a solo show by a major museum, from Simone Monet-Chartrand on one Foy. There he stood, the embodiment of nor has he represented Canada at a of the boulders reads, "I do not want every Canadian post-grad art historian's major international event such as the the snow, the years, and the cold to search for a living Canadian mythology Venice Biennale. His very persona is at freeze my memory." of art. His long white hair and beard odds with the tastes of today's curators, The media, on the other hand, have blowing in the wind, Vaillancourt was who prefer the universe to be neatly treated Vaillancourt remarkably well. an artist to deal with, that is if the idio- placed in a box or squeezed into a tight No Canadian artist has ever had so syncrasies of an official art history built little metaphoric ball for exhibition much ink spilled on his work. Literally by Canada's two solitudes (French and purposes. Drapeau Blanc, that incon- thousands of articles have been written English) is not all that interests you. gruous collection of brilliant white boul- on Vaillancourt internationally and at History has not treated Vaillancourt ders imported from Quebec's sacred home: Time, Newsweek, Life, the Sanz particularly well. His bois brildes and indtpendentiste heartland, embodies Francisco Chronicle, the New York abstract metal sculptures from the 'SOs Vaillancourt's primal vision that art Tinmes, the Washington Post, Le Figaro, and '60s are in most major Canadian can be a force for transforming society. the Globe, the list seems endless. When museum collections: they are unques- An emblem of Quebec's culture of resis- Vaillancourt was invited to the Inter- tionably some of the most spontaneous tance in the face of an all-pervasive and national Sculpture Symposium in To- vacuous North American consumer ronto's High Park in 1967, he proposed Nef Urbaine, 2002. Temporary perfor- culture, Drapeatn Blanc has quotations a monumental sculpture for the site. mance work at Canal Lachine, Montreal, from renowned Quebecers Felix Leclerc, After three months, the 340-ton piece Canada. Gaston Miron, and Gilles Vigneault, as was finally completed in cast iron, and

Sculpture Januarv1Febtuarv 2004 49 Vaillancourt titled it Je me souviens- and the project was aborted. Over 400 articles appeared in print, not to men- tion the TV interviews. When Toronto's Mayor Crosby gave Vaillancourt the option of taking the piece back to Quebec 12 years later, as long as it was insured and removed in its entirety, Vaillancourt hired a convoy of eight tractor trailers at a cost of $12,000. Until recently, it sat in a field near C6teau-du-Lac awaiting a final installation site close to his former atelier, which he claims the Quebec govern- ment stole from him, destroying all his equipment in the process. That same year (1967), Vaillancourt was awarded the prestigious Confederation Medal- he kept the medal itself and refused to accept the honor-and won the international competition for a monumental sculpture fountain in San Francisco's Embarcadero Plaza. Titled Quebec Libre, this massive construction of rec- tangular concrete forms rising dramati- cally out of the water was described by Canadian art historian David Burnett in Contemporary CanadianArt as a work that "looks like a result of some massive disaster or a warning of physi- cal and cultural upheaval." The night before the inauguration of Quebec Libre in 1971, Vaillancourt stenciled the words "Quebec Libre!" in red acrylic paint onto the sculpture. The words had already been whited out by civic employees when the dedication ceremony commenced the next day. Thomas Hoving, then director of the This page, above and detail: Metropolitan Museum of Art, along Quebec Libre, 1967-71. with a slew of civic dignitaries drawled Concrete and steel, 50 x out their specious platitudes and the 120 x 200 ft. Fountain at poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti read some Embarcadero Plaza, San of his poems while Vaillancourt, held Francisco. Left: L'Humain, back by two police lieutenants, jumped 1963. Cast iron, 16 x 13 x into the water of the fountain and 8 ft. Opposite: Passerelle painted "Quebec Libre!" again all Vaillancourt, 1990. Pedes- over his creation. The San Francisco trian bridge at Plessisville, Redevelopment Agency's Executive Quebec, 20 x 20 x 200 ft. Director, Justin Herman, unaware of exactly what was going on, then asked from the podium, "If our artist is in the audience will he please raise his hand so that we may applaud him?" Instead of replying, Vaillancourt, with his feet dangling in the water of the fountain let out a loud war whoop for

-- ,~~~~j __ __~~ freedom and was immediately sur- rounded by a bevy of cameramen and

50 Sculpture 23.1 journalists. The rock group Jefferson Airplane played for the Embarcadero Plaza inauguration bash that followed. A few years ago, Bono, from the group U2, painted the words "Stop the traffic. Rock and Roll" on the sculpture-more ink and celluloid spilled and spent all over the United States. When Bono called Vaillancourt to sup- port his action, Vaillancourt backed him and was in San Francisco the next day painting "Stop the Madness" on stage at the Oakland Coliseum before a crowd of 70,000 spectators while U2 played. Pronouncements about justice for America's blacks, the Amerindians, and the peoples of the world followed. The Embarcadero expressway col- lapsed in the San Francisco earthquake, damaging the plaza, and has since been torn down. The whole area is now undergoing extensive reconstruction. The City of San Francisco's chief urban design consultant has recommended that XVaillancourt's sculpture (which conscience, proposed for the banks of early days of Cubism in Paris, then was not damaged) either be demol- the Eastman River near James Bay in visiting Canada for a touring exhibi- ished or moved in order to make way northern Quebec, now dried up due to tion of his work, knelt before Vaillan- for "a better people gathering place." a Hydro Quebec project. An ascending court's sculpture exclaiming that it was Legally the city cannot destroy or spiral ladder with lights, hundreds of the work of a master. Zadkine invited alter a work of public art if the artist suspended bells, and an observatory Vaillancourt to Paris, but Vaillancourt opposes the action, and Vaillancourt with satellite communications equip- was already committed to working in opposes the removal of Quebec Libre. ment on top, Vaillancourt's Touir Quebec. In 1961, for the International Questions of the work's aesthetic, his- Ecologique-like El Clamor, his nearly Festival of Contemporary Music in toric, and civic importance as a land- completed wall of stone with sculpted Montreal, Vaillancourt created a musi- mark also remain unresolved. A com- hands in Santo Domingo-requires cal environment for a 20-minute con- mittee has been organized to defend further funding. cert of live music comprising 22 tons Vaillancourt's sculpture, and the legal Born in Black Lake in the Eastern of self-created musical instruments and ramifications promise to be as fasci- Townships on September 3, 1929, the a motorcycle-a work he still refers to nating as the controversy that sur- 16th of 17 children, Vaillancourt grew as the most daring show of his life, "an rounded the dismantling of Richard up on a 300-acre farm with no elec- orgy with matter." Yoko Ono later used Serra's Tilted Arc at Federal Plaza in tricity or indoor toilet. Some of his it for a recital of her poems, and John downtown Manhattan. earliest memories involve freezing in Cage, who also performed at the festi- Most Quebecers still remember the the bitter cold, sitting on the logs his val, referred to it as the work of a 7 fiasco during the ' 0s surrounding father cut with a whipsaw. He took a genius. The word about Vaillancourt's Vaillancourt's appearance on Lise course in classical studies at Ottawa musical event spread. Edgar Varese Payette's TV program "Apellez-moi University in 1949 and 1950 before invited him to come to Greenwich Lise." To protest the manipulation of coming to Mlontreal in 1951 where he Village to meet Picasso, and Merce the masses by the program, Vaillan- studied at the Ecole des Beaux-arts Cunningham asked him to create court stripped down until he was bare until 1954. During this time, Vaillan- decor and music for his experimental naked before the cameras. The program court created The Tree of Durocher theater in New York, but Vaillancourt was never aired. Vaillancourt received Street, his first major public work (now was too busy at home. Quebec's most prestigious arts award, at the Musee du Quebec in Quebec The second time I met Vaillancourt the Prix Paul-Emile Borduas, last year, City), outdoors before crowds of was in Montreal in 1989. Before enter- and his criticism of the state of Quebec bystanders who watched him carving, ing his studio on Esplanade Street, with culture was broadcast live to the entire cutting, and shaping the tree with hand its view of the mountain, I could see a population on Radio Quebec. tools and an ax over a period of two large, as yet uncarved, imported African Vaillancourt speaks of computer- years. After the work was completed tree trunk in his yard. Not far away, animated designs for a I10-meter tower in 1957, Ossip Zadkine, the famous beside some old oil barrels, three metal of steel dedicated to the planetary Russian sculptor associated with the pieces with "JUSTICE!" carved into

Sculpture Januavv/Februarv 2004 51 This page, left: Untitled, 1978. Bronze, 36 x 33 x 32 in. Right: Untitled, 1957. Wood, 135 x 15 x 4 in. Opposite: Paix, Justice et Liberte, 1989. Steel and concrete, 18 x 40 x 60 ft.

The paradoxes in Vaillancourt's life and art stem from his insistent curiosity and spontaneity, his consistent belief that art has a role to play in building a future society.

them sat in restive solitude, like talis- from a tree trunk, enormous and omi- Vaillancourt pioneered Styrofoam mans guarding his studio. Entering nously primeval, it seemed an invitation casting in the 1950s. Using a flame, he Vaillancourt's home, the first objects I to some earthly paradise-not that of could create a molded sculptural shape noticed were the sculpting tools that he Gauguin, but a northern world not yet in seconds out of Styrofoam. The model had just taken out of his station wagon: created and somehow anticipated in could be set in a sand mold and cast a large mallet covered in duct tape, Vaillancourt's struggle as an artist. The in iron, thus enabling Vaillancourt to an ax, adzes and chisels in a large bois brfil6s are some of the strongest work with monumental sculpture in bucket, and a vast array of materials- works ever to be made in wood by a a unique and novel way. The action Styrofoam package forms, blocks of Canadian sculptor, and they extended of the flame on Styrofoam was instant, wood, I-beams and strips of metal, and Borduas's automatiste painterly style and the resultant forms were purely street signs. Looking around, I could into sculpture. Using a 1.25-horsepower spontaneous but highly controlled see hints of his past production of over motor and drill to carve up to 200 holes abstractions. La Force (1964), located 3,000 sculptures and 2,000 paintings, (each three to four inches in diameter near Beaver Lake on Montreal's Mount such as small bronzes cast in the lost and up to eight feet in length) into a sin- Royal, used 74,000 pounds of cast iron. wax technique, collages, acrylic and gle tree trunk, Vaillancourt poured oil The after-cast cool-down took three watercolor paintings, prints from his onto selected areas, let the fire burn into days. A rare balance between artistic "Manhole Series" (cast from actual the piece, then douse it with water. This intention and the characteristics of Montreal sewer ducts), even a maquette innovation allowed a deeper controlled materials per se exists in Vaillancourt's of Je me souvienis. Not far from an modeling. The fire responded according Styrofoam-cast metal pieces, which are old piano, amid all the disarray of to the varied densities of the wood. almost Chinese in their understanding Vaillancourt's irrepressible creative Vaillancourt's bois bridls have become of natural form and material. spirit, was one of his famous large-scale rare collector's items and can be seen Over the years Vaillancourt has bois brule sculptures (1953-65). Made in many of Canada's major museums. worked for various social causes,

Sculpture 23.1 52 because, as he says: "Art has an essen- tial role to play in the collectivity, the society, and the artist conscious of this role must fulfill it with joy, whatever happens in his own personal life or his work." Vaillancourt's commitment to social change can be seen in per- formances, sporadic sculpture and painting events he participates in or puts on at venues in Montreal and elsewhere. One of the first was in the '50s when he paraded through the Montreal business district wearing a sandwich-board-style clock with the words "Don't Lose Your Time" painted on it. But Vaillancourt has also built practical no-nonsense engineering pieces, including a 500-foot break- water in San Francisco and a fully functioning 200-foot, 80,000-pound Modernist steel bridge for the citizens of Plessisville in Quebec. In the con- troversial Paix, Jtstice et Liberte (June 1989), he inscribed the names of 32 leading Quebec corporations discovered in solitude that silence is the opening of the newly refurbished and involved in the arms trade and their best of friends." historical Lachine Canal in Montreal annual profit figures onto an enor- Vaillancourt's more recent sculpture in 2002. It looked for all intents and mous discarded cistern placed in the projects include Song of the Nations, a purposes like a car wash on water, downtown Montreal shopping area forest of trees upturned and painted in replete as it was with colorful brushes of Crescent Street. Written on the various colors to represent the nations and streamers. work were the words "Two days of of the world. The hanging tree corpses So tenacious is his belief in the impor- military expenditures worldwide, could likewise be interpreted as a lat- tance of a strong and vital social culture around five billion dollars, would allow ter-dav Massacre of the Innocents. The to the future of society that Vaillan- the United Nations to stop the deser- work was originally installed at the court, now over 70 years old, has been tification of the world within 20 Confederation Centre for the Arts, then working with children and young adults years." Including pylons, a chair with under the leadership of director Terry in Quebec's schools to encourage and virginal white wings, and a series of Graff. Graff has since been deposed, develop yet another generation's inter- metal disks (driven over by passing and the new director of this federally est in creative expression. In Vaillan- cars), Vaillancourt's interventionist funded public museum had the sculp- court's own words: "I do not want to sculpture dealt with social justice, ture dismantled in 2002. A fleur-de- be a spectator in a world that is build- militarism, and ecology from a non- lys, located near the center of the huge ing itself. My mission is to maintain official point of view. installation and representative of the spirit of humanity and make it The paradoxes present in Vaillan- Vaillancourt's Quebec nationalist aspi- grow. I must conquer matter to give court's life and art stem from his insis- rations, could have been the symbol it back its freedom in other forms." tent curiosity and spontaneity, his con- that enervated federalists. sistent belief that art has an important River of Life (1999), created in Yel- John Grande is the author of Playing role to play in building a future vision lowknife, North West Territories, liter- with Fire: Armand Vaillancourt Social for society. There is a contradiction ally engraved the side of a hill with Sculptor, which has been repuiblished between the media-wise, aging Don sandblasted images of the arms and in a new edition. His book Art Nature Quixote of Quebec's art scene and the hands of residents from the territory, Dialogues will be puiblished by the quiet muse behind the art. The secret juxtaposing them with images of the State University of New York Press of Vaillancourt's work ultimately comes wildlife living in this northern region in 2004. from nature, a primary source of inspi- of Canada. In Le coeur des lIes (2000), Armantd Vaillancourt will be the ration, and his love of life. During the Vaillancourt placed a red enameled siubiect of a retrospective exhibition 1950s, he spent nine months in the heart at the center of a wrecked boat to be held in sutnmm11er 2004 at the country in monastic solitude to reflect in homage to the fishing heritage of MAus&e du Bas-St-Laurenzt in Riviere- on his own private questions about life's the Iles-de-la-Madeleine in the Gulf of duz-Lozp, Quebec; the show will purpose. "The city makes us blind and St. Lawrence. Vaillancourt's allegorical travel in Canada, the U.S., and makes us forget the meaning of life. I sculpture was seen floating for the Mexico.

TITLE: Playing with Fire: Armand Vaillancourt SOURCE: Sculpture 23 no1 Ja/F 2004 WN: 0400100727015

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