ARMAND VAILLANCOURT
SCULPTOR PAINTER INNOVATOR
by Robert J. Lewis
* * * * * * * * * *
Armand
Vaillancourt made the cover of Newsweek in 1973. His
works have been featured twice in Time Magazine. In 1967
he won Canada’s Governor General’s Award. He was commissioned
by the City of San Franscisco (1967-1971) to design and supervise
the construction of the world-famous Vaillancourt Fountain. But
the sum of these deserving recognitions tells nothing of the artist’s
imagination or how it informs his inspired approach to being-in-the-world.
When
it comes to post-modern art, I was as skeptical as the next person
until Armand Vaillancourt invited me to see his work which overfills
the many rooms of his home on Esplanade St. in Montreal, as well
as the huge installations crammed into his ample yard. However,
it was only after the art had been viewed and we were well on
our way to a nearby café, that what I call the Vaillancourt-effect
began to take hold.
Keeping
up with hyperactive and agile 74 years old Armand Vaillancourt
is a fast-walk, sudden-stop affair. “Look at this,”
he says with a child’s delight in discovering the endlessly
fascinating world around him. Armand is admiring two vaguely opposed
dents in a less than pleasant smelling municipal garbage can.
“Imagine painting the first dent in red, the second yellow,
the barrel in black and putting it on a revolving stand. It would
be beautiful.” Come on Armand, I say to myself. That’s
not art. A minute later he stops again. “Look over here.”
He’s now admiring the grain on a wooden window sill where
the paint has peeled back. “Isn’t it beautiful,”
he says, not particularly interested in whether I agree or not,
so enraptured is he by it. “Imagine it ten times its size,
in a museum. Everyone would stop and look at it.”
Three
or four art-stops later, we finally arrive at his favorite café
on the corner of St. Laurent and Rachel.
The magic
and majesty of Armand Vaillancourt lies in his refusal to accept
the ugliness and banality in the things of the world. Through
the imaginative technique of recontextualization, he makes us
understand that the beauty we overlook is not a fault of the thing
itself but rather a shortcoming in ourselves. Through his example,
he inspires us to take responsibility for our imagination (the
body’s most under-exercised muscle), and by extension, the
aesthetic state of affairs of the world. If
most industrial waste is geared to recyclage, Vaillancourt expropriates
what are ordinarily regarded as uninteresting, utilitarian objects
– from rusted-out lathes to rotted tree trunks to junked
car hoods – and resituates them in order to elicit their
purity, their symmetries, the harmony of their parts, their natural
beauty. Spend a day with Vaillancourt and he will have you believing
there isn’t anything that can’t be rendered beautiful,
such is the power of the artist to transform our world.
Among
Vaillancourt’s most innovative and magnificent works are
his bronze sculptures from the 1970s made from Styrofoam moulds
and cast in the lost wax technique. They are currently on exhibit
at La Galleria, 1618 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal.
For further
information you may contact the owner: Josef Mizzi at
lagalleria45@hotmail.com or
(514) 932-7585.
