Galerie Trois Points is delighted to present Tables d’écoute, a solo exhibition of work by Mario Côté, curated by Patrice Loubier, from October 12^th to November 16^th, 2013. This exhibition is a new chapter in Côté’s ongoing project, begun several years ago, of translating the audible into the visible.

Mario Côté’s work is abundantly diverse.  From painting inspired by cinema or music, to videos featuring spoken texts or interpreted choreographies, his work has something of the documentary about it, but refuses any narrow definition.  It is brought to life by acts of borrowing, shifting, and displacement – between works, media, and codes.

Tables d’écoute presents new series’, never before exhibited, as well as works in progress to examine the dynamic translation of sound into sight.  While the paintings of the Crippled Symmetriesseries transpose, bar for bar, the piano part from Morton Feldman’s eponymous musical composition (1983), the Dessins d’enregistrement (2003) attempt a “faithful” visual recording of every sound in a defined space and time, and the Dessins C.S. P 1 à 7 (2012-13) are based on scribbles made while talking on the telephone.  All of this work attempts to translate the aural into the visual, to shuffle back and forth between hearing and vision.  But apart from the systems they set in motion, these works reveal an economy of process in which the creative act pauses and forges ahead through acts of borrowing, homage, collaboration and a constant refocusing on the work.  Colour holds an important, even crucial, place in Côté’s work, translating rhythms from the musical to the pictorial.

Mario Côté lives and works in Montreal where, since 1989, he has taught at the Université du Québec à Montréal. His work has been exhibited widely in Canada, in Quebec in particular, as well as in Germany, Spain, and France.  His work is held in numerous museum and corporate collections, most notably at the National Gallery of Canada, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Galerie de l’UQAM collection, the Caisses Desjardins collection and the Loto-Québec collection.

Parallel Event :
November 9 : Sound Readings (Chantale Laplante and Julian Stein, Steve Giasson and Sophie Castonguay)

Press release

Exhibition Press