In a scene taken from a famous animation studio, a child is caught pretending to be of ill health. Strangely placed between a real condition and a magic trick, this manipulation cries wolf. The scenario repeats itself in a loop…

Jouer la comédie in French means to play-act. Here a successful trick goes hand in hand with the falsity of things. Props accomplish their fictional functions despite themselves. 

Revisiting the end of an era, Simon Belleau’s installation draws upon the material, technical and aesthetic codes of film sets, with a particular interest in the dramaturgic negotiations that occur at the limits of  the visible realm of the spectacle and the hidden partitions of the backstage.

COMÉDIE oscillates between the suspension of disbelief and the complicity of knowing. 

Simon Belleau (b. 1986, Montreal, QC) completed an MFA in Studio Arts at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015, where he was the recipient of the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust Scholar and Fellow Program grant. He has exhibited at Parisian Laundry, Montreal (2019); Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Italy (2018); Galerie René Blouin, Montreal (2018); Sculpture Center, New York (2018); Raising Cattle, Montreal (2017); Marsèlleria Gallery, New York (2017); OPTICA Centre d’Art Contemporain (2016); VIE D’ANGE, Montreal (2016). Belleau is one of the nine laureates of the Fonderie Darling’s 2019-2022 Montreal Studio Program. Upcoming projects include: Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal (2020) and a solo exhibition at Centre Axénéo7, Gatineau (2021). He lives and works in Montreal.

With exhibition support from Trinity Square Video.