19.11.2021 - 13.02.2022
The 5th International Digital Art Biennial (BIAN), organized by ELEKTRA
Arsenal Montreal
2021.05.08 - 2021.06.07
Ruhr Ding: Climate
Urbane Künste Ruhr, Germany
2020.02.09 - 2020.08.30
La main du magicien dans la froide lumière du jour
Musée d'art contemporain des Laurentides, Canada
2020.06.25 - 2020.11.08
Zero Emission
Museum Leipzig, Germany
2020.03.17
Courant Vert
Espace EDF, Paris
2020.02.11 - 2020.05.12
Thresholds
Palais des Congrès de Montréal, Canada
2019.10.31 - 2019.12.08
Montréal ~ Habana : Rencontres en art actuel / Encuentros de Arte Contemporáneo
Havana, Cuba
2019.09.09
Poetry Lies In Between
CityLeaks Festival Center, Cologne, Germany
2019.05.20 - 2019.05.24
CoExistence
2019 ICRA-X Robotic Art Program, Palais des congrès de Montréal, Canada
2019.05.04 - 2019.07.13
Revolution
Biennale d’architecture et de paysage Versailles, Paris
2019.03.08 - 2019.04.13
Salle des maquettes
Galerie de l'UQAM, Montreal
2019.02.07 - 2019.05.18
Bonne conduite
Angoulême, France (FRAC Poitou-Charentes)
2019.02.20 - 2019.06.09
Thresholds
Âjagemô art space, Ottawa (Canada Council for the Arts)
2018.11.02 - 2018.11.04
Man Ray, Michel de Broin, Juliette Goiffon & Charles Beauté
Artissima, Turin (Galerie Eva Meyer)
2018.10.20 - Work in progress
Deviations
Vancouver Biennale, Vancouver
2018.09.13 - 2018.11.17
La conduite des conduites
Galerie Division, Montreal
2018.07.07 - 2018.08.12
Natura Loci
Magasin Général, Sainte-Madeleine-de-la-Rivière-Madeleine
2018.03.26
Michel de Broin & Kim Gerdes – Machines organiques, machines textuelles
École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
2018.03.08 - 2018.04.17
Elective affinities
Galerie Division, Montreal
2017.08.17 - 2017.10.15
Thresholds
KM3 - A Public Art Event, Quartier des spectacles, Montreal
NEWS ARCHIVES

2012.05.26 – 2013.04.01
Oh, Canada
MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA

Curated by Denise Markonish

Oh, Canada is a group exhibition featuring works by many contemporary Canadian artists including Marcel Dzama, Shary Boyle, BGL, Dean Baldwin and Kelly Mark. As part of the exhibition, the museum also commissioned this new sculptural work by Michel de Broin.


Tortoise, 2012, 346 x 354 x 391 cm


Installation views of Tortoise on site at the MASS MoCA.


Photo by Sarah Wendt.




Tortoise Drawings, 2012, 48 x 60 cm

The sculpture Tortoise uses standard picnic tables—an immediately recognizable representation of North American leisure culture—as building blocks to transform them into an enclosing structure. The assemblage disrupts the way common things are addressed and revalidates the implicit codes by which they are approached, perceived, and understood. This semiotic reconfiguration of a very open and approachable cultural element into an almost hermetic formation, simultaneously addresses military and police history. The ancient Roman “tortoise formation” is a tactic, commonly used during military campaigns, obviously taking its principles from the animal of its namesake. Inspired by the plated carapace that protects the land turtle from predators, the military formation is a defensive architecture powered by humans. The soldiers compose their individual shields into an overall armor that protects the entire unit from projectiles. More recently, we have seen this strategy used by riot police. Showing their undersides and using their legs in an almost defensive manner against surrounding threats, the picnic tables of Tortoise form a fort, defining and guarding its inner space. Notwithstanding its fortified character, the wooden formation invites physical interaction especially for children who will like to crawl inside and playfully hide from adults. By re-appropriating picnic tables, Michel de Broin has literally turned this American symbol of leisure inside out to create a sculpture that of itself resists its essential banality, while offering a plethora of alternative uses.