Silent Shouts [2008]
Inkjet print, series of 8 photographs, 51 x 75 cm
This photographic series explores moments captured in public transportation where passengers are intertwined with the unintelligible inscriptions that cover the windows. The glass etching technique used recalls the techniques that were used by the first homo sapien on the cave walls. The daily migrants, in their theatricality, are confused by the buzzing of the engravings which violently cry out their presence.
Michel de Broin – Galerie Donald Browne, Montreal
06.09.08 – 11.10.08
Berlin- and Montreal-based artist Michel de Broin has an uncanny knack for making lyrical connections between elemental mechanics and modern life. A case in point is “USURE MENTAL,” an exhibition of new sculpture and photos currently featured at Galerie Donald Browne, which wryly points out some surprisingly obvious common ground in primal urges and mass communication. De Broin’s photo series Silent Shouts reconsiders basic forms of communication in images of heavily etched windows from public transportation vehicles. It’s a thoughtfully observant reading of the innate human need for expression, from the Paleolithic drawings of the Lascaux caves to the stylized painting of graffiti art, and one can’t help but see the inescapable irony that these hastily scratched messages are parts of a legitimate if subversive contemporary visual language all-too-easily overlooked as simple vandalism. – Canadian Art
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