[Summer 2026]
Réfléchir
by Alexis Desgagnés
McBride Contemporain, Montréal
15.01.2026 — 21.02.2026
[EXCERPT]
As soon as I walked into Andrea Szilasi’s exhibition, I knew that I wanted to write about it. And yet, the sensitive impact of these works – fifteen collages in various formats, most of them small, and six Polaroids – made me worry about sacrificing them on the altar of discourse, defiling what is profoundly indescribable about them. For the language they used was fundamentally beyond words. Letting them settle slowly, in my heart and mind, I realized that I had to speak not only about an exhibition but about this unique and paradoxical experience.
Szilasi’s collages were made on Polaroids of corners of walls that she had taken in the early 1990s and on torn-out pages of used books about modern architecture, classical sculpture, and decorative arts. Onto these supports she applied pre-cut letters and numbers made of self-adhesive vinyl and the leftover trimmings, which she snipped, tore, and crumpled. The manual, gestural, instinctive nature of her work is evident in the raw look of most of the collages.
[…]
[ Complete issue, in print and digital version, available here: Ciel variable 132 – TABLEAUX ]
[ Complete article in digital version available here: TITRE ARTICLE]
Artist, author, and teacher Alexis Desgagnés lives in Montreal. Éditions du Renard has published his artist books Banqueroute (2016) and Ammoniaque (2021). With Serge Clément, he is the co-author of Métamorphose (2025), co-published by VU and Les éditions Loco.