Title/Theme: I babble, therefore I am
Participating artists: Jocelyne Aird-Bélanger | Adrien Asselin | Noémie Avidar | Berko | Valérie Boivin | Patricia Bouffard-Lavoie | Gail Bourgeois & Pira Pirani | Renée Chevalier | Pál Csaba | Michael Cumming | Lillianne Daigle | Céline J. Dallaire | Krasi Dimtch | Richard Doutre | Agata Dworzak-Subocz | Marilyn Etchky | Laurence Finet | Denyse Gérin | Olena Golub | John Graham | Saeko Hanji | Florentia Ikonomidou | René Kempen | Isao Kobayashi | Denis Larouche | Denis Leclerc | Mandeep Singh Manu | Mónica Márquez | Louise Mercure | Joseph Muscat | Ralph Nevins | André Paquin | Martine Périat | Henry Pouillon | Josée Prud’homme | Izabella Retkowska | Anne Roulant & Gilles Guillaume | Carole Roy | Komi Seshie | Svetlana Swinimer | Gilles Vallée | Jozina Marina Van Hees | Michel Vautier | Michael Wagner| Pierre Woerner
I babble, therefore I am
Walter Benjamin foresaw it 80 years ago. Andy Warhol put it in practice 50 years ago. More recently contemporary art philosopher Yves Michaud described it in these terms: “As for producers, artists, artisans, and curators, the point is not to show master pieces but to leave one’s mark, to be recognized, and to endure, including as often through the fiction of a redesigned and forged identity.” It is the triumph of aestheticism.
Self-exposure has stimulated the artistic community before spreading to the general population through the Facebook syndrome. A Facebook wall can be considered as a work of art. Mixing text, fixed and moving images, sound, and hyperlinks (it’s multimedia!), everyone projects a made-up life on it. It’s low art, of course, but it addresses the same issues as high art contemporary artists.
The 12th International Digital Miniprint Exhibition invited artists to push the issue, to aestheticize their personal and ordinary life, and to convey the astonishing beauty of meaningless things. Subjects abound: selfies, daily life in its utmost banality, the superficiality of personal histories, the sensation of spectacular odysseys, and the kitsch of familiar objects. The perspective could be serious or ironic, polished or sketched, plainly factual or strangely imaginary. The key, always and everywhere, is to push oneself forward and blow one’s own horn.
— Raymond Aubin, curator