Myriam Laplante

About work in general:

 

We are sitting on a bench, watching the time go by.

Essentially, my work is an expression of my constant doubts about my position in the world, about humanity and its future; I am looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, a redemption (a deliverance?). Starting new work is a bit like fishing for things that have always been out there in the universe. It takes patience. Once I identify the right image, I have to decipher it and then it emerges as a performance, an installation, a video, a painting, a sculpture or a drawing. If an image is fixed and of something that already exists, it becomes a photo. If it needs a different form, it becomes a painting or drawing. If it cannot be two-dimensional, it becomes a sculpture. If it needs to move, it becomes performance, and if it needs to move defying natural laws, it becomes video. If it cannot make up its mind, it becomes an installation, usually with a performance.

 

When one image prevails, it doesn't leave room for others. It takes up all the mental space. And sometimes it proliferates. When it proliferates it becomes an installation. Otherwise it can become a small drawing.

Drawings are strange: when I do one drawing I have to do a lot more of the same. I can spend three years repeating variations of the same drawing.

Right now I have been drawing flies on wallpaper for a few years.

I ruminate and I brood. It's like learning a new language every time I do new work, and then having to transmit it.

 

You have to be there.

 

About performance:

 

Body art is incorporeal.

 

Performance is like a timeless bubble. I rely on my instinct, my own sense of time and rhythm. I can't seem to be able to control it (or need to control it).

 

The objects I use in a performance (I usually carry a big suitcase of stuff) are connected to my work in sculpture and installation... I can't really dissociate it. I take a very long time to find the appropriate materials, by purpose, colour, feeling, shape, sentimental value etc... I often just make them.

 

Sound is very important although I mostly use "grunts". But lately I have been talking a lot during performances. Mostly asking questions. Many questions.

 

I don't normally make the audience participate actively... Why? I don't know. I can't direct the audience, I prefer to take them on a trip. I drive. I tell them a story.

 

I like the fleeting moment in between, when you throw a stone in a pond, the moment in which the top of the stone is dry and the lower part is wet, when the ripples begin to spread on the surface of the water. This kind of situation happens often in a Black Market International performance, where sometimes beauty appears from the darkness, sometimes boredom leads to knowledge, exploring new ways and refusing rules. Anything can happen. Sometimes the meetings lead to the exhaustion of the artists or of the public.

 

Now-you-see-it-now-you-don´t. You have to be there.

 

About the rest:

 

A finished project always involves failure. If it was completely successful, there would be no need to try again.

 

Einstein said: "Everyone knew it was impossible, until a fool who didn't know came along and did it." It's not about taking risks like flying a plane for the first time and crashing somewhere. It's more like: "There's the wave, let's see where it takes me". It's not scary. It doesn't take courage. It takes more courage to stay rooted, confined into the same work that you do over and over again, to remain safely within a "style".

 

I have no certainties but don't like to be suspicious. I just doubt. Doubt is my speciality.
Because convictions are never indisputable (I'm convinced of that...). Our perception of things is never really objective. We should always overturn our principles to see what lies behind them. I prefer things that are precarious, open and disquieting because they address all our senses. How can you understand equilibrium if you have never vacillated? It's great to get lost! Venturing into grey areas is a thinker's (or a fool's) privilege.

 

About what comes next:

 

I hope I won't repeat myself (too much), I won't get (too) lazy, I won't be (too) boring, and, most important, I hope to maintain the ability to surprise.

 

You just have to be there.

 

Photos

1. Self Portrait, 1996, photo by Giampiero Ortenzi.
2. Fly me to the Moon, 2018, photo by Adelaide Cioni
3. Elements of Critical Doubt....., 2013, photo the artist
4. Phenomenology of Doubt, 2015, photo Sanja Latinovic
5. Black Market International, Berlin 2005, photo Petra Arndt
6. Black Market International, Glasgow 2011, photo National Review of Live Art
7. 10 Flies, oil and acrylic on paper, 2020, photo the artist
8. Mutant Mermaid, 1996, photo Jurgen Fritz
9. Tragen, 2019, photo Thomas Reul
10. Sad Sort, 2008, photo Roberto Vaccai

 

About The Artist

Myriam Laplante is a Canadian artist based in Bevagna, Italy, in a state of permanent doubt. Her installations, videos, paintings, sculptures, drawings and performances have been presented extensively from squats to museums in Europe, North America, and Asia. She has been working with the performance collective Black Market International since 2001.
Her works are in the public collections of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Museo di Arte Contemporanea (Rome), the Galerie Nationale du Québec, National Museum of Photography (Ottawa), Musée de Rimouski, Museo Ettore Fico (Turin).
www.myriamlaplante.net