PATRICK MIKHAIL
PATRICK MIKHAIL IN MONTRÉAL PRESENTS “MASS FLOW” AN EXHIBITION OF NEW WORKS BY MICHAEL A. ROBINSON
MASS FLOW
MICHAEL A. ROBINSON
MONTRÉAL
MARCH 19 TO APRIL 23, 2022
ARTIST RECEPTION:
SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2022
2 P.M. TO 5 P.M.
‘’The horizon of the present, both conceptually and visually, seems to be dominated by pulverization, and scattering. These forms evoke pixels – as if to signal the decomposable structure of the universe and the precarious nature of our political systems.’’
Nicolas Bourriaud, The Exform.
PATRICK MIKHAIL in Montréal is pleased to present MASS FLOW, an exhibition of new works by Montreal multidisciplinary artist MICHAEL A. ROBINSON. In his first solo presentation with Patrick Mikhail, Robinson has produced a site-specific installation of sculptures and drawings that advances his interest in the use of recontextualized objects harvested from his everyday life, drawing attention to their hidden meanings.
To oppose a system, Robinson states, one must first conceive its nature as precarious. Nothing unsettles our confidence in the future more than displays of ruins, scattered debris, and images of fragility. For Mass Flow, Robinson has tried to bring this precarity to life. Through an immense volume of discarded commodities, he has embodied his own account of the destiny of objects once they have been forgotten and has reinjected them with vitality. These works, he contemplates, are forms of dispossession, the devalued ensemble of objects that no one wanted to see any longer. Robinson’s hope is that engaging and experiencing the works in the exhibition will permit them to function again; to reveal their intensities. As French artist Pierre Huyghe once said, the point here is “not to exhibit something to someone, but to exhibit someone to something.”
Everything subtracted from the present is added to the future with interest.
Michael A. Robinson is a multidisciplinary artist, producer of sculptural installations, drawings, cast works, and image-based works. Employing formalist and conceptual approaches, his work plays deliberately on the mixing and juxtaposing of creative strategies as they relate to modernism and to contemporary art. Robinson mixes ideas and intuitions with material playfulness and invention, privileging immediacy over tedium, questioning and opening over conclusions and affirmations. He often works with objects harvested from his everyday life; recontextualizing objects as “art materials” as a way of drawing attention to the sometimes hidden meanings of objects, the role objects play in our lives.
Robinson lives and works in Montreal. He teaches sculpture and drawing at UQAM's Department of Visual and Media Arts. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University, in Montreal and a Masters of Fine Arts from Université de Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne.