Eager Vanity

 

Patrick Bérubé is a Montreal-based artist whose work combines installation and sculpture in a humorous, direct, and ironic manner. Eager Vanity is composed of a taxidermy bird peeking out of a ventilation system, with a gun, crown, skull, and candlestick covered in birdseed below it. The juxtaposition evokes the dichotomy of desire and deprivation, as it suggests an explicit desire on the bird’s behalf, while also rendering this desire impossible, futile. Bérubé’s installation also references art history and the notion of a vanitas painting, which typically features a skull within a still life painting as a meditation on the transient nature of earthly goods and pursuits. Here, Bérubé creates a real-life, sculptural vanitas as installation. Eager Vanity activates the West 10th Window and the viewer in turn, with feelings of desire, irony, humor, frustration, and deprivation.

 

A Montreal native, Patrick Bérubé obtained a master’s degree in visual and media arts from the Université du Québec in 2005. Bérubé’s work has been exhibited internationally, including shows in the US, France, Spain, Germany, Canada, and Mexico. He has also received several art prizes, including the jury prize at the Manifestation Internationale d’art de Québec in 2005, and was a finalist for the Pierre Ayot Award in 2010 and 2011. Bérubé has also participated in many residencies throughout France, Canada, and Spain, including the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec in Barcelona, Spain in 2009 and the Cité internationale des arts Paris in 2007. He has been a member of the Pique-Nique public art collective since 2001 and is an active member of Clark Art Center in Montreal.

 

Coming up at W10W: Caitlin Cocco and Dylan Palmer

 

The West 10th Street Window is curated by Natalie Diaz and Jennie Lamensdorf and is sponsored by the Time Equities Inc. (TEI) Art-in-Buildings Program. TEI is committed to enriching the experience of our properties through the Art-in-Buildings Program, an innovative approach that brings contemporary art by emerging and mid-career artists to non-traditional exhibition spaces in the interest of promoting artists, expanding the audience for art, and creating a more interesting environment for our building occupants, residents, and their guests.