"They are very clever, very serious brats"
From Canadian Art’s on-line content
Pavilion Projects’s “The Enterprise”
by R. M. Vaughan
Articule, Montreal
Like many young artist collectives, Pavilion Projects have ambitions that far exceed their monetary realities. And so, like all smart young artist collectives, Pavilion Projects relies on the force of its ideas, not on expensive, polished exhibitions, to capture the attention of its audience. This is a polite way of saying that there was not a lot to actually look at when you visited Pavilion Projects’ latest intervention/display/political action, but there was more than enough to think about.
Comprised of three multimedia artists in their mid-twenties—Robin Simpson, Maryse Lariviere, and Francois Lemieux—plus a rotating gang of more senior (and even younger) Montreal artists, Pavilion Projects have quickly staked out a place for themselves in Montreal’s art world by blending action direct-style public interventions with long winded, fervent manifestos (that are, and are not, meant to be taken seriously), and carefully considered installations. They exhibit in found spaces and in professional, artist run centre spaces. They hold parties and orchestrate conferences on the arts. They publish in smart international art magazines and cause scenes at arts bureaucrats’ meetings, just to annoy people. They are very clever, very serious brats.
