One itinerary, twenty-five years of exhibitions
Retrospective

In 2020 the Canadian Cultural Centre is marking its fiftieth anniversary. To highlight this event – and the major gift of twenty-five years of visual arts archives made to France within the framework of the reopening of the centre in a brand new space – I have made a selection for you in the form of an itinerary. An itinerary with two levels, rooted in our present as well as in our history. This selection is not by any means the best or the most significant or the most representative. It is one itinerary among many. What counts here is the reminder that every element takes its place in an ensemble and from that ensemble emerges a certain portrait. Here, it is a certain national portrait with no claims to objectivity. 

Every itinerary entails a beginning and an end but, for all that, is not reduced to a chronological order. Thus, the itinerary set out by this selection is not chronological. As in any exhibition, it is the proximity of the works to each other and their mutual influence that creates meaning. It is the evocation of a certain exhibition after another that will give the exercise its meaning.  

On the other hand, there are two underlying chronologies: first, the itinerary began in the middle of the period of confinement and will last until the end of December 2020, which allowed me to calculate that the selection will include thirty-eight exhibitions; then, the itinerary involving the exhibitions related to the archival gift, that is from 1993 to present. 

For the moment, I am developing the selection from week to week without commenting on it as I prefer to let evocation do its work.   

Catherine Bédard
Curator of the exhibition programme, Canadian Cultural Centre

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