McCord Museum’s provocative “Camp Fires” exhibition explores gay identity

The McCord Museum presents the provocative exhibition, Camp Fires: The Queer Baroque of Léopold L. Foulem, Paul Mathieu and Richard Milette, which explores explicit themes and gay identity via 60 works by three internationally-renowned French-Canadian ceramic artists.

“The works have been assembled around the theme ‘Queer Baroque’ because all three artists explore aspects of Baroque,” says exhibition curator Robin Metcalfe. “All three artists were raised in Catholic culture which is steeped in the Baroque, which itself was appropriated in the construction of queer identity: aristocratic and aesthetic sensibilities were appropriated in the 19^th century by people constructing a new homosexual identity, people like Oscar Wilde. For instance, the painting Blue Boy (by Thomas Gainsborough) exemplified masculinity in its day, but is seen as very gay today. It has come to be read that way because of the appropriation of the aesthetic.”

Produced by Toronto’s Gardiner Museum, this touring exhibition is currently on display at the McCord Museum until August 15, 2015.

Metcalfe says the three artists were chosen because of their longstanding relationships with one another: Milette and Mathieu were students together, and Milette and Foulem are married.

“They also share a common political discourse and produce ceramics as a form of contemporary art,” Metcalfe adds. “I work as a contemporary art curator and it’s not always easy to get people in the contemporary art community to pay attention to arts in a ceramics museum. So I think it’s great to have this show hosted in Montréal, a city closely identified with all three artists.”

While Foulem, Mathieu and Milette have all exhibited extensively internationally for decades, this is their first museum exhibition in Montréal. The exhibition is a good fit with the McCord, which is dedicated to the preservation, study and appreciation of Montréal’s history, and is home to one of the largest historical collections in North America, consisting of First Peoples objects, costumes and textiles, photographs, decorative and visual artworks, and textual archives, totalling more than 1.4 million artefacts.

“The presentation of this exhibition is an acknowledgement not only of the undeniable talent of these artists and their recognition beyond Canada’s borders, but also of the openness of Montréal and society’s changing attitudes,” says McCord Museum President and CEO Suzanne Sauvage. “Camp Fires aims to underscore the importance and contribution of the gay community to the city’s social fabric.”

Foulem smiles broadly. “Some people think ceramics is not art. But our art is art. So we are delighted our work is being exhibited at the McCord.”

There is also a bilingual 114-page Camp Fires catalogue with numerous coloured illustrations on sale at the McCord Museum Boutique ($28).