With a selection of about twenty emblematic works by Pierre Ayot created between 1965 and 1991, Chiguer art contemporain invites you to the exhibition “A (not so) ordinary day or The art of everyday life”. A master in the art of trompe-l’oeil, Ayot’s seemingly light-hearted work invites us to take a close, ironic look at society through the objects that accompany us in our daily life and to imagine the moments of emotion, pleasure, desire or annoyance to which these objets are material witnesses.
The exhibition takes the visitor on a chronological journey through a fictitious day, threading together essential moments, from getting up to going to a bed. Throughout this day, we come across objets, concepts and ideas from four decades ago, some of which are outdated, while others remain relevant today. In the manner of an archivist, Ayot catalogs a multitude of elements and, by integrating them into his works, he portrays the society in which he lives. Following the course of the artist’s occupations, friendships, passions and research, this body of work also reveals how he has developed varied methods, initially through photography and silkscreen printing, gradually integrating the third dimension and installation into his practice.
Ayot’s iconography is freely inspired by Pop imagery, graphic design, cinema, comics and popular culture, which he expresses through a variety of techniques and mediums. The artist playfully engages the viewer by introducing numerous visual traps, juxtaposing the real and the unreal, the tangible object and its representation, inviting the viewer to share with him a (not so) ordinary day.
Pierre Ayot (1943 – 1995) was a multidisciplinary artist. His work has been presented in more than thirty solo exhibitions, and is represented in most major Canadian public and corporate collections, as well as in a number of foreign collections, including those of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate Gallery in London. Major exhibitions have been devoted to his work, notably in 1980 at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, in 1992 at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Pierre Ayot et son Museum Circus) and in 2001 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Pierre Ayot: Hors-cadre(s)).
