Marc Paradis (1955-2019) was a pioneer of queer video in Quebec and Canada. Since his debut work, Le voyage de l’ogre (1981), he has interrogated notions of sexuality, the body and homosexual identity. He was an obsessive and transgressive artist, whose aesthetic oscillates between raw and explicit realism (La cage) and a certain classicism, particularly in his representations of the body (Harems) and in his pictural references. The texts, their literary quality and their declamation play a central role (Réminiscences carnivores [Carnivorous Reminiscences]) and lend a tragic resonance to these stories of love, sex, rupture and death. L’incident « Jones », Lettre à un amant [Letter to a Lover] and Délivre-nous du mal [Deliver us from Evil] form a triptych that condense these intimate and artistic questionings.
These two programs comprise seven titles made between 1981 and 1991. They accompany the launch of Vidéographe’s bilingual digital publication Marc Paradis, an Ogre’s Desire which comprises three new texts by Luc Bourdon, Alexis Lemieux, and Denis Vaillancourt, the 17 videos made by Paradis, including two previously unseen works, and a rich selection of personal documents – scripts, notes and photographs.
PROGRAM #1 (69 min)
May 5, 2021
- Marc Paradis, Le voyage de l’ogre, 1981, 24 min
- Marc Paradis, Harems, 1991, 45 min
PROGRAM #2 (65 min)
May 7, 2021
- Marc Paradis, L’incident « Jones », 1986, 7 min
- Marc Paradis, Délivre-nous du mal, 1987, 9 min
- Marc paradis, Lettre à un amant, 1988, 10 min
- Marc Paradis, Réminiscences carnivores, 1989, 19 min
- Marc Paradis, La cage, 1983, 20 min
► Consult the full program [+]
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Montréal, Marc Paradis (1955-2019) studied drama and visual arts. Between 1978 and 1990, he also trained with the likes of Józef Robakowski, Bruno Bigoni, Jerzy Grotowski and Michael Kriegman. Paradis became interested in video in 1981, when he did a screen test for French filmmaker Jean-François Garsi, for whom he worked as an assistant. He went on to make Le voyage de l’ogre, the first of his 17 productions. His works question and consider romantic relationships between men, desire, fantasy, and the representation of sexuality, at times playing with the borders of pornography. In 1984, he made Schème video [Video Scheme] with Luc Bourdon, followed by Say Cheese for a Trans-Canadian Look the following year, two works that look at video art in Canada. He also made portraits and video recordings of artists such as Denis Lessard, John Mingolla and Yves Lalonde. His work has received national and international recognition. Marc Paradis died in Montreal in the summer of 2019.
ONLINE PROGRAMMING
May 5 and 7, 2021
Event co-presented by VIVO Media Arts Centre
Available from 7pm. Streaming ends at 11pm.
Free event
► Facebook event[+]
► Consult the publication on Vithèque[+]
► Trailer, Marc Paradis’ An Ogre’s Desire[+]
