MARC-ANTOINE K. PHANEUF

COLLECTION DE TROPHÉES

From the street, Marc-Antoine K. Phaneuf’s installation grabs our attention with its flashy aesthetic. Over 170 sports trophies from the 1960s to the 1990s are gloriously displayed on staggered platforms, like the athletes who once proudly brandished them on the podium. But although they may symbolize victory, their engraved plaques commemorate some rather wild exploits and even a few sordid events. Each trophy can unleash a unique narrative of its own, each one more bizarre or outlandish than the next. But beyond the fiction, the piece also reveals part of Québec’s history, its exploits, its tragedies, and the ordinariness in between.

Marc-Antoine K. Phaneuf’s works present themselves as lighthearted invitations to create a narrative with him. The artist and writer brings together disparate or similar elements from popular culture, to humorous effect, and his accumulations invite us to create links between certain details, and even question their surprising presence. Several artist-run-centers and galleries across Québec have held solo exhibitions of his work, which has also been included in group exhibitions at the National Gallery of Canada, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Musée des beaux-arts de Sherbrooke, and other venues in Québec, Canada, and in France.