François Morelli at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Montreal artist François Morelli gave a well-received lecture at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts on Jan. 18, 2006, as part of the high-profile Defiant Imagination series that is a joint project of the Museum and Montreal's Concordia University. François, who has given key advice to The Art Collective, titled his presentation Sleep, Eat and Go. In this overview covering 30 years, he presented a selection of his sculptures, installations and graphic works that stem from these three activities of his daily life. Alone or accompanied, he systematically notes and celebrates his encounters and the passage of time. Weaving a peripatetic narrative framework, he has developed a poetic and personal syntax built from a system of symbols that is dream-based and political. The presentation was framed as a journey that highlighted the key moments of his career.
To read an account of the presentation in The Journal, please click here:
Journal Story here
To read about François Morelli's work presented at the Biennale de Montréal in 2002, please click here: Biennale page
Here is an excerpt from the website of the University of Lethbridge, where he gave a presentation in December 2003: Morelli's research questions the status of the object within the creation process and the perception of the work. Notions of passage, circulation and transformation are essential in his work; according to him, the object is often the echo of a passed action or an intervention translating the relation of the artist with society, individuals between themselves, or of an individual with the object.
Born in Montreal, François Morelli completed his BFA at Concordia University in 1975 and an MFA at Rutgers University in 1983. Morelli's work has been shown extensively; including solo exhibitions at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, 2003; Gallerie R3, Trois Rivières, 2003; Galerie Christiane Chassay, Montreal, 2002; and in group exhibitions Walkways, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, Western Washington University, Washington and Oakville Art Gallery, Oakville; Corp et Machine, Galerie d'art de I'UQAM, Montreal; and La Biennale de Montréal, Le Centre international d'art contemporain de Montréal.