In Guns We Trust in Montreal
In Guns We Trust
By Jean-François Bouchard
Arsenal Contemporary
Montreal
Exhibition Dates
September 25–December 20, 2019
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Hello Magenta friends, we hope you had a wonderful summer and are looking forward to fall. Please come out to Arsenal Contemporary gallery in Montreal for the exhibition of In Guns We Trust by Jean-François Bouchard. This exhibition is a must-see.
The first exhibition at Arsenal Contemporary Art New York in spring 2019 was a stunning success, and now you can see it in Canada. It was covered by The Washington Post and listed by Artnet as one of the “22 unmissable shows to see in New York,” In Guns We Trust is now at Arsenal Contemporary Art Montreal.
“Through his surreal series of images and installations, Bouchard parses the extremity of this marginalized gun culture at ground zero, their place of worship. In his brief essay, Douglas Coupland brings us a sharp and insightful take on this culture. This book is a must-have for curious minds trying to comprehend the perplexing condition in which we find ourselves.” – Edward Burtynsky
“In the exhibition In Guns We Trust, Jean-François Bouchard’s fleet of cinematic photographs, found objects, and video carve out a complex image of American gun culture deep in the heart of Arizona. Eerily lit, taken from aerial views, these vivid images relay the effects of a culture on the land while offering panoramic insight into a social sphere otherwise concealed.
The photographs of In Guns We Trust follow the artist’s pursuit into the Big Sandy Shooting Range, chronicling the material and physical activity of gun aficionados in a unique form of tourism. Narrowing his foray into a macro discussion of guns in the US, Bouchard resolves to enter the conversation with precision rather than derision, while nevertheless being set apart from his subjects.
Captured in the deep hues of arid sunsets, set against a roving desert landscape, Bouchard’s images offer gravitas to this material culture of great destruction. Motor vehicles pocked repeatedly by bullets, desert flora covered in smut from a recent explosion, a flip-flop donning woman flaunting her Uzi machine gun-these are the props, backdrops, costumes, and characters of a theater that exists in a nearby America,” details the Arsenal Contemporary gallery’s write-up of this exhibition (read it in full here).
If you can’t make it to the exhibition, you can also order the publication “In Guns We Trust” directly from us on our online shop.
