L’ÉTOFFE DU PRINCE ET SON ÉTERNITÉ
Claude-Philippe Benoit

The exhibition runs from October 4 to November 3, 2001

Claude-Philippe Benoit is an urban wanderer, who for several years has concentrated his research on visiting places of power. L’étoffe du prince et son éternité is the final chapter of a large body of work entitled Les Lieux Maîtres, a three-part series on sites where power resides.

In the preceding chapters Ô-NU (1992-1993) and Chapitre… du Prince (1995-1999), Benoit’s well known photographs depicted arenas of power, notably vacant conference rooms of the United Nations headquarters and a deserted trading floor of the Montreal stock exchange. Included in Chapitre…du Prince were photographs of a tailor at work and boutiques for men’s apparel.

L’étoffe du prince et son éternité (2000-2001) gazes upon the tailor’s shop as a vehicle in the elevation of social status, a servant in the fabrication of identities. In an eloquent commentary on the symbolic nature of the suit and the coat of arms, nine diptych photographs feature various tailors workshops and costume studios coupled with images of solitary emblems. As in many of the previous works, the interiors are empty of any human presence, creating a sense of suspended time. These images of tailors workshops crowded with bolts of fabric, tailored suits and sewing machines are a delicate balance between the documentary and the archeological.

Claude-Philippe Benoit received a diploma in Visual Arts and Cinematography from Algonquin College in Ottawa in 1975, and a masters degree in Fine Arts from Concordia University in Montréal in 1994. He was co-founder and president of Axe Néo-7, Art Contemporain in Hull, Québec from 1983 to 1987, and in 1988, founded the Centre de Production Daïmôn, also in Hull.

His work has been exhibited extensively in Québec, Canada and in Europe including solo exhibitions at Occurence, Montréal; Vu, Québec; Musée de Trouville, (France); Centre d’art contemporain de Rueil-Malmaison, (France); Espace 502, Édifice Belgo, Montréal; Genereux Grunwald Gallery, Toronto; Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa; Galerie Brenda Wallace, Montréal; Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver; The Power Plant, Toronto.

Selected recent group exhibitions include: Biennale internationale de l’image, Nancy (France); Le printemps de Cahors, Cahors (France); Instants photographiques, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal and Paris; and Encontros da imagen, Braga (Portugal). Claude-Philippe Benoit lives and works in Montréal.