Cooke-Sasseville’s Golden Recipe

In their Silence on coule installation (2005),1 1  - The title literally means “silence, we’re sinking,” but it also refers to the phrase “silence on tourne” usually uttered by cinema directors on set before the camera starts rolling (it is the English equivalent of “action”). The installation was originally shown in Montreal at the Quartier Éphémère de la Fonderie Darling in the context of a group show entitled Débraye : voitures à controverse (22 July – 22 September 2005). A second version was shown in the exhibition C’est arrivé près de chez vous. L’art actuel à Québec (Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, 4 December 2008 – 12 April 2009). artist duo Cooke-Sasseville made a brutal comparison between sexuality and the universe of the automobile. In the centre of a room that was entirely painted black, the artists constructed an odd-looking basin atop an elevated platform surrounded by a protective transparent enclosure. Within, the viewer encountered a ­series of phallus — and vulva-like golden objects that spurted a liquid ­bearing an uncanny resemblance to oil — that black gold whose exploitation has given rise to all too many conflicts. A series of words referring to the car or its owner were spelled out in golden letters and placed on the adjacent walls; thus, the installation encompassed the reading of such adjectives as: ­performant (performing), arrogante (arrogant), précieuse (precious), puissante (powerful), ambitieuse (ambitious), vigoureuse (vigorous), etc.

In this work Cooke-Sasseville drew on references stemming from the sphere of the sacred: the installation itself looked much like an altar, and the pervasive use of gold was in keeping with an iconic tradition in which this material symbolizes light and, therefore, divine power. However, in Silence on coule such religious conventions were in the service of a cult of the car. In some sense, the artists sought to parody what has become a widespread cult-like relation to the automobile — i.e., that brand of car fetishism that expresses a manly and macho sexuality, as the cliché goes. Ultimately, the artists ironically addressed issues stemming from popular culture and the world of commodities which, according to Barthes and Baudrillard, also belong to a sign-based economy.