Flawless Fragility

This issue is published in continuity with the themes of “Mutual Actions” and “Waste” that were previously explored in our publication. The ­current theme of “Fragile” allows us to examine how art’s various ­parameters, materials, apparatuses and production modes, even the figure of the ­artist itself, have been weakened. Contributors have answered our ­invitation in the same spirit and have expanded their consideration of the fragile in physical terms—the friability of the object or the fleetingness of the artwork and, subsequently, their modes of conservation—to its various ontological underpinnings. Fragility thus finds its way in an essay on the sublime and the aesthetics of inadequacy where photographic still lifes are paralleled with the Renaissance vanitas (Falvey), while another essay opposes individual singularity (and, by extension, fragility) to the notion of plasticity, with a particular emphasis on attempts to go beyond matter (glass and plastic) “to reveal its ‘spirit,’ that is, its cultural and civilizational import” (Poulin).

Numerous analytical avenues are based on works dealing directly or indirectly with fragility. We’ve noticed that writers in this issue have been particularly driven by the artworks, by their delicate aspect, ­precarious presentation or symbolic materials and subjects. The fleetingness of ­Chih-Chien Wang and Joanne Poitras’s installations, the figurative import of sugar in Aude Moreau’s work, Patrick Beaulieu’s immaterial projects and Sophie Calle’s intimist approach have all offered a solid basis for the ­formulation of various theories and contributed to striking a balance between the work and its analysis, which certainly adds to the strength of this issue.