The cast of a man kneeling with his hands above his head, made of unpolished white plaster, rests in the midst of a quiet gallery. Bare chested and in his underwear, the figure emits the unnerving stillness of a sculptural monument while brimming with the vitality of a breathing body. Pulsating with the energy of a life on the edge, in medias res<\/em>, the work teeters on the verge of relinquishment or revolt. It evokes both a cathartic, singular moment of bare life, and the now routinely mediatized sight of a Black body at the mercy of violent white power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In cette chair<\/em>(2017 \u2014 2019) the Montr\u00e9al-based artist Stanley F\u00e9vrier performatively expands the fragile act of casting by granting agency to his plaster, reproducing his likeness in sculpture and telegraphing himself into the room. As we literally look down at this carefully postured body, as the white patina of plaster materially conjures suffering and strain instead of classical purity and virtue, we are confronted with the visceral unease of our own privileged position. Regardless of where it is placed in the gallery, the artist\u2019s milky specter acts as a focal point that defies gravity, gently reaching for the ether while weighted back to earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An important part of F\u00e9vrier\u2019s live, photographic, drawn, and object-based work centres on representations and instantiations of his own body in a state of becoming. Documenting the friction of his skin against various surfaces, not in the least the daily traumas of institutional racism and the abrasiveness of polite white liberalism, the artist gives corporeal form to urgency, intensity, and survival. Whether in the creation of a sculptural corpse for a funerary procession,Le silence, c\u2019est la mort, et toi, si tu te tais, tu meurs et si tu parles, tu meurs. Alors dis et meurs !<\/em> (2020), or a series of busts,Les grands espoirs<\/em> (2019 \u2014 2020), F\u00e9vrier plays with the malleabil- ity of wet plaster, its porosity and frailty, as it sets to dry. Repetitively emerging from the flesh of liquid plaster, F\u00e9vrier defies the apolitical discourse that sometimes informs sculptural figuration. Once solidified and embodying his presence, matter is made to matter.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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