On exhibit from September 10 to October 28, 2020 with weekly maintenance visits by the artist.
As part of the City of Montreal project Voies actives et sécuritaires – Œuvres et installations artistiques 
Located on the site of DARE-DARE, south of the intersection of Atwater Avenue and Notre Dame Street, near the Atwater Market
Interactive map – select green location arrow. Link to work is the first item on the list. 

(This is) What happens when a thing is maintained (?), part IV, is an alternative to the conventional idea of public art as stayed, static, non-changing.  Instead the focus is on temporality, ephemerality and change as aesthetic qualities that also define sculpture.  With its three towers of hollow cast beeswax bricks, the piece is susceptible to deterioration which allows for the performance of some maintenance. The bricks that form the towers are casts of clay bricks, a ubiquitous component for building structures in which society lives and works. Beeswax provides a reference to the foundational material that support the work and social hierarchies of the honeybee community. With the malleability to take on desired shapes, the hollow beeswax bricks form the towers with limited strength. Exposure to the elements (natural and human), reveal in a short period of time the cyclical nature of building, deterioration and maintenance, and the attention required to restore and revalue the original.

(This is) What happens when a thing is maintained (?), initiated in 2004 and installed in Viger Square (Montreal), was the inaugural exhibition within the experimental framework of Dis/location, a project in which DARE-DARE moved from the white cube to a mobile office entrenched in the urban environment, a project that continues beyond these days in 2020. The current manifestation is thanks to the City of Montreal and the Voies actives et sécuritaires – Œuvres et installations artistiques, a project that provides for previously exhibited sculptural works to be installed throughout the city along the routes designated as safe passage for pedestrian traffic during the time of the pandemic of 2020. DARE-DARE has graciously provided administrative support and the site near Atwater Market, a Dis/location for the mobile office since 2015, a fitting collaboration for the re-presentation of this work.

Images from the performance sculpture

Photographs and videos captured by
Ulric Manteaux (UM), Douglas Scholes (DS)
and Laurie Lamoureux Scholes (LLS).

Limited quantity of beeswax bricks at
Galerie Robertson Ares

During deinstallation of the performance sculpture, a small quantity of beeswax bricks were set aside and are now available from Galerie Robertson Ares at a special limited time cost of $50 each.

Thanks!

This project supported and funded under the Agreement on the Cultural Development of Montreal between the City of Montreal and the Government of Quebec.
See full list of artistic works sponsored through this project.

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