Master decorator
Isa Tousignant
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Montreal illuminated by De Richemont
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Xavier de Richemont gives style to Just For Laugh's substance
Parisian artist-cum-international scale production designer Xavier de Richemont brings light to the world. You'll have seen his work before if you've ever been to Just For Laughs; he's a yearly fixture, and for good reason. One year he transformed the church of Place de la Cathédrale into a green, blue and orange beacon of celestial illumination; last year he projected a whole drawn narrative onto Théâtre St-Denis. "This year I'll hardly do any buildings," says the very affable artist. "They're mostly sites that have been chosen in function of the festival moving back into the downtown core. It's a matter of illuminating certain walls, certain façades, without really seeking to enhance the architecture, but rather to create a general composition on the site, corner of De Maisonneuve and St-Laurent."
The goodies De Richemont is planning comprise a work he calls Les Deux Tours, projected onto a condo building right on that corner; a continuation of his Mûr Mûr project from last year; a work he calls Grand Gribouillage, projected onto a parking lot; and the most poetic of the offerings, in my mind, a work called Le Jardin des Loups, which pays homage to the wolf sculptures that inhabit the little park at Ontario and St-Urbain.
"Le Jardin des Loups will be on the plaza facing the Bell Building, and it's an installation with chairs, wolves
and black light," he describes excitedly. "The chairs will be phosphorescent and I'll paint them and the wolf silhouettes, and I'll be working directly on the tree trunks."De Richemont is one of those participants in Just For Laughs who has helped further the fest's mandate to do more than just assemble funny guys. With his help, its scope has been expanded to include anything that makes its public happy.
Xavier de Richemont
Watch for his outdoor works at nightfall throughout the site
July 13-23
