This project began in the context of the celebration of the
400th anniversary of Quebec City. The project, ‘6 emissaries’
invited 6 artists to carry out a photographic mission in the city. The challenge was to capture images of a specific place in the present moment in time. Doyon-Rivest decided to take advantage of the opportunity to photograph places that are not normally open to the citizens and visitors to Quebec. This series plays with cultural clichés, as a cast of characters in costume visit these sites around the city. In their poses, they become mannequins and the city is treated as a museum.
Doyon-Rivest is a pair of artists who are inspired by the aesthetics and methods used in the advertising industry and in commerce. They frequently incorporate their own logo into
artworks. Doyon-Rivest has a “two-headed” nature. One of
the artistic directors has a background in visual art and the
other in graphic design, and they use these two approaches
to this interdisciplinary project to question the challenges
of both contemporary art and the world of marketing. Their
work is not a critique or an apology for publicity. Instead
they appropriate conventions and strategies from marketing
and apply them to their artistic practice.
Doyon-Rivest was founded in Québec in 2000. Mathieu
Doyon is a visual artist and musician. Simon Rivest is a
designer and art director in advertising.
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