Club Gemini (2019-2022)
Club Gemini is an exhibition built around a 30-minute audio documentary about Paul Bédard, the founder of Québec’s first homophile organization entitled International Sex Equality Anonymous and collages constructed with photographs from the dancefloor of a club opened by the organization. The exhibition features the only recording of the voice of one of the club’s founding members.
Club Gemini grants a furtive glimpse into a nightclub of the same name. Opening shortly before the partial decriminalization of gay sex in Canada came into effect, it was raided by the Montreal police one Saturday night in April 1969, one month after it opened, on the same night as shots could be heard as the Montreal police culled a wolf pack that had established itself in the city’s central mountain park, a few streets away. After the club was shut down, the activist organization disbanded; the group’s charismatic founder was last heard from in remote Northern Quebec, leaving only a farewell letter to his two lovers.
Stereo audio track (00:29:00∞ loop), red light gel, black velvet cushions, black velvet mask, archival photograph, paper, resin
‡ Club Gemini, Centre Clark (Montreal, Canada) 2019
‡ Art Pop, Pop Montreal, Rialto Theatre (Montreal, Canada) 2019
‡ Indexing Resistance, The Plumb (Toronto, Canada) 2022