Maude Arès, Guido Molinari and Anne-Marie Proulx
Performances by Mykalle Bielinski, Horizon Factory and micro-residencies by Vanessa Bell and Catherine Cormier-Larose
Curator: Camille Bédard
From June 11th to August 23rd, 2026, the Guido Molinari Foundation invites the public to rediscover Molinari’s majestic work Vent bleu (1995), a monumental polyptych from the collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. Thanks to a major collaboration with the MNBAQ, the work will return to Montreal and be exhibited at the Guido Molinari Foundation thirty years after its inaugural presentation in 1995, in the very space that once served as the artist’s studio.
A key figure in the history of abstract art in Quebec, Guido Molinari devoted his career to geometric abstraction through colour and the structuring of pictorial space. In the mid-1970s, he began exploring quasi-monochromy with his Trapèze series, which requires a longer perceptual engagement akin to contemplation. It is during this period that the term “quantifier” emerges—a body of work in which the artist investigates subtle tonal variations within a single colour. The Blue Quantifiers were produced between 1984 and 1997, with the polyptych Vent bleu representing the apex of this corpus.
The work was first presented in the summer of 1995 alongside Molinari’s retrospective at the Musée d’art contemporain, accompanied by musical performances as part of the Montreal International Jazz Festival. A decade later, it was exhibited at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec to mark its acquisition.
Vent bleu is a majestic polyptych composed of five large panels arranged in a semi-circle. Together, they generate a space reminiscent of a stage which, during its presentation at the Guido Molinari Foundation, will serve as a meeting point between visual and performing arts through new creations responding to this monumental work.
The exhibition also explores the many identities of wind: a natural force, a vector of movement, a vital breath, a bodily experience, and poetic expression. Contemporary artists—including photographer Anne-Marie Proulx, multidisciplinary artist Maude Arès, singer-songwriter and performer Mykalle Bielinski, and the multidisciplinary duo Horizon Factory (Erin Hill and Nina Vroemen)—will present new works revealing wind from different perspectives. Vanessa Bell and Catherine Cormier-Larose will undertake micro-writing residencies in collaboration with the Festival de la poésie de Montréal.
For Vent bleu, Anne-Marie Proulx revisits a body of images captured in 2018 during an artist residency in Marseille, where she was fascinated by the mistral wind and sought to capture it through photography. In the exhibition, she will present a black-and-white wall work depicting the horizon of the sea in Marseille, where traces of the wind are barely perceptible. As a nod to Molinari’s characteristic vertical stripes, the horizon is here presented vertically. Maude Arès will create a new work in the Foundation’s original vault, a unique space conducive to immersive environments. Reflecting her practice, which explores sensitive relationships between materials and objects—both living and non-living—Arès will present a site-specific installation created exclusively for the Foundation.
FREE ACTIVITIES RELATED TO THE EXHIBITION
- Thursday, June 11th, 6 pm: Exhibition opening
- Saturday, June 20th, 2 pm: Guided tour with the curator
- Monday, June 22nd, 6 pm: Vent bleu yoga with Camille Bédard
- Saturday, June 27th, 10 am: Meditation with Vincent Arseneau
- Thursday, July 9th, 6 pm: Performance by Horizon Factory
- Thursday, July 16th, 6 pm: Guided tour with artists Anne-Marie Proulx and Maude Arès
- Thursday, July 23rd, 6 pm: Poetry reading with the Festival de la poésie de Montréal
- Saturday, August 1st, 10 am: Meditation with Vincent Arseneau
- Monday, August 10th, 6 pm: Vent bleu yoga with Camille Bédard
- Thursday, August 20th and Friday, August 21st, 8 pm: Musical performances by Mykalle Bielinski
