Kids These Days

From September 10th to December 6th, 2014, the Foreman Art Gallery presents Bande à part / Kids these days, an exhibition that focuses on a selection of projects from the 2000s by Québécois and Canadian artists. The artists employ strategies that draw from the fields of anthropology, psychology, and sociology in their examinations of youth and youth cultures within a North American context. They  document young people—their bodies, expressions, and movements, as well as investigate their tastes, thoughts, clothing styles, methods of communication, and leisure activities. The resulting artworks suggest an underlying desire on the part of the artists to capture the “essence” of youth or at least to affiliate themselves with the coveted values typically associated with this group: freedom, escape, authenticity, expressivity, creativity, and idealism. Popular ideas around youth are further explored in the fiction and non-fiction books on display and in the accompanying film series.

• “Kids these days” Interview with curator Zoë Chan and artist Sarah Febbraro, CBC Quebec AM, September 9, 2014.
• “D’où venons-nous, que sommes-nous, où allons-nous ?” Le Devoir, August 23, 2014.