GOD & CO: François Dallegret Beyond the Bubble

An exhibition organized by the Architectural Association, London UK
at McMaster Museum of Art
January 9 – March 29, 2014

Reception: January 16, 6 – 8 pm
Artist’s Talk: January 17, 12:30 – 1:20 pm

François Dallegret trained as an architect at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the late 1950s. He moved to North America; first to New York and then Montreal in 1964. Dallegret has since and continues to slip between disciplines, working as an artist, entrepreneur, theoretical architect (before the term was in general use), industrial and graphic designer, writer and social commentator.

Although his work over the past fifty years has been firmly planted within the possibilities offered by contemporary technologies—his 1964 drawing of a personal, wrap-around electronic communicator l’intro conversomatic has become a commonplace reality in the current world of smart phones & “pads”—Dallegret can be seen been in the context of 19^th century idealism; the engineer as artist, the inventor as philosopher and so on. And while his work carries the sense of wonder of the modern age, manifest in the pure beauty of the object, it is also tempered by the realities of social, economic and cultural issues, and often framed with a quixotic sense of humour and irony.

GOD & CO offers a unique view into Dallegret’s work and activities, a de facto retrospective that engages his active thoughts. Organized by the Architectural Association School of Architecture (UK), it opened in London in late 2011 and has subsequently been presented in Paris and Zurich. This is the first presentation In Canada.