Kelly Jazvac
Le désir et le matriarcat
From February 27 to April 5, 2025
Galerie Nicolas Robert is pleased to present Kelly Jazvac’s new solo exhibition Le désir et le matriarcat.
This exhibition stems from a year of continued study on the complex materialities of plastics, as well as non-toxic material alternatives and the worldviews that can sustain them. A recurring theme in this research was the problematics of dominant social and economic structures that center on hierarchy, power and extractivism, and thus act as an impediment to the meaningful development of environmental sustainment. What other alternatives might exist? For example, instead of domination, more matriarchal structures could be characterized by reciprocity, reparation, cyclical regeneration and generosity.
The toxicity of patriarchal capitalism can be quite literal. For example, the history of chemical regulation in the United States, when the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) was created in 1976. Here a stunning 62,000 chemicals were ‘grandfathered-in’ as acceptable, despite the lack of testing to prove said chemicals were safe to living beings and ecosystems. Substances such as asbestos, lead, and mercury were assumed safe in order to maintain industry profits. Further, if newly produced chemicals were similar to the grandfathered-in chemicals, they too could be approved for mass production without challenge. Following the legacy of such wriggly regulations, PVC plastic, a known carcinogen and hormone disruptor, continues to poison for profit.
Le désir et le matriarcat is a new installation of remixed plastic advertisements recuperated from the streets of SOHO, New York, and sandwiched amongst non-toxic material alternatives. Found plastic images of models prone on beds are re-collaged, abstracted, and reoriented. Amongst them are sculptures and found objects that signal feminine agency, sustenance, gathering, collectivity and reciprocity within contaminated, fetish-focused futures.
The artist would like to thank Tegan Moore, Théo Bignon, Liz Xu, Chris Latchem, Alexandra Bachmayer, Neil Klassen, Scott Osborne, Allison Mears, The Healthy Materials Lab, Atelier LUMA, Daniel Finkelstein Shapiro, Zoë Heyn-Jones, Raiz Arquitectura, Colectivo Mezquite, Rancho Mastatal, Kirsty Robertson, le Conseil des Arts et des Lettres, The Synthetic Collective and Elizabeth Jazvac.
Kelly Jazvac makes art that explores relationships between the material of plastic and consumerism, eco-systems, empathy and apathy. Jazvac is also a founding member of a plastic pollution research team called The Synthetic Collective, which includes scientists, artists, and humanists. The work of this research group is highly influential on Jazvac’s artistic practice. Recent exhibitions include The Museum of Modern Art (New York); The Musée D’Art Contemporain (Montréal); the Eli and Edyth Broad Museum (East Lansing); Ujazdowski Castle CCA (Warsaw); and FIERMAN Gallery (New York). Her work has been written about in National Geographic, e-flux Journal, Hyperallergic, Art Forum, The New Yorker, Canadian Art Magazine and The Brooklyn Rail. Her co-authored art/science research has been published in scientific journals including Nature Reviews, GSA Today, and Science of the Total Environment. Jazvac is based in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal where she is an Associate Professor in Studio Arts at Concordia University.
Work in this exhibition was inspired by a year of research that ranged from trash picking in SOHO, New York at a Conseil des Arts et Lettres Residency; sampling for industrial plastic pollution in the Great Lakes with her art/science collaborators; studying at the Healthy Materials Lab at Parson’s the New School; material experimentation and bioregionalism at Atelier LUMA in Arles, France with the Synthetic Collective, the Centre for Sustainable Curating and the Sustainable Institution; to ongoing collaborations at the Instituto de Biotecnología at la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; and the study of bioconstruction.