In typical Cynthia Girard-Renard fashion, La revanche des Sans-culottes at Galerie Hugues Charbonneau is an exhibition brimming with joyful irreverence, humour, political awareness, and historical references. Filled with bright colours emanating from her signature naive-style paintings and a smattering of constructions involving puppets, it harkens to the set of a light-hearted theatre production for children, but of course Girard-Renard’s work goes far beyond these initial optics. 
Cynthia Girard-Renard, Sous les pavés, la plage, 2015, acrylic on unstretched cotton canvas
The exhibition results from a residency Girard-Renard completed in Paris and it explores the cultural and political significance of the French Revolution in comparison to the current climate of economic disparity and austerity. “De 1789 à nos jours, et un peu plus tard….” is written in the corner of the strongest work in the exhibition: a large painting entitled Sous les pavés, la plage. The names of luxury brands such as Saint Laurent, Dior, and Cartier stare out from a canvas filled with symbolic caricatures from the French Revolution referencing Marie-Antoinette, her marriage, the Sans-culottes, etc. The canvas has been subtly imprinted with rose coloured cobble stones (a gentle reference to the Situationists and May 1968 as well as 1790s bloodshed) on which Girard-Renard’s cheeky caricatures sit solidly and luminously. The three-dimensional works in the gallery space – a scaffolding-like structure holding puppets and a rod holding three pairs of striped trousers in ascending sizes – reference the French tradition of bawdy burlesque theatre. Also included in the exhibition is a banner for Marie-Antoinette, one in a series of similar banners Girard has previously exhibited featuring quotes and images of luminaries such as Henry David Thoreau, Rosa Luxemburg, and Hannah Arendt. The exhibition as a whole taps into the enthusiasm of revolutionary moments, consumer culture, and childhood imagination, drawing thoughtful parallels, without taking itself too seriously.
Galerie Hugues Charbonneau: http://huguescharbonneau.com/en/
Cynthia Girard-Renard: La revanche des Sans-culottes continues until April 2.
Susannah Wesley is an artist and curator living in Montreal. She has been a member of the collaborative duo Leisure since 2004 and from 1997-2000 was part of the notorious British art collective the Leeds13. Formerly Director at Battat Contemporary in Montreal, she holds an MFA from the Glasgow School of Art and an MA in Art History from Concordia University. She is Akimblog's Montreal correspondent and can be followed @susannahwesley1 on Twitter.
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Cynthia Girard-Renard at Galerie Hughes Charbonneau
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