With so much information available in this day and age, it can become difficult to process it all. Which issues are the most important? Are they as simple as they seem? Does one even have time for them? Add all these things together and it becomes difficult to raise awareness for anything using a soft sell.
It is with this knowledge in mind that Guy Bérubé devised Holy Fuck, La Petite Mort Gallery’s Annual Benefit for Freakin’ Alzheimer’s, held on Aug. 27. A one-night event now in its seventh consecutive year, Holy Fuck sees the gallery jam-packed with a wide variety of provocative, macabre and even humorous images, with door proceeds, donations and purchases going to Villa Marguerite at the Centre Bruyere, which specializes in care for those afflicted with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
The issue is a personal one for Bérubé, his mother having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a decade ago. Upon hearing the distressing news, “holy fuck” was the first thing that came out of his mouth, earning the future event a title and Bérubé a smack on the back of the head, courtesy of his mother.
The event’s name is not unintentionally blunt by any means. Bérubé said he wanted to throw the issue in people’s faces for a night, “so that people will talk about it for a long time.”
To aid in the event, Bérubé said he invited those artists he was close to, saying it had to do with his comfort level. “They’re people who know me well, know how important this is to me. They come with 110 per cent,” he said.
The exhibits that adorn the gallery walls were varied, to say the least. Two surfaces were devoted to the work of Matthew Stradling, a hyper-realistic painter whose portraits of bruised and bloodied post-bout boxers seem to tinge one wall pinkish-red.
Tucked into a corner, Denis Bradette has assembled an exhibit titled “Nativity Disco,” an arrangement of at least a few hundred sports trophies, statuettes and creepy, malformed clay figures. Sitting adjacent to a column of Santa Clauses while adorned in a Santa outfit of his own, Bradette described the piece as “a little mix of religion and childhood,” a “shrine to collective memory” intended to bring joy back to religion.
The highlight of the night arrived at 9:30 p.m., when performance artist and bondage expert Douglas Kent stripped his assistant Siren Thorn nearly to the nude and bound her with an array of complicated knots and trusses, suspending her from an imposing, two-metre-tall tripod set up in the centre of the gallery. For nearly half an hour, Kent manipulated Thorn’s limbs, spun her about and generally captured the attention of everyone in the gallery, all the while to a thumping musical soundtrack.
“It’s a night to remember, and also about making connections,” Bérubé said, adding with a smile, “Also a night to possibly get laid. Not your average fundraiser.”