Silver Bird over the Rue St Laurent 1971

Curator: Gilles Boisvert’s “Silver Bird over the Rue St Laurent” presents a street scene rendered in striking blue hues. What's your initial take? Editor: The limited palette, the grid-like pattern almost pixelating the street, gives it a melancholic, dreamlike quality. Curator: Indeed. Boisvert, born in 1940, often explored urban landscapes. Here, consider the social context: a busy street filtered through a singular artistic vision. Editor: It's fascinating how the reduction to this blueprint-like color flattens the perspective while emphasizing the geometric forms of the buildings and the lone figure below. The bird, a kind of ghostly intervention. Curator: Right, it pulls at those tensions between industry, place and environment. It also makes you think about labor and its effect on the modern city. Editor: I find that bird subtly disrupts the otherwise rigid composition, hinting at the fluidity of life in an urban landscape. The composition reminds us of what escapes easy description. Curator: A good observation. Editor: It certainly gives one much to consider about the geometry of memory and the urban experience.