Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens’ art practice investigates the ways in which the economic sciences and the theories of management represent the world. It focuses on the influence of productivist logic on all spheres of human activity.

The exhibition looks at the internalization of productivity by individuals in works realized since 2009, including the new installation Each Number Equals One Inhalation and One Exhalation. The installations, sculptures, videos, and performative projects selected by the curator Véronique Leblanc examine the ways in which the injunction to perform affects the body—actions, thought, attitudes, language—from the point of view of work and life, two spheres that tend to be conflated within a model that many researchers refer to as “cognitive capitalism.” The works underline the physiological, subjective and cognitive dimensions of the body and is a central element in the artists’ critical stance against neoliberalism’s ideology. It is defined both as the site where the mechanisms of productivity are realized and as an agent of their disabling.

Putting Life to Work is the first exhibition in Canada that examines Ibghy & Lemmens’ work in-depth. The artists were part of the last Montreal Biennial L’avenir (Looking Forward) and most recently the Istanbul Biennial SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms.

This exhibition is part of the Montreal Digital Spring 2016.

Ibghy & Lemmens’ work has been shown at the 14^th Istanbul Biennial (Istanbul, Turkey, 2015), La Biennale de Montréal (Montreal, Canada, 2014), the 27^th Images Festival (Toronto, Canada, 2014), Manif d’art 7: Quebec City Biennial (Quebec City, Canada, 2014), La Filature, Scène Nationale (Mulhouse, France, 2013-14), Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (Høvikodden, Norway, 2013), Centre for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow, Scotland, 2012) and the 10^th Sharjah Biennial (Sharjah, UAE, 2011). Recent and solo exhibitions include VOX, Centre de l’image contemporaine (Montreal, 2014), Trinity Square Video (Toronto, 2014), La Bande Vidéo (Québec, 2014), Monte Vista Projects (Los Angeles, USA, 2012) and G Gallery (Toronto, 2012). Their projects and writings have been published by Sternberg Press, Le Merle, C-magazine, New Social Inquiry, and Pyramid Power. They have published two artist’s books Tools that Measure the Intensity of Passionate Interests (2012) and Spaces of Observation (2012). Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens live and work in Montreal and Durham-Sud, Canada.

Véronique Leblanc is a Montreal-based independent curator and writer. She is interested in context-, process- and relational-based practices as they intersect with art, ethics and politics. In her analysis of performative and collaborative practices, she addresses issues related to alterity and the commons in the context of globalization. She was awarded the 2015 Prix John R. Porter from the Fondation du Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec for her essays on the artists Emmanuelle Léonard et Artur Żmijewski. Her articles and essays have been published in magazines and exhibition catalogues. She has an MA in art history from the Université du Québec à Montréal where she also lectures.