Use et abuse

Alix Dufresne and Christian Lapointe, Quebec artists who are outspoken and lively, take on the video conference entitled How the Cultural Industry Uses and Abuses Art, given by philosopher Alain Deneault in 2021 and taken from his book L'économie esthétique. At the invitation of the Association acadienne des artistes professionnels du Nouveau-Brunswick, this videoconference attempts to show how capitalism keeps artists under pressure and encourages them to become profitable. Dufresne and Lapointe offer a wild and incisive performance with philosopher Deneault's controversial speech projected on a screen as a backdrop. They explore the notion of commodification and the mechanisms of art appropriation by creating a live NFT auction in front of an audience. Their bodies become tools of creation, but also, paradoxically, of promotion and protest: flesh brutalized by the culture economy in search of a reappropriation of the agency inherent in the practice of art. Initiated by director and actor Christian Lapointe, Use et abuse closed Alix Dufresne's residency as an associate artist at USINE C from 2022 to 2025 with a sold-out performance. She naturally joined forces with him for this project, continuing her exploration of Alain Deneault's ideas, as begun with Hidden Paradise, created in 2018 on the theme of tax evasion. Here, the two artists give shape to a hybrid form that is at once playful, performative, and political, leaving room for the unpredictable in each performance. For mature audiences.