Félipe Goulet Letarte 's Le Poème politique 3 at Galerie Popop is the third part of a series of paintings/performances. According to the artist, "Political Poem 3 is a conceptual painting series following the score: paint the phrase ‘I am ashamed to be white’ in a different language on each painting’’ It would be easy to dismiss it as crude agit-prop or trolling but there’s a little more to it, either deliberately or not, than something that asinine. And as easy as it would be to dismiss the gesture as exploitative and narcissistic, it’s interesting as a particularly naked instance of some of the tendencies in the city’s Contemporary Art. Letarte claimed that the idea for the works occurred to him in 2014, which means these have been gestating for nearly a decade. This may be true or defensive. It seems eerily too much an appropriation of the meme moral panic associated with the “It’s Okay to be White” posters from a few years ago to be coincidental.
A critical revue of contemporary art in the city.