Claude cormier + associés enhances the sky above st. catherine’s street, in montréal, québec, with eighteen hues of vibrant colors for his 2017 work titled,‘18 shades of gay.’ the installation created in collaboration with SDU du village and the ville-marie borough, is part of ‘aires libres,’ an annual festival held in montréal’s gay village.
The installation spans the entire street and is over 1 kilometer in length.
the artwork’s 1 kilometer span is made up of 180,000 resin-colored balls organized in an 18 tone sequence, each represented by an equal 10,000 spheres. the redesigned canopy stems from claude cormier’s earlier work ‘boules roses,’ a similar artwork installed in this location back in 2011. as the name implies, the earlier version contained the same resin balls all painted a uniform pink. with changes in the local atmosphere and the community — the art must adapt as well.
