How Quebec pop artist Serge Lemoyne made art for everyone

The Canvas, also known as Shawn Grenier, is a Quebec-based YouTuber who has built up an audience of over 500,000 followers with their videos that break down famous and not-so-famous paintings, making them accessible in a way art often isn't. 

They also explore the ways in which art, politics and society overlap, and how art is influenced by the social conditions surrounding it. Oh, and they ran for the Rhinoceros Party in the last federal election.

In their new video for CBC Arts, Grenier looks at the work of Quebecois artist Serge Lemoyne, best known for his "Red, White, and Blue" period, in which he created abstracted paintings of famous hockey players. (Red, white and blue being the colours of the Montreal Canadiens.) 

Along the way, Grenier also talks about how Lemoyne made art accessible for a broader audience, and asks the question "Who is art for?"

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

CBC Arts: What interested you about the art of Serge Lemoyne?

Shawn Grenier: I heard recently, through a podcast, that he was a rebel. That gets me interested in someone when I hear that they were a rebel. I knew his paintings of hockey players. But very honestly, I didn't see the rebelliousness of it at the beginning without doing the research. I saw the painting of [Ken] Dryden, which is very, very popular. It's at the Musée des beaux-arts in Montreal. And I saw it every time I went to the museum. It's a beautiful painting. It's iconic. But how are you supposed to know that it's rebellious, right? 

By doing research, I realized this guy, not only did he paint these paintings to kind of make them accessible — because he liked hockey — but he got kicked out of art school, which is always the kind of thing that can make an artist interesting. He also ran for the Rhinoceros Party, which is the party I ran for last election … and it's a rebellious party, so that got me even more interested in him.

You talk about Lemoyne's work in the context of the accessibility of art and "Who is art for?" What made you want to frame it that way?

I think it's still a very relevant topic today. The whole idea of making art videos as I've been doing for five years is to make it accessible, because very often it isn't … Still, I go to the art centres in Quebec, and you have these artists that come out from university and did like their post-doctoral degree in art and visual arts, and they invent concepts and then they apply [them] to like art. And then when I go to these art exhibitions, I don't understand them. And I'm like, "My job is to try to make art accessible to people, and I don't understand, who are they making art for?" I'm forced to think that they're making art for other post-doctoral graduates.

What were some of the interesting things you learned about Serge Lemoyne during this process?

When I looked at old interviews …  I was watching, for example, on one of them, his hair is dyed red, white and blue, like his paintings. And during that same interview, he decides to make an artwork live … and he's using an RC car that's rolling through the paint, and he's making, like, some kind of ice rink. It's absolutely ridiculous. But he's doing it on television. And to me, I find it amazing. I find it shows how it's a little bit unserious in a way. It's playful, and I think it's one of the ways to make [art] accessible.

What do you want people to take away from your video in terms of the importance of keeping art accessible

There's two different messages: one for artists and one for a broader audience who are not necessarily into art, or who are into art but don't necessarily understand it or whatever. For the broader audience, I think it's important to not dismiss all art as being inaccessible or stuffy. I think there are great examples of art out there that can be really interesting … and that can be worth discovering just by being introduced to it by a five-minute video. You don't need to read the whole biography of Serge Lemoyne or the whole history of pop art in Quebec to understand and appreciate it. And very often people don't introduce themselves to the art world because they feel like they're always inadequate to look at it. Serge Lemoyne is an example of someone who you can look at the art without having to feel inadequate, without having the feeling of having to do a university project to understand his art.

For artists, I think Serge Lemoyne is a great example of how to make art accessible, and to think to yourself, "who are you making art for?" There's also a social quality to art. And when you make art, you have to think to yourself, "All right, what am I making?" Or, "Who am I making this art for?" Because if you're only making it for yourself, well, some people might enjoy it. But if you're making it for other people … don't lose the main focus, which should be your audience, and not the art gallerist who needs a 2,000-word justification of your artwork.