« Grebmeier Forget’s performances involve dizzying streams of images, which have become somewhat of a signature for the artist. It’s as though there were never enough time or space for her to target her subject in the process of becoming, and that subject, in spite of her, merges with a representation of the “public” body. » 1

Nadège Grebmeier Forget’s interdisciplinary practice unfolds through durational, live, live-streamed, and private performances, which sometimes result in drawing, photography, or installation works. In these performances, she models and hybridizes herself to subvert expectations of beauty and explore the effects (and affects) of the scrutinizing gaze on identity as it unfolds—observed and analyzed by others, including the self.
By confronting aesthetic, commercial, and sexual ideals through an empowered, performative manipulation of her own image, she questions the labour of making and becoming—probing how performance (of self or art) can be documented, shown, disseminated, or exhibited.

Active in both Montreal’s visual and live arts communities—as an artist, freelance project coordinator, creative consultant, and artistic director—she has taken part in numerous events, festivals, panels, residencies, and exhibitions across Canada, the US, and Europe. She is the first performance artist to receive the City of Montreal’s Prix Pierre-Ayot (2019), awarded in partnership with the Contemporary Art Galleries Association (AGAC).

Born in 1985, the first daughter of a 1950s runner-up California beauty queen, she lives and works in Tio'tia:ke / Mooniyang / Montreal.

♥

« Grebmeier Forget has worked previously with performances mediated through mirrors, Skype, projections, Photobooth images, or in the positioning of her body in relation to the audience. On screen and off, she often uses embellishments like makeup, glitter, children’s decorations, clothing, and packaged food products. She adorns, prepares, and presents her body as something to be consumed (visually, literally, metaphorically), but also as something that is never fully accessible or that performs an excess of adornment to a point where desirability begins to erode. […] While she is clearly drawing upon histories of feminist performance art and its emphasis on the presence of the active, embodied female subject who resists or troubles the fetishizing gaze, Grebmeier Forget’s performances also build upon this history to address the ways that gendered subjectivities have more recently been performed by/for/with new technologies. With her ongoing use of Photobooth screen grabs in this (SUITE) and other performances, Grebmeier Forget references the selfie, the YouTube celebrity, or the “camgirl,”and connects to broader conversations around how we perform our selves online. » 2

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1 - ST-GELAIS, Thérèse « Feminisms and Uncertainty: A Body of One’s Own and Beyond
Oneself », esse arts + opinions, no.90 Féminimes | Feminisms, May 2017, p. 43

2 - BURISCH, Nicole, « Never Enough / Jamais Assez: on documentation, proximity, and Nadège Grebmeier Forget’s SUITE from the series One on one’s for so-called fans », 2015 CORE Program catalog, p. 18

« Grebmeier Forget’s performances involve dizzying streams of images, which have become somewhat of a signature for the artist. It’s as though there were never enough time or space for her to target her subject in the process of becoming, and that subject, in spite of her, merges with a representation of the “public” body. » 1

Nadège Grebmeier Forget’s interdisciplinary practice unfolds through durational, live, live-streamed, and private performances, which sometimes result in drawing, photography, or installation works. In these performances, she models and hybridizes herself to subvert expectations of beauty and explore the effects (and affects) of the scrutinizing gaze on identity as it unfolds—observed and analyzed by others, including the self.
By confronting aesthetic, commercial, and sexual ideals through an empowered, performative manipulation of her own image, she questions the labour of making and becoming—probing how performance (of self or art) can be documented, shown, disseminated, or exhibited.

Active in both Montreal’s visual and live arts communities—as an artist, freelance project coordinator, creative consultant, and artistic director—she has taken part in numerous events, festivals, panels, residencies, and exhibitions across Canada, the US, and Europe. She is the first performance artist to receive the City of Montreal’s Prix Pierre-Ayot (2019), awarded in partnership with the Contemporary Art Galleries Association (AGAC).

Born in 1985, the first daughter of a 1950s runner-up California beauty queen, she lives and works in Tio'tia:ke / Mooniyang / Montreal.

♥

« Grebmeier Forget has worked previously with performances mediated through mirrors, Skype, projections, Photobooth images, or in the positioning of her body in relation to the audience. On screen and off, she often uses embellishments like makeup, glitter, children’s decorations, clothing, and packaged food products. She adorns, prepares, and presents her body as something to be consumed (visually, literally, metaphorically), but also as something that is never fully accessible or that performs an excess of adornment to a point where desirability begins to erode. […] While she is clearly drawing upon histories of feminist performance art and its emphasis on the presence of the active, embodied female subject who resists or troubles the fetishizing gaze, Grebmeier Forget’s performances also build upon this history to address the ways that gendered subjectivities have more recently been performed by/for/with new technologies. With her ongoing use of Photobooth screen grabs in this (SUITE) and other performances, Grebmeier Forget references the selfie, the YouTube celebrity, or the “camgirl,”and connects to broader conversations around how we perform our selves online. » 2

---

1 - ST-GELAIS, Thérèse « Feminisms and Uncertainty: A Body of One’s Own and Beyond
Oneself », esse arts + opinions, no.90 Féminimes | Feminisms, May 2017, p. 43

2 - BURISCH, Nicole, « Never Enough / Jamais Assez: on documentation, proximity, and Nadège Grebmeier Forget’s SUITE from the series One on one’s for so-called fans », 2015 CORE Program catalog, p. 18