Michel de Broin

Michel de Broin
Révolutions, 2003, Papineau metro station, Montréal
Born	1970 Montreal, Quebec
Alma mater	Concordia University UQÀM
Occupation	visual artist
Known for	public art
Awards	Sobey Art Award (2007)
Website	Michel de Broin

Michel de Broin (born 1970 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian sculptor. De Broin has created numerous public artworks in Canada and Europe, including the Salvador Allende monument in Montreal. He was the recipient of the 2007 Sobey Art Award.

Michel de Broin was born in Montreal, Quebec in 1970. He studied studio arts at Concordia University, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1995, and at UQÀM where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1997. After starting his career in Montreal, from 2005 he lived in Paris, London and Berlin before returning to Montreal in 2011.

Since the 1990s, Michel de Broin has developed an interdisciplinary practice that questions the limits of social and technical systems. He often incorporates humour and playfulness in his work, but also critique. Energy and resistance are recurrent themes in his practice. De Broin also uses video, performance, drawing, photography and found objects in his work. Many of the objects he has created consist of a détournement of familiar objects and forms that turn back against themselves to show their internal paradoxes.Conceptual art is a source of inspiration for his practice. For example, in his show "Dangerous Substance" (Matière dangereuse, 1999), he reinterpreted Kasimir Malevitch's famous "black square on white ground".

Shared Propulsion Car consists of a wrecked Buick 1986 car whose engine was replaced by bicycle pedals. It was presented in New York at Exit Art and Toronto at Mercer Union. A Toronto policeman issued a ticket for "Operating an Unsafe Vehicle" to Dean Baldwin, the driver of the pedal car, but the charge was later dismissed in court.

Black Whole Conference consists of a group of chairs attached to each other at the legs to create a sphere. It is part of the collection of the Musée d'art contemporain du Val-de-Marne.

Overflow, a piece in the ruined remains of an old Toronto prison chapel, consisted of a waterfall bursting out of a window.