EXHIBITIONS

Turn or Burn
PHI - Montréal, Canada

With Turn or Burn, Jean-François Bouchard presents a museum-scale exhibition, premiering new works while exploring the connections between belief, image, and power in the public sphere

Opening October 27th, 2026 (17h30)
On view until March 14th, 2027
257, St-Pierre, Montréal
Canada

For his first museum-scale exhibition, Jean-François Bouchard’s Turn or Burn brings together a series of new works that document his encounters with evangelical street preachers. The project examines how their words and actions replay, with growing intensity, the tensions between faith, performance, and politics in public space.

The phenomenon of Christian evangelism has been woven into American identity for centuries. To this day, its various movements rely on the power of images and discourse to convince as many people as possible to rally behind their ideologies. Photography has always played a central role in spreading these ideas to the public. More recently, the rise of televangelism has emphasized the spectacular and performative aspects of preaching, allowing an even more frenzied version of it to enter the collective imagination. These new preachers have become veritable celebrities who operate at the top of highly influential structures; many current political figures are born-again Christians, and modern-day evangelism is a growing industry that generates a wide array of products and platforms that serve as vehicles for exclusionary and discriminatory narratives. 

Today, in contrast with these masters of evangelical spectacle, street preaching persists, although in a much more limited form. Its practitioners still walk the streets of American cities with their slogans and placards, spreading their dichotomous view of the world to all who will listen. By meeting with these preachers and mobilizing a range of formal approaches—photography, video, and installation—Bouchard continues to explore contemporary culture’s marginal areas. In doing so, he questions how beliefs and ideologies are socially perpetuated between individuals and the systems they are embedded in. 

Curator: Daniel Fiset

The New Cubans
ALMANAQUE fotográfica Mexico City

Opening Oct. 25th (12h00 to 18h00) until Nov. 30th, 2025
Colima 101 PB, Roma Nte.
Ciudad de México

Join us for the opening of Thew New Cubans at Almanaque gallery in Mexico City. The opening will be held on Saturday afternoon, October 25, 2025. See you soon!

The New Cubans
Galeria Taller Gorria, Havana

214, San Isidro
March 28th (opening at 18:00) to May 12th
After-party at Yarini (March 18th, 20h00)

Join us for the opening of Thew New Cubans in the city where this project created, Havana. The exhibition is free and open to all, followed by an after-party at Yarini, with free entry for all participants in the project. Welcome to all.

The New Cubans
Blouin Division Gallery

October 30th to December 22nd
2020 William St, Montreal

Young Cubans today endure the countless hardships of life on the island, where a collapsing economy makes access to employment and basic necessities a constant struggle. As a result, many choose to leave, fueling Cuba's most severe migration crisis on record. Yet, some remain, rejecting traditional values in favor of embracing nonconformity, gender diversity, and resilient forms of creative expression. Their various subcultures are fueled by the recent widespread access to the Internet and global culture. The New Cubans is a visual journey into this lesser-known Cuba.

After Montréal, the exhibition will travel to Havana, Mexico City, New York, and Paris/Arles in late 2024 and 2025. The exact dates will be announced in the coming weeks.

Book launch at ParisPhoto (Nov. 8th) and Perrotin Store NYC (New York City /Nov. 15, 17h30).

The New Cubans
Fisheye Gallery - ParisPhoto

ParisPhoto / Opening November 6th, 2024 (18h30) / 78, rue du Temple
The New Cubans will be presented in a group show by Fisheye Gallery during ParisPhoto, November 6th to 10th.

PAST EXHIBITIONS

PAST EXHIBITION

Exile from Babylon
Arsenal Contemporary
Core Exhibition - Contact Festival
45 Ernest Ave, Toronto

April 27th - July 15th / Opening night May 5th, 17h00

After a successful presentation in New York City, Arsenal Contemporary Art Toronto is pleased to present Exile from Babylon, Jean-François Bouchard’s second solo exhibition in the gallery. The exhibition is featured as a core exhibition of the Contact Photography Festival.

For this new body of work, the Canadian artist documented a squatters' camp in California. Driven by homelessness, drug addiction, or libertarianism, some Americans choose to reject modern society - Babylon as they call it - to form unlikely communities of squatters and wanderers seeking collective refuge. On a decommissioned military base in the desert, the community photographed by Bouchard lives without any form of local government and without any basic services such as running water, electricity, or garbage removal. On inhospitable grounds, they established themselves in shanties, makeshift tents, shipping containers, crumbling recreational vehicles, and even dens dug into the ground. For Exile from Babylon,

Bouchard has elected to represent the community’s grueling reality metaphorically through a series of still-life photographs of trees. Each is adorned with garbage and debris that were either thrown at them or carried through the harsh desert winds. Collectively, these surreal post-apocalyptic scenes testify to the vast disparities that exist in our modern societies and the quest of fascinating characters for a sense of fulfillment derived through absolute freedom and how it is acquired at a great personal sacrifice.

PAST EXHIBITION

In Guns We Trust
Arsenal Contemporary, 2019-2020

PAST EXHIBITION

Transpose
Montreal/Toronto, 2016