This book documents a body of work that has previously been seen only in isolation, disclosing the concerns of an artist who perceives artistic, social, and political spheres as mutually related and interwoven. Essays by Patricia Phillips, Phyllis Lambert, and Robert-Jan van Pelt Melvin Charney is an artist and architect from Montreal whose site-related installations, drawings, collages, and texts have raised questions and stimulated discussion on such topics as the nature of the city and the connections between the built environment and the world of ideas. This richly illustrated book documents a body of work that has previously been seen only in isolation, disclosing the concerns of an artist who perceives artistic, social, and political spheres as mutually related and interwoven. Much of Charney's early work, including Les Maisons de la rue Sherbrooke, A Chicago Construction, and A Toronto Construction, has been purposefully ephemeral. Moving in a different direction, several of his more recent projects, such as the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights and The CCA Garden, are permanent and publicly accessible. Parables and Other Allegories offers a comprehensive historical record of Charney's work. Over 200 illustrations, including 95 color reproductions and 96 duotones, along with Charney's own commentary, provide a critical context for his oeuvre. An introduction by Alessandra, Latour, guest curator of the exhibition, and essays by Patricia C. Phillips and Robert-Jan van Pelt explore various aspects of his projects, among them the roles of collective memory and reiterative narrative as well as the harrowing, shamanic investigations of history and monumental evil in the German Series. An interview by Phyllis Lambert investigates how Charney approaches his work and considers a wide range of issues such as abstraction and representation, the notion of space, and the idea of process as meaning.

This subseries documents Melvin Charney's solo exhibition "Melvin Charney : Oeuvres, 1970-1979", originally held at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal in 1979. The exhibition presentes Charney's work through his works of art, including photographs, drawings, installations and sculptures. The sub-series includes textual records.

Plus de 160 dessins illustrent 34 projets réalisés à Montréal au cours des années 1980. Appuyé par quatre essais qui posent le cadre théorique et les différents aspects de ce discours sur la ville.

De 1964 à 1989, l'architecte et artiste montréalais Melvin Charney (1935-2012) publie une quarantaine d'essais traitant des problèmes confrontant l'architecture contemporaine du Québec et d'ailleurs, et décrivant les oeuvres qu'il a conçues pour y répondre. Ce recueil rend accessible aux lecteurs francophones, dans des traductions revues et souvent inédites, une sélection de ces écrits qui présente l'essentiel de la lecture critique de Charney de l'architecture contemporaine au Québec, tout en exposant l'originalité de la pensée qui a nourri sa pratique artistique. Publiés lors d'une période charnière de l'histoire culturelle et sociale du Québec qui s'ouvre par l'avènement de la Révolution tranquille et se conclut par la tenue du premier référendum sur la souveraineté, ces documents sont un véritable baromètre enregistrant le climat changeant d'une culture architecturale en perpétuel mouvement au cours d'une des périodes les plus turbulentes de l'histoire de l'architecture. Ils décrivent aussi l'apport insoupçonné de l'architecture montréalaise, québécoise et canadienne aux débats internationaux qui ont marqué le passage d'une modernité tardive à une postmodernité incertaine.

Items produced on the occasion of the exhibition held at the CCA from Oct. 9, 1991-Jan. 12, 1992.