Born in Montreal in 1956, Rober Racine has gained a reputation both in Canada and abroad for the originality of his artistic vision. In addition to being an artist, he is a musician, a novelist, and a playwright, and this creative overlapping has been of crucial importance to him. Racine's work can be divided roughly into three phases. The first, from the mid-seventies to 1980, was largely performance-based and characterized by an interest in systems and calculations and the use of repetitive actions. This early period is represented here by visual elements related to Racine's performance of Erik Satie's Vexations and his reading of Gustave Flaubert's novel Salammbô.