Révolutions encapsulates the neighbourhood’s specific visual references. To the obvious reference to the typical Montreal outdoor staircases is added the stairway to the Métro station that is under the artwork, the metal structures of the Jacques Cartier Bridge, and the rides in the La Ronde amusement park nearby. The aluminum sculpture also evokes universal symbols such as recycling (the Moebius strip) and infinity, as well as art history in its allusion to Vladimir Tatline’s Monument à la IIIe Internationale.

With its multiple references, the knotted staircase is presented as an enigma in the space. The artwork offers a transition from utilitarian to non-utilitarian, from real to poetic, from banal to sublime. It is a “revolution” in the sense of a continuous cyclical motion turning around itself.

The artist, who has had numerous permanent and temporary artworks on display in the public spaces of Montréal, generally points to a political meaning via metaphor. Here, creating a dialogue between the two meanings of the word “revolution,” the artwork may be understood as advocating for change within continuity rather than in rupture. In de Broin’s view, “The staircase makes us think of what returns without repeating, transformed in its cycle. We can all project ourselves into this curved space and enter the game of revolutions” (2003).

The artwork Révolutions completes the transformation of Parc Maisonneuve-Cartier undertaken by the Service des parcs, jardins et espaces verts in 2000, following the construction by the Société de transport de Montréal of a new pavilion for the Papineau Métro station.