Howdy!
Built in 1991 by Arcop and Provencher Roy et Associés.
+This is the 33rd in an occasional series of videos on the fountains of Montreal+
Monthly Archives: November 2011
Outfits from a New Era at the Biosphere (Part Four)
Howdy!
Part One is here, Part Two is here. Part Three is here.
Plush Empress By Majorie Labrèque-Lepage
What would you expect from someone who makes stuffed toys for a living? Cute and lighthearted, I’d really like to kn ow what was used to make the skirt hold its shape. A Hoop skirt? Petticoats? Crinoline? Or something else. The tag says that only 4 sweaters, 7 pairs of jeans and 100 buttons were used to make this dress. But I suspect that there were some other things involved as well.
It actually looks like it could be worn, but I’m not 100% convinced I would be able to survive the constant barrage of cuteness. Maybe if I was partial to dressing up for Halloween, I’d be more open to a dress that had a hood with ears and some sort of bear-like soccer ball protruding from the crotch.
The Outfits from a New Era exhibition were designed to highlight “cast-offs from our society in a whole new light” and while the vast majority of them were made from waste products, four appeared to be made from new material. Of the four, the two following were notable examples.
Another fantasy dress, another material list that isn’t quite complete. That bodice is not made of plywood (unless that’s the thinnest plywood ever – or perhaps it should be the veneer used to make plywood). Although I kind of like the concept of living in your dress. Once you glom onto the idea behind this dress there isn’t an awful lot of depth to it. But I bet you that it is well insulated (yuck, yuck, yuck!)
Of all the dresses in the exhibit, I would guess that this one is the most structurally sound. But probably the most difficult to modify if you gained a couple of pounds. Although I think Stéphanie Lévesque should try to get someone from Mon Plan Rona to wear it as a publicity stunt.
This, I think is the weakest of all 16 dresses. Made out of canvas its “twist” is that the drawing and the stickers are supposed to be part of it as well. More of a coat than a dress, it’s kind of difficult to pick out from the drawing, which while obviously the intention, doesn’t make it any better in my eyes. It’s not like I’m going to be walking around wearing the drawing when I put on the dress (or coat).
Sorry that my picture is so blurry.
I can’t quite accept that the backdrop for a dress is as important (or even more so) than the actual dress.
Still more tomorrow.
The Fountains at the Centre de commerce mondial de Montréal (1)
Howdy!
Made by Dieudonné-Barthélemy Guibal and installed in Montreal 1991.
+This is the 32nd in an occasional series of videos on the fountains of Montreal+
Outfits from a New Era at the Biosphere (Part Three)
Howdy!
Part One is here, Part Two is here.
Dress the Part by Isabelle Bérubé
Now those are some shoulder pads I can really get into… Or if you would prefer less colloquial phrasing, I get a big kick out of this dress as well. Although I’m not certain I would ever be invited someplace where it would be formal enough to wear. And while I would venture a guess that most of the pieces that were used to make it came from sports cars, it is not a “sporty” outfit in the least.
Ms. Bérubé appears to have turned this concept of transforming old car parts (or more precisely old car seats) into fashion accessories fulltime. Although I think she should exhibit her work at the auto show.
I can’t imagine that a car tire as a corset or belt would be all that comfortable, however choosing it was an inspired choice. Clearly marking the difference between bottom and top, while at the same time hitting you upside the face with where the materials used to make the dress came from. Without the tire, it would be like some sort of overwrought futuristic ball gown suitable for the cover of a Harlequin Romance about a 22nd century debutante.
Although now that I have gone to the Harlequin Romance website, I have discovered that in fact they do not publish any science fiction, but that they do have a series called Harlequin NASCAR (The rush of the race car circuit; the thrill of falling in love®.) So maybe I should change the lines above to read something like “with the tire it is perfect as the ballgown of Dr. Nicole Foster, the heroine of Running Wide Open.
Naw, not even close.
And I’m also not certain what to make of the wires…
Surprisingly, this dress is badly translated. In French it is called “Ordonnance Royale” a pun on the multiple definitions of the word ordonnance. A) a prescription and B) a law. Since it is made up of melted down plastic pill containers and made to look like a ballgown. I think I would have called it something like Royal Script, playing off the multiple definitions of the word script, ne of which is “prescription.” But nobody asked me.
And while it does look like it would be suitable for a princess, I would hate to ask Kate Middleton to have to wear it. As I don’t think melted plastic is the most malleable of materials and according to the tag beside the dress, it weighs in at a little more than 200 pounds.
I’m not sure what to make of this one. Despite using Styrofoam from packaging for the socks and the collar it is mainly made out of what they call a “vacuum bag” but is actually a Madvac Collector Bag. You know one of those little four wheeled buggies with a vacuum tube that looks like an elephant’s trunk that sucks up the garbage from the sidewalk? Well, the bag that is used to collect the trash was used to make this dress.
As I’ve mentioned before, there are signed objects from Quebecois vedettes displayed alongside the dresses. Some have obvious connections, some less so. This is one of the more obvious connections. While Margie Gillis has cut her hair (for a very long time she didn’t) this bird’s next comes from the period when she wasn’t cutting it. At the Biosphere they have a very nice story explaining how it came to be.
The reason it is an obvious connection is that the nest is displayed next to this dress.
It can’t be that comfortable to wear even if they attached the hair to a nylon hairstyling cape, I also would love to know how the hair was attached, colored and how much hairspray was used to keep the hair in place. And while it looks really cool, I’m not entirely convinced that hair counts ass garbage.
It also can serve as an example of how unreligious Quebecois culture has become. As recently as fifty years ago, a hairdress would have been worn by someone feeling particularly guilty about some thing (or things). But this exhibit makes no mention or reference in any way shape or form to the religious nature of wearing hair. Which is apparently still done by Carmelites.
Another impractical dress, especially since it is lit from within. You can see it in full here. I do not know, but I would imagine that this dress was possibly responsible for the Dramatic Lighting! (with the capital “D,” capital “L” and an exclamation mark) and as with the hairdress, I’m not convinced that books qualify as garbage material.
That all being said, an upskirt shot of Chapter Ten is a very abstract thing.
Still more tomorrow.
Gratte-ciel, cascades d’eau, rues, ruisseaux… by Melvin Charney at Place Émilie Gamelin 5/5
Howdy!
+This is the 31st in an occasional series of videos on the fountains of Montreal+
Gratte-ciel, cascades d’eau, rues, ruisseaux… by Melvin Charney at Place Émilie Gamelin 4/5
Howdy!
+This is the 30th in an occasional series of videos on the fountains of Montreal+
Outfits from a New Era at the Biosphere (Part Two)
Howdy!
I’m not quite sure what to make of this one. First I never really thought of shotgun shells as refuse material. Off the top of my head, I can’t imagine that they take up an awful lot of space in landfills. On the other hand, due to the nature of their use I would also imagine that they aren’t brought to landfills and for the most part are left scattered on the ground. But then again I’m not a hunter, and the hunters that I know of are extremely conscientious stewards of nature. So it wouldn’t be a stretch to for them to pick up after themselves, either.
Then we get into the whole use of deadly arms as fashion statement morass. And while I’m certain that there are people out there who match their Smith and Wesson to their bracelet, or more simply, carry a gun around like my father wears a watch. I’m not one of them. Heck I don’t even carry around anything on me that tells the time.
I can see the allure of using brass tipped red plastic cylinders as the basic material for a dress, but the more I think about it, the less I like this particular dress. I don’t remember where or who, but I do remember somewhere learning that the designers were assigned their materials, and so if my memory is in fact correct, I can’t really blame Geneviève Dumas and Geneviève Flageol.
\
But this is where it veers off into the surreal. For reasons that are beyond my comprehension, the exhibit designers decided that dresses made from strange materials wasn’t enough of a draw, so they engaged some vedettes to sign objects that some how had significance to the dresses themselves. Someone decided that a gasmask used by Jean-François Lépine would be make for a good pairing with the Bullet Dress. As M. Lépine writes on the tag for the display “Pour moi, c’est devenu un objet fétiche qui me rappelle que, même dans l’adversité la plus opaque, l’espoir est toujours permis.” Or for the squareheads reading this: “It has become a symbolic object for me; it reminds me that even in the darkest hours of adversity, hope remains.” (As an aside, that is a kick-ass translation, I hope that the designers for the show got paid at least as much as the translators did – but somehow I have a sneaking suspicion that they didn’t.)
But, if you take the statement at face value, it is completely bizarre. I’m not certain what would give the sense of adversity, the bullets? Wearing the dress? Thinking about the use of the bullets? I dunno. But I do know that there are people out there who would pay good money to wear a sexy red Mexican inspired frock like that despite whatever implications it might have.
If you’d like to see the front of the dress, click here, I used the photo yesterday, and don’t want to be duplicating things.
I think that this is my favorite dress out of the whole bunch. But more in theory than actual practice. Inspired and inventive. Sassy, smelly and insouciant!! (hey! maybe I could get a gig working for Elle Quebec!)
But someone should let Ms. Bouchard know that if she ever wants to make a second salmon skin dress that she should talk to Lottas Garfveri and/or get her books. Her dresses would be just as Inspired and inventive. Sassy and insouciant, but they would no longer be smelly.
I’m not entirely sold on her use of mussel shells as accessories. And given the exotic nature of the material used, I’m not certain that I really need to discuss the actual design. For the most part, when using skin (ie leather) as a dress material most, if not all the really impressive dresses I’ve seen tend to follow the form of the body fairly closely. As you can see with this one, it is much more florid. Not quite what I would call rococo, but approaching. I don’t know if that was caused by there still being some meat left on the skin when it was cut (and as a consequence why it needs to be refrigerated).
It appears to me that it was made more for one of those matronly mermaids, and not one of those nymph-like mermaids.
And the reason the photographs are so blue, is because of the fluorescent lights in the refrigerator where they have to keep the dress, since Ms. Bouchard made the executive decision not to tan the salmon skins.
A flapper inspired dress made of old tin aluminum cans.
Next to each dress the exhibition designers wrote some sort of lagniappe next to each dress. In this case they decided that everyone should know that it Maude Lapierre made 4,376 16 gauge holes in the tin aluminum. Personally I would have preferred to know how heavy (or light) the dress was. While it might be aluminum, it still is metal, and before I were to wear it, I’d want to know how many kilos it was.
Still more tomorrow.
Sylvain Émard’s Fragments – Volume 1
Howdy!
Last Friday I finally got around to seeing Fragments – Volume 1 choreographed by Sylvain Emard and danced by Monique Miller, Laurence Ramsay, Manuel Roque and Catherine Viau. I’m kind of glad I did, not because the dance was mind blowingly phenomenal (it wasn’t, although there were parts that kicked-ass) but because it kind of gave me some insight (or what I think is some sort of insight) into the inner workings of quote; high Quebecois Culture, unquote.
But first things first, the dances. In short, it’s fragmented, as you might suspect. If you don’t know the dancers personally, you gotta take the press release at face value (always a dangerous proposition) that it was inspired by the personalities and concerns of the performers. Catherine Viau one of the dancers (and to quote from my notes: “she is very very good”) kept some of her own notes as to how things went during practices (one, two, three and four) with nary a word about how it connects to her personally, which is not to say that it doesn’t, ‘cuz I don’t know her at all, just traded emails a couple of years ago, but you figure… although now that I’m going down this tangent, it also could be that I don’t have the vocabulary or knowledge to recognize certain movements that are based on emotions or thoughts, and what I call a “cheerleading kind of move” or “marching band” is in fact coming directly from some history that I am completely unaware of. Continuing to quote from my notes “I could watch her all night.” But I digress.
Ms. Viau’s piece was the second of the night, called Émoi, émoi, which according to my handy-dandy French/English dictionary could mean “emotion, emotion” or “stir, stir” or “commotion, commotion” or “agitation, agitation” or “flutter, flutter.” (Obviously, I’m not as bilingual as I thought) Personally, I’d go for stir x2 or flutter x2, but mostly because of the way the words can be repeated (it isn’t real common to write “agitation, agitation”) than for anything specific to the dance that she did. It began with her waving or possibly fanning herself and ended with some high stepping and spinning all to some sort of mechanical / industrial kind of soundtrack by Michel F. Côté.
And no matter how hard I try I can’t figure out any connection between Ms. Viau and the movements she made other than she and the moves she makes really really good.
But, instead of doing the whole in media res thing (I don’t know what’s up with this recent fascination with Latin, paenitet) I should just start from the beginning.
It got off on the wrong foot. The very first thing that we saw was this blinding strobe light. Which is all fine and dandy, if you’re 18 years-old and at some discotheque. But isn’t so hot if you’re middle-aged and sitting with someone who has epilepsy. Once the strobe stops you can see Manuel Roque sitting on a chair, upsidedown. Kind of like a you’d imagine a how it would look if you were choreographing a car crash. As all the car crashes I have been in made time seem to move incredibly slow, it only makes sense that Mr. Roque also moves in slow motion. How this car wreck relates to “his garden” I have no clue, but the piece is called “dans mon jardin…” although as far as I know it has nothing to do with the song by Manu Chao.
He returns to a normal speed with a bunch of jumping around and shaking. And then my notes mention that he has swallows and butterflies in his garden, but I have no recollection as to why I suddenly decided to note down the wildlife. Judging from the way it was written and its placement on the page, I would have guessed that it was some sort of lyric, but last I heard Michel F. Côté only writes instrumental music. So I am back at square one. Obviously I need to take much better notes next time.
Anyhows, after the jumping and the shaking, Mr. Roque returns to the chair, upsidedown, and then the piece ends.
The third piece is the one that’s been getting the most notice, mostly because M. Émard chose to use a septuagenarian non-dancer as a dancer. Monique Miller is an actress (now a dancer) who has been performing since the early 1950s.
She wore a kick-ass knit pant suit that had almost looked like a skirt (I think the technical term is elephant leg pants, but I am not certain, I have even less of a vocabulary in fashion than I do in dance) although from where I was sitting it also looked liked she was covered in Saran Wrap underneath the pant suit. Also from where I was sitting I never would have guessed that she was pushing 80 years-old. Forty, maybe fifty, just before I changed the prescription on my glasses, but never 78.
There was some sort of wind-chimey, dangly things suspended from the ceiling that was extremely annoying because of the reflections of the spotlights back into the audience that made it extrmely difficult to concentrate on what Mme. Miller was doing. What she was doing looked an awful lot like emoting and mime. Now, I’m not going to go and complain because a septuagenarian actress can’t dance. But I will question the necessity of putting a non-dance performance in the middle of a dance performance.
It’d be kind of like if I started singing right here, right now
Confusing, right? And then right in the middle of Mme. Miller’s performance someone starts plainchanting a personal ad, not exactly the New York Review of Books quality, but easily worthy of Craigslist. Initially this confused me, as Michel F. Côté only writes instrumental music. But then with a little bit of research, I discovered that M. Émard and M. Côté chose to insert some sort of excerpt from eL/Aficionado a very obscure opera by Robert Ashley. And no, I’d never heard of it either, prior to this. And I would hate to think that it was used as part of the soundtrack because Mme. Miller was looking for a date (remember way back at the top, how M. Émard said that the dances were inspired by the personalities and concerns of the performers… Things that make you go hmmmm.
The last piece, Bicéphale which was the duet of the evening, danced by Laurence Ramsay and Manuel Roque is about as cliched as it’s name. It starts off slow in front of a seam of light, again making it difficult to see. Their movements become quicker and seemed to me to be slightly like something Bob Fosse would have done.
Unfortunately the music by Jan Jelinek had way too much throbbing, buzzing and skreetching for my tastes. And even more unfortunately, it wasn’t anything like what Bob Fosse would have done.
I haven’t seen the other “latest and greatest” creation by M. Émard, The Continental line-dancing thing (it comes in various shapes, sizes and flavors). But, if it does come back this summer, I think I’m going to have to make a point to see it, just because it strikes me as being the complete opposite of Fragments – Volume 1. Either that or wait for Fragments – Volume 2 and see if things then fit together.
Gratte-ciel, cascades d’eau, rues, ruisseaux… by Melvin Charney at Place Émilie Gamelin 3/5
Howdy!
+This is the 29th in an occasional series of videos on the fountains of Montreal+
Outfits from a New Era at the Biosphere (Part One)
Howdy!
I’ve been meaning to write this one for a fairly long time, since August actually. But seeing as how I took 104 pictures, getting them all organized, uploaded and labelled seemed like a daunting task, so I did what anybody else would do, I put it off. Until today. If you click through to see all the pictures, it’s going to take a while to load, sorry in advance.
In short, since the Biosphere is an “Environment Museum” it only makes sense that they mount exhibits designed to promote environmental awareness. And some bright wag decided to commission 16 clothing designers (I think all women) to create dresses using refuse material.
Now while I am an environmentally aware person and keep a fairly sustainable lifestyle, I’m not big on preaching about it. As a consequence what really struck me about this exhibit was not its Green-ness, but that while everyone was going gaga over the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal here was a truly original fashion exhibit that was not getting any press anywhere.
And while I might not proselytize about sustainability, like certain people, I do champion the underdog and Outfits from a New Era at the Biosphere is definitely underdog material if there ever was. The museum probably counts the number of daily visitors in the high two figures, has some breathtaking views of Montreal and is a charter member of the Cult of Bucky. What more do you need?
Anyhows, while I do not consider myself a fashionista, nor an authority on fabrics and style, instead of viewing these as liabilities I figured (like usual) that instead, if I approached this as a learning opportunity it shouldn’t be a hindrance to writing about it and taking some pictures. Right?
To me it was more of a compare and contrast situation. While it seemed like everyone and their mother was raving about how original and inventive M. Gaultier’s dresses were, here were some truly original and inventive dresses that weren’t getting any attention whatsoever. And while I’m certain that at some point M. Gaultier did in fact actually touch the dresses on exhibit that bore his name, I’m fairly convinced that he didn’t actually do much (if any) of the sewing, knitting, weaving, embroidery or any of the other tasks involved in making the dresses.
Whereas even without doing serious research, I’d bet my bottom dollar that each and everyone of the designers who made the “Outfits from a New Era” was significantly involved in the actual fabrication of their dresses. And while I am all for the artist-as-thinker-and-not-necessarily-creator concept (see Andy Warhol’s Red Self-Portraits One, Two, Three, Four, Five , Six, Seven and Eight for a fascinating insight into the attribution of artwork)
If I’m going to make one complaint (actually as I’m less than halfway through, I imagine that there will be other complaints, let’s just call this one the first. Which is not to say or suggest that the exhibit is bad, just that there is always room for improvement). This contemporary fad, or what I hope is a fad, for Dramatic Lighting! (with the capital “D,” capital “L” and an exclamation mark) drives me up a wall. In general when it comes to art/culture/things to look at or watch, you have two choices if you’re indoors; A white cube or a black box.
White Cubes tend toward being bright and Black Boxes (as you might expect) tend to be dark. Since they are dark, the Black Boxes use highly focused spotlights to draw your attention to stuff that the exhibition designers want you to look at. In contrast to the White Cube where, for the most part, your eye is free to roam where you wish. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I can’t stand exhibits that are housed in Black Boxes. And Outfits from a New Era is, unfortunately in a Black Box, pity.
I don’t know if it is because my eyes don’t react well to large contrasts in brightness, or if because I’m in darkness for the most part I don’t get the nuances of color as well as I would if it were brighter, or if it has something to do with my glasses. But whatever it is, Dramatic Lighting! (with the capital “D,” capital “L” and an exclamation mark) bugs the heck out of me.
Light Flow By Chloé B. Fortin
I think you can see what I mean by a lot of nuance being missed because of the Dramatic Lighting! (with the capital “D,” capital “L” and an exclamation mark) in the picture above. Light Flow By Chloé B. Fortin is a light, wispy and diaphanous something or other that to my mind would be appropriate in a boudoir or a pornographic film shoot. Apparently made from 2,500 light bulbs and 66 meters of stripped copper wire.
One of those garments that professes to show more than it hides, in French it is called “le grand courant lumineux” or in a hackneyed translation “the great current of light,” it was initially called “Le grand souffle” which has more to do with breath and wind than electricity. Which gives a much better idea of the “wispy and diaphanous something or other nature” of the garment.
You can see better detail pictures here> I’m fairly certain that it doesn’t light up or get illuminated from within. But beyond the wispy nature of it, I’m not quite certain what to make of it. While the use of the light-bulbs is alright, there isn’t really anything in it beyond the use of non-traditional materials that pushes any boundaries. And given what has been already done with LEDs and clothing, I’m inclined to think that’s it’s kind of like the clothes your sister’s friend in high school wore. Something designed to make her look good, not making any real statements and not that different from what everyone else was wearing.
Bag Garment By Mélanie Casavant
This little frock caught my eye, although I don’t know if it was because it’s black, and as you know, black is the new black. Or if it was because it was strapless and since I am not y-chromosome challenged, bare shoulders always make me shiver slightly, even during the summer, even on a faceless mannequin. Or what. I’ll leave it up to your imagination.
Anyhows, this was the first one, where I thought to myself: “I’m not so certain that they actually used stuff from the garbage to make this…” Seeing as how it is made from those plastic bags you take with you when you’re walking your dog and you’re playing State Farm and being a good neighbor and picking up after your dog and everything.
None the less, I like how it incorporates the paw print motif from the bags, is over the knee and has some sort of petticoat action happening. Kind of like being post-modern and anti-nostalgic at the same time.
Although I’m not certain I want to know what’s in the bag…