Unfortunately I have no details as to when it was stolen, where in Quebec it was stolen (if in fact it was stolen in Quebec), who it was stolen from or how it was stolen, or how much it is worth. The Sûreté du Québec has teamed up with the RCMP (and possibly the Montreal Police department as well) to have an art crimes unit. Every now and again they send out an email which lists (sometimes with pictures, sometimes without) of art that has been stolen. This was what was in the most recent one which was sent out last week.
It’s kind of nice, while at the same time being kind of frustrating. Not having access to all the information possible kind of makes for less than half a story. If you’d like to get on their mailing list and find out about stolen Quebecois art (although in this case it appears to be stolen Acadian art, as Roméo Savoie is Acadian) then send an email to Art.Alert@surete.qc.ca and ask.
I every now and again scan Craigslist and Kijiji, but haven’t come across anything yet. I presume that all the local auction houses check their lots against some list, but as I am typing that, I suddenly am not as confident. Empire, Iegor and La Maison des Encans de Montréal are the three major places to buy art in Montreal at auction.
Earlier this week I went to go see the Dites Donc Dow! exhibit. Half because I drink beer every now and again, half because it’s not all that common to be able to go see an exhibit on a Monday. Since this one is in a school, it’s open Monday to Friday 10 o’clock in the morning to 5 o’clock at night. I do believe it is the first time I ever had to be buzzed in by a security guard to see an exhibit, but it was easy enough. He asked me what I wanted to do, I said see the exhibit, I got in, everyone went home happy.
As it is a historical exhibit, I’m not going to duplicate things by going over the history of the Dow Brewery. Suffice it to say there is an awful lot of it online (here, here, here and here). Plus there is an awful lot more online that deals with the deaths in Quebec City in 1966 due to massive consumption of cobalt sulfate by heavy drinkers of Dow, due to their being more than 16 times the amount of cobalt sulfate than there was supposed to be. (here, here, here, here, and here). And then there are the pictures (here, here and here). I didn’t bother looking at eBay, because I figured it would just be a complete time waster. Surprisingly, I could only find two ads for Dow Beer on YouTube
Plus the whole idea is for this to be a review, not a proxy for going to see the exhibit. Another reason why I’m not doing anything other than making oblique links, is that up until I started looking on line, I was quite charmed by the exhibit and I’d kind of like to keep that sensation. It’s a tiny exhibit. Maybe 150 square feet in total, very bright, full of lots of memorabilia and other cool stuff – I’m kind of disappointed that I didn’t make it to the opening, in retrospect there probably was a lot of beer floating around, although I have no idea what brand they would have served.
I think a large part of why I was charmed was that for whatever reasons, I entered the exhibit backwards, and got waylaid by a wrestling match from sometime in the late 50s/early 60s. They had this display set up to look vaguely like a bar with three taps and in order to see one of the screens you had to pull a tap. Ingenious!! That way the videos weren’t on an endless loop, and it definitely made the whole thing feel very interactive. So, I went and pulled the first tap, and because Dow sponsored wrestling on TV back then the complete show started. I won’t spoil it and tell you who wins. Although I was confused by the fact that the portrait of the three men drinking beer used as a background was of men drinking Export and 50, and not Dow or at least some generic beer in a glass with no label.
The other two screens show some Dow TV ads and something like home movies from taverns “back in the day.” Again being able to watch them consecutively and from beginning to end was a pleasure. I particularly liked the one which was a complete rip-off of the James Bond opening sequence, but probably done for $20. After that I was smitten.
I then wondered around with a really silly smile on my face, looking at all the old bottles they had on display,
all the old print ads they had on display,
and ultimately it was just kind of nice being able to sort of let all this nostalgia just wash over me. Back when I was younger, I always had a soft spot for Dow (which was available as a brand of beer up until 1998). It, like Frontenac, wasn’t easy to find, but when I did come across a depanneur that carried it, I’d buy it, especially if it was in a quart bottle. From where my generation sits, you really can’t get more old school than that. Drinking Dow out of a quart bottle in 8 oz glasses, and adding some salt anytime the head on the beer got too flat for your taste. I don’t quite know where I developed the taste, but…
After wandering around looking at all the objects, I sort of scanned the wall tags that had all the text about the history of Dow Beer – for the most part when I go to see exhibits I do not go to read stuff on walls, I much prefer doing that outside. Indoor reading is best done with a book or computer screen. And then went on my merry way.
It wasn’t until afterwards, when I started doing some research for this review that I realized that the sensation of charm that I got was solely due to the fact that it was small, well lit, had multimedia stuff that I could control and had a lot of empty bottles. After seeing what was available online
Stuff like the above, that I started to realize that Claude-Sylvie Lemery, MathieuTrépanier and Michel Simonsen (the researchers behind the exhibit) probably were severely hampered by a tiny budget, or at least I hope that they were severely hampered by a tiny budget. Because after seeing what was available on line, and then going back and looking at what they were able to present, I became more and more disenchanted.
A couple of things to point out.
Just about all the text is on the panels and walls, above is a shot of one of the panels about the history of the building. I have no idea why they decided to duplicate the dates (on all three panels the dates were duplicated). The panels themselves were at knee level, as if designed for elementary school children – although somehow I can’t see an elementary school taking a field trip to learn about beer. And then I have a vague memory (but no photos) of them explaining how beer is made. When I’m going to learn about the history of the Dow Brewery, I don’t give a rat’s ass about fermentation.
While it’s all fine and dandy to give a history of the National Breweries (of which Dow was a major part) and illustrate it with bottles and labels from the various breweries. The white bottles and irregular placement of the bottles made it extremely difficult for me to figure out who who was responsible for what bottle/label combination and the white bottles were extremely jarring to view.
And here, while giving lip service (49 words) to marketing, they don’t label any of the objects which leaves the viewer in a state of limbo trying to decide whether the objects are pretty with no clue as to when or why they were made. It becomes even more disheartening when you realize that they are all from one collection, which probably does have some information about the various objects.
Then finally, I think what disenchanted me most was the way they handled the deaths of the men in Quebec City
Using one of the larger panels in the entire exhibit along with the largest typeface in the exhibit, they proceed to gloss over the entire event. After 46 years I do not understand the compulsion to continue to hide things. If I can find out that the Dow Brewery in Quebec City was using 16 times the amount of cobalt sulfate as they were at the brewery in Montreal, I’m fairly certain Ms. Lemery, M. Trépanier and M. Simonsen could have as well. Instead of glossing over the event, it would have been a perfect place to actually name the victims. Instead of continuing to condemn them more than half a century later as nameless alcoholics. Instead of reproducing parts of barely legible articles from the newspapers of the time, what about possibly showing the episode of Tout le Monde en Parlait or finding out where they got their source material from?
My basic rule of thumb is that if I can find more information online than is given in the exhibit, and then use that information to point out mistakes in the exhibit, no matter how much I want to believe, it’s no longer a charming exhibit. Ultimately, the objects they display are nice and give a certain (very nice) sense of nostalgia for me – depending on how old you are, and where you were when you learned to drink you might not have the same visceral reaction to objects from your early adolescence – but that doesn’t make for a great exhibit.
Ultimately, I think it is Bergeron Gagnon inc.‘s responsibility. They are listed as doing the production and the exhibition design, so while I can easily see the researchers having the information, but the producer/designer vetoing things. But as I haven’t asked who did what, I really have clue. If anybody were to ask me (and nobody has, nor do I expect anyone will) for the next time they try to do a history of the Dow Brewery, a larger space should be used while less, much less words should be used. I’d label absolutely every object on display with as much information as I could get, and have a larger variety of objects on display but most importantly I wouldn’t gloss over the dozens of deaths in Quebec City in 1965 and 1966.
Despite my harshness, if you’re in the neighborhood with 15 to 30 minutes to spare, you should poke your nose in, if only to get the visitor count up, so that they continue to use the space for exhibits in the future. There is always hope.
Dites Donc Dow!
Carrefour d’innovation INGO 355 Rue Peel, Montréal, Québec
For a while (I can’t seem to find how long the show is up, but I guess at least through the summer, if not longer)
No it isn’t on a building, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen stainless steel lettering on a lawn before. Plus I saw Octobre in the parking lot right above the letters in the late 70s.
[Edit, July 31, 2012: I received an email from M. Lasserre, and have added it to the article, I have also corrected the line I wrote with regards to the ownership of Coriolis.]
And I always thought that it was pretty gosh darn cool, somehow M. Lasserre had squished an upright piano with a rock. So when I had a chance to go see it at L’espace musée Québecor I figured what the hey. Especially since L’espace musée Québecor is one of the few places in town where you can go see art on a Monday.
Well color me very disappointed. Turns out it’s not a piano at all. Just a bunch of steel made to look like an upright piano and then left outside to rust.
It’s almost like discovering that the Emperor has no clothes. Then on top of that I have no idea how M. Lasserre think that Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis has anything to do with what happened to his faux-piano. He dropped the rock from 40 feet. Which is way too small of a distance with way too heavy an object for the earth’s rotational forces to have any appreciable effect on the resulting collision. In fact if you look at this picture taken by Mirana Zuger of the moments just before impact
You can see how the place where M. Lasserre wants the impact to happen and where it in fact does happen are one and the same. If he were taking any Coriolic forces into account his dropping of the rock would have been much more like a billiards shot. Not just a straight drop from 40 feet. If he decides to make something similar (after all his gallery was successful in getting Québecor someone to buy it, maybe he should make another) he should call the next one Galilei (or perhaps Kepler, Descartes or Newton) since they were all pretty instrumental (pun intended) in describing the various physical forces on a falling rock. Then finally I’d also suggest he use a tuba, sousaphone, harp or kazoo as he instrument to crush as they all are made out of metal (or in the case of the harp, can be made out of metal).
That all being said, it is momentarily interesting in a sort of I’m-hungry-let’s-go-for-lunch-no-I-don’t-care-where-I-just-want-a-sandwich kind of way.
RE: I’m-hungry-let’s-go-for-lunch-no-I-don’t-care-where-I-just-want-a-sandwich
maskull lasserre Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 9:40 PM
To: zeke@zeke.com
Dear Chris,
I must admit that I am seldom moved to respond to the types of postings that appear on your blog, but when someone teeters, publicly, so perilously between being misinformed and ignorant, I can’t help but try to right the balance in the public interest, and in so doing give you the benefit of the doubt.
I came upon your piece about Coriolis when I was forwarded your post on Vrtlar, at the McClure Gallery, earlier this summer. I will not be as exhaustive in my redaction (and I apologize for the “fancy-ass” words, but you can look them up here and here) as you were of Mr. Campbell’s text – although you should really have a look to see that he was correct in his reference to the Divine Horsemen: The Voodoo Gods of Haiti, Chelsea House / Delta, 1970. I will, however, suggest the following links to, albeit after the fact, inform you that:
1) Coriolis is in a private collection, and does not belong to Quebecor,
2) the Coriolis effect does register on every falling mass, though measurable more easily on a planetary scale, and
Although these posts are probably more embarrassing to their author than they are to the people they exploit for their petty picking of criticism’s low-hanging fruit and the disingenuous slights that border on adolescent slander, maybe you should stick to writing about sandwiches.
Sincerely,
Maskull Lasserre
The comments about the film, and vocabulary, are in reference to this review I wrote about a month afterwards.
Over the weekend my timing was seriously off. I went to go see one exhibit that wouldn’t be opening for another two weeks, and then ended up at a second one almost two hours before the vernissage. Which actually, come to think of it, wasn’t half bad. For the most part, when alone, I hate, abhor, detest and really really dislike vernissages (aka art exhibit openings) and on Sunday, I was alone.
They are so bad, because a) because there are so many people, it’s always difficult, if not impossible to see the art. B) While there are exceptions, conversations with strangers about the art in front of you (that you haven’t really been able to see) can be awkward and difficult. C) Cheap wine is cheap wine. The gallery by offering it means well, but… D) Because I’m a sucker for most free stuff I end up drinking too much of it, which is never a good thing. E) Which leads to eating too much of the snack food, which is also not a good thing. F) Occasionally, Fairly often, some well meaning gallery owner will recognize me and try to buttonhole me, either earnestly trying to explain the art to me or very nicely, ask me my opinion about the art. And then G) Don’t even get me started about taking pictures.
But in this case it was perfect. As I was early, there was no one else there to block the art. As I was early the staff of the gallery were scurrying around opening bottles of wine, making party platters, etc and did not have that much time to buttonhole me. As I was early and the bottles of wine weren’t open, I didn’t drink the wine. Overall, if I can get my act organized I might just try to do it again.
But enough of the preamble. If I had been organized and shown up a week after the vernissage, this is how I would have started this article: Pink Espace is one of my favorite galleries in the entire city for a variety of reasons. In no particular order, Pat Pink is a really nice person. Pink Espace is run kind of like Zeke’s Gallery was run (although Ms. Pink started running galleries way before Zeke’s opened and will be running galleries for a long long time after. Most of the art she exhibits is really good. And in the past when I would show up, I would bring a six-pack and she would join me in a beer as I looked and we discussed whatever she was exhibiting at the time. This time it was an exhibit by Alain James Martin (not this guy) called The future belongs to crowds. He snagged (or borrowed, depending on your perspective) the title from the last line of the prologue in Don DeLillo‘s book Mao II. He also snagged (or borrowed, depending on your perspective) the content of the show from two photographs taken by Weegee in 1940. In a nutshell, he made 13 different drawings of the photographs. Each one a variation on a theme, changing either the inks, the type of instrument or focusing in on a different part of the photographs (or quite possibly, and I did not have the patience to check, possibly combining parts from both photographs into a new drawing).
Don DeLillo snagged (or borrowed, depending on your perspective) the title of his novel from an Andy Warhol painting. Given all this snagging (or borrowing) it’s a good thing that you can’t copyright a title… but I digress. However, I kind of like all this circular motion of art borrowing (or snagging) from other art. Not quite appropriation, but… And given that Mao II has a similar circularity, among other things it begins and ends with a wedding, it all seems rather appropriate. Contrary to Mr. DeLillo, I am quite fond of Weegee. I found out about him at about the same time Mr. DeLillo was writing Mao II. John Zorn had this band called Naked City that released an eponymous record which used a photograph by Weegee as its cover. As the internet wasn’t quite the thing that it is today, when I discovered that Mr. Martin was using a Weegee photograph as his source material, I exclaimed to Ms. Pink, “I didn’t know that Weegee took pictures of people who were still alive!”
The photographs themselves are called Crowd at Coney Island, July 22, 1940. In doing research, I couldn’t quite figure out if the photograph had been published anywhere during Weegee’s lifetime, but it is in the collections of both the International Center of Photography and MOMA. It’s also fairly small, especially in comparison to what Mr. Martin has done, pretty much 11″ x 14″. Whereas Mr. Martin’s largest drawing is 70″ x 38″. Also while doing research, it was a Sunday, both Alex Trebek and George Clinton were born (but neither in New York City, nor Coney Island) and Duke Ellington recorded four songs at RCA-Victor’s Studio 2. But none of that is here nor there with regards to the drawings by Mr. Martin. I just mention them in passing to give you a sense of what was up then.
Before I get too carried away with myself, I probably should try and explain to you what I saw. As I said, Mr. Martin basically copied the photograph 13 times. But the exhibit itself is much more than that. Whereas making a copy of a photograph using photographic means and methods was purely a chemical process and is now an electronic one. Making a copy of a photograph by drawing it yourself is very human. There are obviously going to be differences between the copy and the original. As well as differences between the copies themselves. Add to that, that Mr. Martin himself deliberately made changes in how he drew (changing frame colors, changing ink colors, changing pen types – fountain pen, crow quill tip – using a variety of tones with each color of ink, changing techniques – crosshatch, ink wash – as well as using different types of paper) along with choosing different parts of the photograph to copy and things can get dizzyingly confusing. However if you take a step back, it is way easier to view each of the drawings as something unique, which they are, things immediately become much simpler.
Crowds behave differently than individuals, there is a whole branch of psychology dealing with that. But it’s not worth getting into here. Seeing all 13 of the drawings together is an inherently different experience than looking at just one of the drawings. Each of the people in the original photographs taken 72 years-ago is an individual, but collectively they come together into something different. Mr. Martin by copying the original photographs probably has done more than anyone else has in regards to these specific pictures to break them down to their individual portraits. At some point, when I don’t have anything better to do, I’m going to have to go back to Pink Espace and plot out the drawings on a copy of the photographs to see for myself if he missed any spots. Ultimately though each drawing needs to be viewed individually. While the future may belong to crowds, the only way to understand that is by deciding that you agree, or disagree individually. There ain’t no crowd in the world that can make you change your own mind. If you prefer, and I kind of roll this way, they can be viewed as variations on a theme. Kind of making it obvious that they are unique and individual while at the same time accepting that they are linked.
In the press release Mr. Martin states that he was struck by the fact that “the scene is empty of mass-market merchandise and branding in all their forms.” I would respectfully disagree with him. While it is obvious that there are no logos in the way we are accustomed to seeing them today. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that due to the size of the original he wasn’t able to see the Coca-Cola and Pepsi bottles, the packs of Pall Mall, Chesterfield and Camel cigarettes, the Rheingold and Schaffer beer cans, the Levis’s jeans and the Converse sneakers. All of which would have been mass-marketed and branded. As well, since Weegee did not take a picture of the parking lots at Coney Island there are no Chevrolet, Chrysler, Ford or Cadillac logos to be seen, and since he didn’t take the picture on the boardwalk, there is no Nathan’s logo to be seen either. In choosing to use these specific photographs as his original source material he prevented himself from being able to see the mass marketing and branding. But it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t there.
I‘d also be extremely skeptical of the quote from Weegee that he uses in the press release
And this is Coney Island on a quiet Sunday afternoon … a crowd of over a million is usual and attracts no attention (I wonder who counts them) … it only costs a nickel to get there from any part of the city, and undressing is permitted on the beach. … Some come to bathe, but others come to watch the girls. A good spot being the boardwalk. … Of the families, some manage to get through the day without losing their children … but the city is prepared and at the Lost Child Shelter the crying kids are kept cooped up behind a barrier of chicken wire ’til their parents call for them … also in this shelter are kept the peddlers who are arrested for peddling on the beach … seeing their merchandise melt, the peddlers give their ice cream to the kids.- source
Then finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention A country as big as a house, a series of watercolors done by Mr. Martin in the back room at Pink Espace of images from real estate listings. I think they’re all about 3″ x 5″ (maybe 4″ x 6″) in size and exquisite in nature. Initially done in 2008, it gives great insight into Mr. Martin’s ideas about making art and upon seeing all 50 of them it immediately makes perfect sense why he chose to copy Crowd at Coney Island, July 22, 1940.
This is running long now, and I probably should try and wrap things up. So while I’m not entirely convinced that the future belongs to crowds, I am 100% convinced that Mr. Martin’s The future belongs to crowds is an amazing series of drawings that really needs to be seen in person to be completely understood. The very nature of the task of copying such a small photograph so large is a feat to behold. Then once you start looking at what he has created, you can begin to appreciate both the exquisite nature of the drawings along with teh theoretical and historical nature behind it.
The future belongs to crowds by Alain James Martin at Pink Espace, 1399 Saint Jacques, Thursday to Sunday 13h to 17h.
Back in 1988 there was much consternation as Westmount Square was renovated. As part of the renovations, the Travertine was removed from the plaza and replaced with granite. If I remember correctly the excuse used was that it wasn’t able to stand up to the extreme weather here in Montreal.
They started to build Westmount Square in 1965. So the travertine was about 23 years old when they replaced it. The granite 24 years old this year. It isn’t doing much better. I think they should redo it and replace the granite with travertine.
And while they are at it, get rid of the skylights, and bring the fountain back.
Sorry Miriam, Diary of a Neighbourhood has got to be one of the worst pieces of public/community art I have ever seen in a long time, if not my entire life. I’m addressing Miriam Ginestier, head of Studio 303 and one of the partners in Michael Toppings project called Diary of a Neighbourhood because I really like her and her organization what they do and how they try to do it. But in this case not one bit, so I want to make extremely clear and 100% sure that she understands that this isn’t personal. Now that I got that out of the way, let me backtrack slightly so that the rest of you (all 10 of you) understand as well.
Yesterday, I was walking down Jeanne Mance, when as I crossed Léo-Pariseau and went to take a picture of MAI, I noticed that there was some writing in their windows. I vaguely remembered having seen writing (standard issue plastic stenciled lettering) in some some the other windows in some of the apartments facing MAI. Now normally, I am a big fan of this type of community-building public art. Bringing art to the masses, one for art – art for all, that sort of thing, but this just fails on so many different levels, that it shows how removed from the actual art made the decision makers and signers of checks are, and it is unfortunate, if not really really sad that CALQ gave Mr. Topping $20K to pull this off (the Canada Council also gave a significant chunk of change, but their database stops at 2010, so I have no idea how much he got – and then upon looking a little further it appears as if he got some cash from someone named Margaret Rind, the city and possibly the Cirque du Soleil as well).
If you want the CliffsNotes version of why Diary of a Neighbourhood sucks the big one, aka is really horrible or is just bad art, I have five words for you: unoriginal and impossible to view. Then to make matters worse not only is it unoriginal and impossible to view, but had Mr. Topping had even a moment to pause and reflect, instead of just slapping some letters up on some windows and then wrapping everything in multisyllabic nonsense designed to confuse bureaucrats and take advantage of the fact that he is an English Canadian in Quebec, he actually could have pulled off something cool, interesting, effective and useful. Pity.
Now that we got that out of the way, let me explain why it’s unreadable, and that’s simple enough. For some strange reason Mr. Topping decided to use windows that were on the third and fourth floors along with some lower level windows that were obscured by foliage.
Plus, I strongly doubt that in the time that MAI has been around there have been more than two dozen people who have walked along Jeanne Mance and looked up at their windows. So while technically it may be possible to see what’s written on their windows, for all intents and purposes no one is going to.
By using the MAI windows, Mr. Topping also sends a mixed message, because they use the exact same type of signage to publicize the events that they organize, it muddles whatever message Mr. Topping is trying to send. Is a list of visual art exhibits and plays part of the artistic intervention? Or not? I don’t know. You tell me.
Then, again while I realize that technically a neighborhood can and does include the people who work there. Practically, it means the people who interact with each other in some kind of loosely (or tightly) defined geographic area. So the people working in a neighborhood would be for the most part the store clerks, cashiers, bus drivers, waiters, etc. Faceless bureaucrats working in a low-rise office building (even if it for the most part only has artistic organizations as tenants) really don’t do much to a neighborhood. They show up at about 10 o’clock in the morning, work in their cubicles, eat lunch in the food court or park nearby depending on the weather and how much their salary is, then leave and go home at about 6 o’clock, to their own neighborhoods. Yes, there might be some people who work at 3680 Jeanne-Mance who walk to work. But the vast majority of the couple of hundred or so people who work there drive, bike or take the 80/435 to get to work and as a consequence are minimally part of the neighborhood around Jeanne Mance and Léo-Pariseau. The lines written in the windows of MAI imply a completely different type of story than those on the windows of a house.
Nor do I understand why the church at the corner of Prince Arthur that was turned into condos was not included. Aren’t the people living there as much a part of the neighborhood as the people on the east side of the street?
The, don’t even get me started on the voyeuristic nature of this project. In order to read it you have to stare directly into people’s living rooms and bedrooms.
Apparently, there were some events happening as part of this intervention. Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of them until way too late, so I was unable to participate, but it strikes me that these would be events that were fairly insular in nature and designed and organized around the people already participating instead of being more open inviting and inclusive. There was nothing on the street explaining to the outsider what was happening or why. Given the very strong negative values associated with being a voyeur and/or inquiring into things that are obviously not your business, I’d be hard pressed to believe that anyone besides the aforementioned people in the neighborhood and the people involved in the project took part in any of the events. And as there are over 40 people (not including “all those volunteers making up the mob scene”) mentioned by name on Mr. Toppings website in the credits, and I counted over 60 separate entrances to apartments I would hope that in his reports to the various funding agencies that he got at least 1,000 people to participate in his 21 separate events. While 1,000 sounds like a lot of folk, that’s actually less than 50 per event. With 60 apartments and 40 people involved, that’s a very low threshold to cross.
To me this is a perfect example of what I would call Grant Art. It involves what the grant officer would presume were not regular grant recipients. There were two well established arts organizations willing to help. It was multicultural. Sounds way more complicated than it is. Used large multisyllabic words. And is forgotten as soon as it is over.
Then, to get very specific (I was scanning Mr. Topping’s description of the project, while writing that last paragraph) if Diary of a Neighbourhood is truly “a self-penned literary work.” Then what exactly are the “quotations from a large pool of disparate sources – David Wojnarowicz, Hart Crane, WU LYF, Nietzche, Jeanette Winterson?” Is he implicating himself as a plagarist? And I’m not quite certain what he means when he writes “With the actual neighbourhood as stage, performers infiltrate by assuming the role of resident, rendering portrayals of the everyday and the banal alongside deconstructions and gender inversions of film and theatre classics such as Network and A Streetcar Named Desire.” He self-penned it (whatever that means) then has quotations included, and during the events he’s going to have one person yell out their window
And another one yell
Gimme a break! But as long as I am discussing the content, I might as well add that what bits I was able to read were not compelling in any way, shape or form. It appeared to me as more of “ain’t I cool, that I can everyone (or almost everyone) to do this.” Thank any real literary work. I realize that there is such a category as Experimental Fiction, but until I see otherwise Mr. Topping can’t hold a candle to what Robert Coover, Gail Scott or Georges Perec write. Add to that, the fact that easily a third to half of the entire project is physically unreadable and I just guess that in practice the actual content of this “literary work” was secondary, if not tertiary to whatever the main objectives really were.
Personally, if I had $50,000 (what I guess he raised from the various sources) and really wanted to do “a community-based initiative, implicating the residents of one street in one Montréal neighbourhood. Envisioned as a trans-disciplinary project… [encompassing] public art, print art, installation, street theatre and performance but remains, in essence, a literary work.” I would have thrown a street party to end all street parties, and then simply asked everyone who participated to write down their thoughts and impressions. I would have then published everything and given each participant a copy of the book. But then, maybe that’s why I don’t apply for grants.
Oh, and one last thing. I might be blind, but while I was looking at and taking pictures of the various texts on the windows, while I did see text in French, English, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese, I did not see the Braille.
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings
Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings