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Pierre Granche isn’t getting much respect from UQAM these days…
Pierre Granche, Trente-deux fois passera la dernière s’envolera
Category Archives: Art
More stolen art, this time by Sébastien Gaudette
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While it’s still sad to hear about stolen art, I can’t imagine that this one is worth as much, or makes for as compelling story as the Molinaris that I wrote about last week. Again, I don’t know anything more than what is written here. And if you happen to know where it is, call 911 or email art.alert@surete.qc.ca.
If you’d like more information on Sébastien Gaudette, try these places.
Michael Merrill Espace / Outer Space at the McClure Gallery
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I’m kind of (actually really really) pissed off at myself. Almost a full year ago Micheal Merrill had dueling shows at the McClure Gallery and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal. I caught some bits of the show at the museum and not only saw the show at the McClure Gallery but also got a copy of the catalogue. Somehow I let things slide until now, and while to my mind reviews do not need to be timely, ten months after the fact is pushing the envelope slightly. But that’s not why I’m annoyed, as you might expect, it took me something like nine and half moths to read the catalogue and then upon reading it, I discovered that I seriously shot myself in the foot. While I am familiar with Mr. Merrill’s paintings of art storage spaces in galleries and museums, somehow I got really really dense and either wasn’t aware, didn’t care or completely spaced on the fact that the show at the McClure Gallery was twined with that at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal.
While I know it is possible to appreciate and enjoy one without the other, after reading the catalogue, I kind of slowly came to the realization that an opportunity had stared me right in the face and I blinked. Because I found out that there was not only a connection between the pieces of art by virtue of the fact that they were exhibited at the same time, but in fact were reflections of each other. My understanding is that while those at the museum were in full color and those at the McClure were in black and white the two sets were pretty much two versions of the same thing. Multiple views of scenes that you’re not normally allowed to see. And that’s why I’m pissed off at myself, it’s one thing to miss an opportunity, it’s a completely different thing to deliberately ignore something that stares you down.
I’m not quite 100% certain I know exactly what is involved in making an ink wash drawing, but on first blush it looks kind of simple. But then after looking at them a little closer, it becomes obvious that they aren’t as simple as all that. It’s not quite watercolor, and not quite straight pen and ink. The images themselves have a loose dreamlike feel to them, which is made somewhat spookier because of their dark nature. They are all images of the back rooms of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal and the construction of the Bougie Pavillion. Apparently Mr. Merrill was able to cut some kind of deal with them whereby he got special access where more normal people aren’t allowed to venture. They are in parallel with some much more realistic paintings done in color using something called gouache vinylique for which I am unable to get a satisfactory translation. The gouache ones were the ones that were displayed at the museum.
When viewing the gouache paintings, I am reminded that it is principally Mr. Merrill’s hand and eye that cause any sort of subjectivity in the paintings. For the most part they (I presume) represent things fairly realistically. But the ink wash drawings have a whole different aura around them. While again, it is only Mr. Merrill’s eyes and hands creating the drawings, there is a sense that other forces (gravity, the physical reaction of the water on the paper, etc) that aren’t as tightly controlled were at work as well.
Depending on where you let your mind drift to while looking at the drawings there are an awful lot of allusions that can be made. From ghostly representations of hidden places to an attempt to recreate some kind of blurry black and white photographs. I find that the looseness of his lines lends an eerie and/or mystical sense to a subject that would normally be much more clinical. What you want to read into that sense is entirely up to you. I just think that they are kind of cool and made even cooler when you get a gander at the list of folks who already own them in the back of the catalogue.
Publicité Sauvage 25½ 6/15, 7/15, and 8/15
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Initially back at the beginning of the year when Publicité Sauvage started celebrating their silver anniversary I was quite excited. I figured that a year long celebration involving 15 different exhibits at a variety of different venues could be an amazing thing. Unfortunately my idea and those of Publicité Sauvage haven’t quite jibed. Where I was thinking some far reaching history of events in Montreal, rigorously documented and thematically linked, offering accessible but relevant exhibits than were engaging and entertaining. They were thinking something more along the lines of let’s try to hang as many old posters as we have in as many different places around the city as possible, and while we’re at it, documentation, visibility and coherence be damned.
What has been offered has been a hastily and shoddily thrown together series of exhibits that seem more like an afterthought to the book/catalogue (which itself is more like a hagiography than a critical analysis). None the less, any celebration of a past which is just far enough away that I can only view it through a serious haze is always welcome. Back at the start, I was all full of ideas about how I was going to write a gazillion and a half words on each and every show. I was going to do deep research to not only find out who designed each poster, but where it was printed, what kind of paper and then find reviews and articles on line that discussed the events on the poster. Yeah, right. That and $2 will get me a cup of coffee. As it turned out, I got to see four of the first five exhibits. (If you’re interested, you can read what I wrote about 1/15, 2/15 and 3/15 here and what I wrote about 5/15 here.)
So, since my sights have been lowered, I’m combining exhibits 6/15, 7/15, and 8/15 into one review here and now, and I reserve the right to change my mind again and again and again for any and all of the exhibits yet to come. Exhibit 6/15 was at city hall and involved a bunch of posters loosely grouped together as large events that happened in Montreal.
Exhibit 7/15 was at the Monument National and involved (for the most part) things that had happened in theatres.
Exhibit 8/15 was way the heck out in the middle of buttfuck nowhere (aka Tohu) and consisted of some circus posters, and in passing was when and where I realized what was being shown on the walls, what was being written up in the book/catalogue, what was going to written up in the grant report and what was going to be remembered by people who saw any of the exhibits were four completely, utterly and entirely different things unrelated to each other like me, Buddha, Mama Cass Elliot and Fireball Roberts (go look them up on Wikipedia, I’ll wait)
I don’t know who is responsible, but I can only guess that it is Marc H. Choko who is listed as curator all over the place. But he shows a remarkable lack of vision and creativity given the milieu he has chosen to immerse himself in. Pinning up old posters to office cubicle dividers, no matter how good or great awesome the posters are is just doing them a disservice. No they do not need to be framed, but the posters need to be treated with some respect. I would venture a guess that the book/catalogue will/has sold in the low four figures ($40 isn’t cheap, I need to thank Emmanuel Galland, yes that Emmanuel Galland for my copy, he was/is the publicist for the Publicité Sauvage 25½). However I would venture another guess that upwards 1 million people will see the individual exhibits, counting geeks like me seven different times for the seven different exhibits I’ve seen one time each. How many people walk through City Hall every day? 2,000? The exhibit was up there for two weeks. If my guess is right that means 30,000 people saw it. There are 14 other exhibits in certain cases, places that have even higher traffic for a longer period of time (number 9/15 is going to be at Place des Arts for a full month).
As I have seen them so far, the exhibits have served as a kind of variation on the game Concentration, or if you prefer, how many of the events shown can you remember? But then the minute I turned away from the exhibit, I forgot what posters were there. Instead of just presenting nine Cirque du Soleil posters with a minimum of information
how difficult would it have been to spend a couple of bucks at a printshop on some plastic lettering that was then stuck on the wall explaining which poster was the very first Cirque du Soleil poster that Publicité Sauvage handled. Or some bafflegab and goobledygook as to why they don’t have a complete collection of posters from the 30 productions the Cirque du Soleil has done to date. Or heck a headshot of the person who drew the first poster along with their name in something just a little bit larger than 10 point type.
It’s almost as if M. Choko insisted that he follow the guidelines for the actual poster hangers that Publicité Sauvage hires. But without the added benefit of having multiple copies to hang.
Then if I really let loose, I honestly don’t think that an exhibit at the Centre d’Histoire de Montreal in 1995 counts as a “événements marquants de Montréal” (and it probably wouldn’t hurt either if they figured out some way to stop the posters from gapping while being exhibited, but I might be nitpicking here…)
Nor do I think a poster for an album belongs in a collection of theatre posters
And then for the biggest WTF, did Publicité Sauvage somehow build a Latvian division after they couldn’t even figure out Toronto to save their life
Or did they, after the fact discover that there was way more wall space at Tohu than posters that they had mounted? I dunno, but as you can tell by the awesome amount of publicity that M. Galland has been able to accrue since January the entire city has been held enthralled by multiple exhibits of self-serving publicity that Publicité Sauvage has been able to garner – end sarcasm now.
I’ll wait until later in the year to even bring up to various conflicts of interest. And my expectations for 9/15 through 15/15 have been knocked lower than any sub basement you’ve ever visited in your life. I’m going to do my best to see the remaining shows, but while I’m fairly convinced that I am the only person in the entire universe who isn’t paid by Publicité Sauvage who has seen 87.5% of the shows so far, it ain’t like I’ve seen them all, and as a consequence trying to keep up to some unattainable level and promising to see every last one, is just a little bit beyond me now. Hopefully M. Choko is capabloe of learning from past mistakes and the stuff that he shows in the fall/winter season lives up to my initial expectations.
But I’m not holding my breath… Nor would I suggest you do either.
Update on the Stolen Molinari Paintings
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Pieces seem to be falling in place, I got some more information on the stolen Molinari paintings. Apparently they were never sold and come from the estate of Guido Molinari. Part of Guy Molinari‘s inheritance from his father, stolen from his house in Notre-Dame-de-la-Merci, I still don’t know when they were stolen. If anyone reading this knows anything more, please don’t hesitate to share.
It will definitely be interesting to see if the thief (or thieves) try to sell them. Because I can’t see anyone touching them with a ten foot pole, unless they are unaware of the theft. Unfortunately given how the Sûreté du Québec isn’t the most forthcoming organization, this is a distinct possibility.
As per normal, if you have any information about their whereabouts, call 911. Or email art.alert@surete.qc.ca.
And if you need to jog your memory on what they look like, here they are again:
Les Belles-Soeurs s’affichent at the Espace La Fontaine
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I’ve never been a big fan of the theatre. I’m not quite sure why, but when asked I can come up with about half-a-dozen competing theories, none of which really hold any water. As a consequence I’ve never seen a performance of Broue (which I really really would like to see) nor have I seen Les Belles-Soeurs (which I have no real strong desire to see). But that didn’t stop me from going to Espace La Fontaine to go see an exhibit of posters for Les Belles-Soeurs.
It came as advertised, a bunch of posters from a variety of performances all over the world. The unfortunate thing was that it didn’t seem that there were all that many people who paid it any attention whatsoever. Which, seeing as how they needed to pass by the majority of them on their way to the only bathrooms in Parc Lafontaine meant that there was a steady stream, wasn’t a good thing. I would lay the blame squarely at the feet of whomever designed the display. It was done on the cheap, and as a consequence was accorded an equivalent amount of attention.
While I didn’t expect a comprehensive show, I was modestly surprised that there was no poster for the musical version of the play that has been garnering headlines recently. Beyond that, if you go, make sure to poke your nose into sections of the restaurant that seem closed. As during the summer they do 95% of their business outside, there are some posters in places which on first glance appear to be places you’re not supposed to be in.
It’s nice having low expectations for a show. It means that it is real easy for them to be exceeded which always means that I leave thinking positive thoughts. So it’s not like I was really expecting to be told who the artist was, or the dates it was performed in Augsburg or Almonte.
From what I can find, the posters are up for about another week, until July 29.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Painting
Emmanuel Galland and Nicolas Mavrikakis are elitist bullies
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It was over almost before it started. Last week there was a press conference about André Desjardins and the Academy of Fine Art Foundation‘s donating a sculpture to Montreal that was going to be installed in the Olympic Park. The following day Nicolas Mavrikakis wrote an article questioning M. Desjardins’ artistic capabilities, the only reason I can think of why M. Mavrikakis didn’t call M. Desjardins a hack, is because I don’t think there is any word in the French language for it. The following day Emmanuel Galland wrote an open letter in Le Devoir (who should know better) going even further and questioning the motives of the donation as well as the quality of the art.
Well, on Friday M. Desjardins decided that he didn’t need any of the controversy, and asked the people donating the sculpture to not do so.
Obviously the lutte contre l’intimidation hasn’t made it here, yet. Which is kind of a pity, because Hochelaga-Maisonneuve could definitely use some public art.
The Art Actuel Centre Ville Map of Contemporary Art in Montreal
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I’ve seen some banners on lampposts over town advertising artactuelcentreville.com. I kept trying to remember to see what it was about, but somehow it took me a good year (at least) before I came across one of their maps at Vox, and stuck it in my pocket as a mnemonic aid – note to self, banners on lampposts are not a very good way to publicize websites.
I think it was something started by Artexte, and professes to be, In their own words, an “essential tool for locating downtown Montreal’s many contemporary art venues…”
Can you say, in my words, “No,” “Major Fail,” and “Embarrassingly Bad”?
Yup, that’s right, according to Artexte (who should know better) and GreenCopper, the folk who designed it, there are only eight (8), yes that’s right, two more than half-a-dozen, places and 24 art venues exhibiting contemporary art in downtown Montreal (and they’ve even gone so far as to include one place in Old Montreal, too)
Somehow, they think that Galerie A. B., Galerie Lilian Rodriguez, Maison Kasini, Espace Robert Poulin, Galerie Pangée, Galerie [sas], Galerie Luz, Galerie d’art contemporain Visual Voice, Arprim, Galerie Roger Bellemare, Le 514, Galerie Piccini da Todi, Galerie Nicolas Robert and Les Territoires do not exhibit contemporary art.
I won’t even mention that somehow they believe that downtown Montreal starts at Saint Alexandre street and only goes as far east as Berri. But to make things even more egregious, they do include a bookstore and a cinema, and administrative offices for a Cultural NGO, none of which (as far as I know) have ever shown any contemporary art ever. For a place that has as a mandate “the advancement of the visual arts through reliable information sources” this is a gross abdication of their responsibilities, made worse because they used public money to make it. Public money for the arts from the Federal Government for which I am certain there are many, if not tons of other organizations and artists that could have used it, and put it to much better use.
Annie Pootoogook, Norval Morrisseau redux
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This kind of sucks. You’d figure that the Canadian art world is socially aware, slightly progressive and forward thinking. But obviously it ain’t. If you’re too lazy to click on the applicable links, over the weekend the Ottawa Citizen reported that Annie Pootoogook was homeless and five-months pregnant. While I don’t think Mr. Morrisseau was ever pregnant, the stories of him selling drawings dirt cheap on the street when he was homeless are legend. I presumed that stuff like that no longer happened here. Obviously I was wrong.
How difficult would it be for someone like Patricia Feheley, Pierre Francois Ouellette, Clint Roenisch, Jessica Bradley, Katherine Mulherin, Jamie Angell, Joyce Yahouda, Pierre Trahan, Nick Tedeschi, André Laroche and Louis Joncas, Simon Blais or any of the numerous other gallerists, art dealers and art gallery owners who all have a roof over their head and/or were at the Sobey Art Award Gala when Annie Pootoogook won the big prize to get together to not only buy her drawings, but authenticate them as well and then more importantly, get her help. Whether that’s something as simple as buying her drawings so that she can afford an apartment, or finding some professional who knows the ins and outs of addiction.