Category Archives: Humorous Verse

Art, Humorous Verse, Montréal, Public Art, Québec, Video, Visual Art

Alexandre David, Une ou deux places

Howdy!

[M.] David appears to love plywood
A common form of building material frequently misunderstood.
Unvarnished and unpainted
It’s a type of wood to which everyone is acquainted.

Using it to make false floors and fake walls
M. David succeeds in transforming one the the museum’s halls
From something clean and pristine
To something rough and less clean.

Depending on where you started, this might be the last piece of art you see in the show,
And right after it there’s a collection of catalogues to look at which is kind of apropos,
Unlike other museums when the show is finished there is no store.
It is one of the things about the Musée d’art contemporain that I adore.

Art, Humorous Verse, Montréal, Public Art, Québec, Video, Visual Art

Marie-Andrée Cormier, Paysage Humain II

Howdy!

Moving luggage one at a time in a choreographed human chain
Surprisingly this two channel video, my attention it did sustain.
Two screens at a right angle, the videos are each a long static shot
Other than moving the boxes, there’s nothing really that can be called “plot.”

One by one they come in, one by one they leave
They pile the gear up, they break the gear down, it’s kind of naive.
But nonetheless we stuck around to the bitter end
Sometimes surreal stuff can be hard to hard to comprehend.

Art, Humorous Verse, Montréal, Public Art, Québec, Video, Visual Art

Olivia Boudreau, L’Étuve

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A video of some women hanging around in a steam bath
After one glance I look at the wall tag and do some math
If I hang around for the twenty-minutes to watch the entire thing
I’ll get angry, stomp out and end up missing
Most of the rest of the exhibition

Which would put me in an awkward position
Of having to be rhymey
About things I had not seen, which is kind of slimy.
So I only watched five minutes, which was more than enough
To give me this material in case anyone calls my bluff.

Olivia Boudreau, Excerpt from L'Étuve

Art, Humorous Verse, Montréal, Public Art, Québec, Video, Visual Art

Matthew Biederman, Guided Saccade

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Triangles are a three sided polygon
What you see is what’s shown
Saccade is the fancy word for fast eye movement
Art by Matthew Biederman still has room for improvement.

Three screens at the end of the the hallway
Showing about 108 Right Triangles in an array
I remember “square of the length of the hypotenuse”
If I look closely I’m certain at least one of them is chartreuse.

Mr. Biederman used some kind of computerized tool
To make the triangles move and twist on an irregular schedule
Your eyes follow the motion
Guided Saccade lacks all emotion.

Art, Humorous Verse, Montréal, Public Art, Québec, Video, Visual Art

Sophie Bélair Clément, Proun Room

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Howdy!

A box in a box with some sense of history
Sometimes Russian Constructivism is just a mystery.
What El Lissitzky did in 1923 might be obvious to some
Since I had to look it up, it’s obvious that I’m just plain dumb.

A copy of a copy of a room filled with abstract symbols, the room Proun
When stripped of the art, might as well be a ruin.
To see the original copy you need to go to Eindhoven
I can’t figure out why the copy of the copy (without the art) was chosen.

Trying to understand who made what choices to exhibit and why
Sometimes it looks like demand was less than supply.
Thankfully in the Triennale there’s a awful lot of art all in one place
There’s always more to see (that could be better) in the worst case.

Art, Humorous Verse, Montréal, Public Art, Québec, Video, Visual Art

Mathieu Beauséjour, Icarus : Acéphale

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I wonder if Mathieu Beauséjour knows about Ichabod Crane
His picture is of a hockey player without a brain
Possibly telling a story in the same vein.

Sounds from the sun are played on an expensive turntable
Let me remind you that Icarus and Crane are both fable
Making a connection between the two is something to which I am unable.

A headless hockey player with a modified stick
Combining ancient Greek myths with early American stories
Everything is a little too slick
I’m certain if I look hard enough I can find the allegories

Art, Humorous Verse, Montréal, Public Art, Video, Visual Art

Chris ‘Zeke’ Hand on Sylvain Baumann and Florine Leoni’s Maleen, ich beneide Dich in manchen Augenblicken um Deine kühle, vornehme und bewusste Distanz zur Umwelt.

Howdy!

A video in German projected on something like a maze.
Completely incomprehensible no matter what he says.
I didn’t stick around for any replays.

Living in Montreal it helps to bilingue
Speaking two languages is part of the local Sturm und Drang
But dreisprachig just makes my brain hang.

Reading the catalogue it “probes porosity, problematizing the relationship between model and reality.”
A sentence that only someone with a PhD in art history could write and love
Reading it makes my mind wander and removes all vitality
After looking at it for hours I think I understand the phrase, sort of.

Art, Humorous Verse, Montréal, Public Art, Video, Visual Art

Lorna Bauer, Éminence Grise

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Howdy!

Colorful frames surrounding shiny black stuff
“They are photgraphs.” I bluff.
Then look closer, sho’nuff.

Photocopies of something by Hank Bull.
It would be nice if there was attraction or pull.
Looking at the art makes my head empty, not full.

Documentary Photographer next to Cut Ups/Cut Offs,
How To Sell Burroughs Paintings in another room.
Almost as great as Microsoft’s
Windows Millenium Edition I presume.

Art, Humorous Verse, Montréal, Public Art, Québec, Video, Visual Art

Steve Bates, Concertina

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Dangerous art,
Be still me heart.
This one is quite smart.

An accordion, radios and razor wire.
If touched, the consequences are dire.
Mr. Bates properly used the preterite of “to inspire.”

Juxtaposition of homonyms is a nice
And simple way to get people thinking.
A built in method to make them think twice
I could go on for a while, but it’s Friday and I want to go drinking.

Art, Humorous Verse, Montréal, Public Art, Québec, Video, Visual Art

Dean Baldwin, Ship in a Bottle, Barbados Rhum

Howdy!

Fish out of water, sailboat on land.
Serving drinks on Wednesday evening, I understand.
I wonder what cocktails he has planned?

Allow me to correct myself, sailboat in a museum.
I presume that Mr. Baldwin knows how to carpe-diem,
Everytime I saw it, it seemed more like a mausoleum.

I can’t figure out the “h,” maybe he didn’t know in French it’s “Barbade.”
Getting it into the space must have been an interesting feat.
English-style rum (sans le “h”) isn’t half bad.
When it comes from Martinique or Haiti it can be sipped neat.