Category Archives: Québec

Montréal, Music, Performance, Québec, Ramble, Rave, Review

Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain’s Brahms Symphonic Cycle

June 13, 2012 zeke

Howdy!

It must’ve been a pretty big thing. Three of the six daily newspapers in town did preview articles about the Brahms Cycle (Symphony 1, Symphony 2, Symphony 3, Symphony 4) that Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain performed over the weekend (one, two, three). What with everything else happening in town at the same time, I’m impressed that it got that much coverage. After the fact, it got some as well in La Presse, Le Devoir, The Gazette, La Scena Musicale and someplace called Bachtrack. I bring this up, because I was invited by the orchestra to watch them play as well, and while I’m not certain I would have classified it as a big deal, it was fun.

It was my first visit inside the Maison Symphonique which still is not completed (anyone want to take bets on when it will be done?) I will continue to wait to comment on the building until it is finished. But that’s not going to stop me from commenting about the concerts. The first one, on Saturday evening was of Symphonies One and Two. Then on Sunday afternoon they performed Symphonies Three and Four along with Brahms’ Violin Concerto. For the most part I’ve been concentrating on the Symphonies. No slight intended to Benjamin Beilman, he was very good, but the majority of this piece is not going to be about him. It was also my first time in a long time, something like two or three years, seeing an orchestra. For whatever reasons I’ve been concentrating on chamber music recently. After seeing the Orchestre Métropolitain, I’m going to have to get back into the habit again.

It appears that Maestro Nézet-Séguin is on some kind of Brahms streak right now. In going back over his concerts since September 2006, he performed Brahms’ symphonies eight times with four different orchestras prior to May of this year. Then from May 11 to August 31 of this year (as far in advance as the calendar on his website goes) he will be performing them fourteen times with all three orchestras that he directs! Although we are lucky here as we are the only city to get to hear the third symphony. Rotterdam is getting One and Two, and Philadelphia is getting One and Four. In doing the research for this article both the Rotterdams Philharmonisch and the Orchestre Métropolitain made promo videos (I guess the Philadelphia Orchestra isn’t quite in a position to be able to afford to make promo videos just yet).

The Rotterdam promo

And the Orchestre Métropolitain promo

All nice enough, nothing terribly earth shattering, although it’s kind of cool that Maestro Nézet-Séguin has a favorite conductor. Also, as long as I am talking about the stuff in advance of the concert, I must, respectfully take exception to what Arthur Kaptainis wrote. While his logic was reasonable, he was completely and thoroughly wrong. None of the symphonies Maestro Nézet-Séguin conducted were particularly slow. I would also presume that the performances with the different orchestras will be as different as the orchestras themselves.

I also came across this interview with him from twelve years ago. I wonder how long it is going to take for him to shake the “young conductor” label. I know that when I was 37, I certainly didn’t think of myself as a youngster.

But enough of the rambling. I really should get to the meat of the matter. For the first concert we were seated right beside (if slightly above) the orchestra. They were definitely entertaining seats, as we had a clear view of Maestro Nézet-Séguin conducting and were almost on top of Jean-Guy Plante. I can remember one other time being that close to an orchestra, and while I can understand the allure of being further back so that the sound (theoretically) is better, given that a concert is a live performance, being that close gives you a lot of things to look at. As I said, highly entertaining. Being that close also enabled me to see my favorite violinist and viola players, Celine Arcand and Jean Rene. I wasn’t close enough to make out their playing individually, but I know that they were great.

Maestro Nézet-Séguin mentioned that the set up of the orchestra was Viennese, which as he pointed out meant that the Double Basses were behind the brass section, however the trumpet players were also using rotary-valve trumpets which is particular to the Vienna Philharmonic. My ear isn’t good enough to know if they tuned to A443 or if they used any other techniques, specific instruments or ideas from the Vienna Philharmonic, but I would venture a guess as to yes. It would be interesting to see if he got his other two orchestras to do the same when they do their Brahms gigs.

The back row of a Viennese Orchestra setup.

As I mentioned earlier, Maestro Nézet-Séguin’s tempos weren’t particularly slow. I was able to get my hands on a bunch of different recordings and for the First Symphony it sounded to me as if he was leading them at pretty much the same tempo as Antal Doráti‘s recordings from the late 50s and early 60s. While it would have been nice if I could have identified the tempos of the other symphonies, my sense of timing is not quite as good as my sense of tone, so you’re just going to have to trust me on this one.

The one thing that I was able to pick up on was that in comparison to the recordings that I heard, the Orchestre Métropolitain did not have as much of a dynamic range. However I do not know if that was due to where I was sitting or if it was in fact due to the orchestra. Given that they were a small bunch to start with (about 58 musicians onstage) it might have been a case of not being large enough to get really loud, and therefore the quieter parts didn’t sound as dramatically different.

In the first concert I completely missed the First Symphony’s transition from the third to fourth movement, and then when paying particularly close attention during the Second Symphony understood why. In the Second Symphony the pause was incredibly short, barely enough time for the musicians to turn the page in their scores. I would imagine that it was similar in the First Symphony as well – or perhaps I just fell asleep at the wrong time.

The music itself was very nice. In my notes I refer to it not being syrupy at all, and in certain parts being extremely fluid. If you’re really interested, when I have finished Walter Frisch‘s book Brahms: The Four Symphonies I’ll be in a much better position to describe what was happening as the music was playing, but for the time being you’re going to have to put up with things like “it sounds like they are skipping through a field,” and “kind of like suspended in amber.”

Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain

I couldn’t understand, nor did I really like or appreciate that during the intermission there were some children sawing their way through Vivaldi right beside the bar. Afterwards I discovered that there had been some kind of community outreach by the orchestra and Maestro Nézet-Séguin to a local high school. That’s all fine and dandy, but playing inappropriate background music where there really shouldn’t be any is not the way to do it. Working with musicians from the orchestra and being conducted (is that the proper way to say it?) by Maestro Nézet-Séguin definitely fits the bill, and as long as I am at it, I also think they should have been invited to both concerts, not just one. After the intermission, it was back to our seats for Symphony Number Two. In the program they mentioned how “Brahms’s Concerto for Violin displays features that make it almost a companion piece to his Symphony No. 2.” Which made me wonder why they didn’t play them on the same night.

Of the four symphonies I heard them play, the second was, to my ears the weakest. Which is not to say it wasn’t good, just that the other three were better. Specifically in the third movement where they seemed to be alternating between being sloppy and being sludgy. Of the four it was the one that sounded the least emotional to me. Not robotic or mechanical, but more “rote” than “with feeling.” I don’t know where the thought came from, but it occurred to me that it might a=have been a case of not having enough practice time. Maestro Nézet-Séguin tweeted that they only did seven rehearsals which means that one of the symphonies only got one rehearsal. If that was the case, my money is on the second.

On Sunday we returned to the still unfinished Maison Symphonique. This time our seats were one row back and on the other side of the orchestra. I definitely know that being one row further back is not a good thing, but I’m undecided as to which side is better. Ultimately when given a gift of tickets, it’s exceedingly difficult to request specific seats. Although I was able to see Mr. Kaptainis from the Gazette sitting fairly far back, on the floor, towards the left. In your standard issue critic’s seats. I think that maybe the ones directly behind the orchestra might be pretty cool. But at some point (once they have completed the building) I’m going to have to try out a variety of different seats to see which ones sound best – after all they have been touting about how great the acoustics are in the building.

The usher in our section wasn’t particularly well trained. We had accidentally entered on the wrong side of the stage and were making our way through the seats to get to the other side, when he stopped us and tried to make us go the opposite way through a large crowd of people walking through a small doorway. Kind of like swimming upstream through quicksand. We didn’t pay him any attention, and hopefully someone will give him some training on how to seat people properly. Then also in looking around at the crowd, the Orchestre Métropolitain really needs to do some work on getting people with different colored skin to show up to their concerts. It was quite easy to see how they had made very good progress in getting a younger crowd to come see them. But I was able to count on my fingers and toes the number of people in the audience whose skin was darker than mine. Next year when they tour the island of Montreal they only play in one neighborhood with a significant recent immigrant population. If anyone is interested, I’d suggest that they play in Montreal North and St. Michel as often as they play in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Saint Laurent and Pierrefonds.

The Third Symphony seemed to me to be slower than that of the Dorati version I had been listening to. And I think that I made a mistake in listening to it before the concert. Instead of using the concert as my baseline/benchmark and comparing everything I heard to it. I ended up with the Dorati version being the baseline/benchmark and unfortunately comparing the concert to the recording instead of the other way around. Overall it was very light, in a good way. I noted that at various points it almost seemed as if Maestro Nézet-Séguin let the musicians themselves set the pace, which to my ears seemed like a good thing.

We then got the Violin Concerto, and Mr. Beilman acquitted himself very well. I can’t find anything on YouTube of him playing any Brahms, and after all the reading and listening I did for the symphonies, I just wasn’t able to find the time to get to the Violin Concerto, sorry.

The Fourth Symphony started out like a large boat cruising down an even larger river, at various points it sounded to me like some graceful nymphs, tip toeing and very lyrical. But the thing that most impressed me was the fourth movement, where I was incapable of writing one word down – I was just that riveted by the music. While the third movement of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony is the famous one and always reminds me of some B-movie western from the 50s in technicaolor

What Maestro Nézet-Séguin did with the fourth movement was better than particularly nice, it was downright gorgeous and very pretty (I should also point out that Marie-Andrée Benny did an awesome job as well). If I could make it down to Saratoga in August to hear him perform it with the Philadelphia Orchestra I would. If you can, you should. And don’t forget that Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain will be playing Brahms’ First Symphony again on July 22 at the Domain Forget and are playing two free concerts at Theatre de Verdure on July 20 and August 4.

Then to wrap things up (this has become rather large) I noticed in the program that Maestro Nézet-Séguin donated more than $50,000 to the Orchestre Métropolitain. Which confused the heck out of me, wouldn’t it just be simpler to reduce his salary? It’s quite the gesture and should be done by many more people, but made me realize that conductors are a little bit like NASCAR drivers. The way they earn their money is vary opaque and coming from a variety of very different sources, and as a consequence isn’t exactly clear. Overall though I’m very happy to see that he is making enough money to donate such a large chunk of change.

Overall I’d have to say I was quite pleased with how things turned out. I’m not sure I’d always be interested in doing a sort of marathon of music devoted to on composer, but this one worked out well. Whatever the reason, it was very good to see an orchestra again, and finally get to see Maestro Nézet-Séguin in action. I’m looking forward to the next time. And then lastly (if you’re still reading this far) you should take this quick, easy and very silly test.

Art, Montréal, Photo Essay, Public Art, Québec, Ramble, Sculpture, Visual Art

Agora and Mastodo by Charles Daudelin at Square Viger

June 12, 2012 zeke 1 Comment

Howdy!

It seems that Charles Daudelin isn’t getting much respect these days. He died about a decade ago and it seems that everywhere I turn there’s another one of his works which is being being neglected. Last month I was down at Square Viger and took some pictures of his Agora and Mastodo, both of which have been consigned to junkies and other marginal members of society.

Agora by Charles Daudelin at Square Viger

There were articles in 2010 and earlier this year talking about how Agora is going to hell in a handbasket and Heritage Montreal is also concerned. I’m not certain what to think.

Mastodo by Charles Daudelin at Square Viger

Art, Painting, Québec, Visual Art

Roméo Savoie, Éventail (J) – stolen art alert

June 11, 2012 zeke

Howdy!

Roméo Savoie, Eventail (J) - image courtesy Sûreté du Québec

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.

Art, Montréal, Québec, Rant, Review, Sculpture, Visual Art

Coriolis by Maskull Lasserre at L’espace musée Québecor

June 7, 2012 zeke

Howdy!

[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.]

This is the image I’ve always seen of Coriolis by Maskull Lasserre.

Coriolis by Maskull Lasserre image courtesy maskulllasserre.com — Coriolis by Maskull Lasserre, image courtesy maskulllasserre.com

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.

Detail of Coriolis by Maskull Lasserre at L’espace musée Québecor

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.

Coriolis by Maskull Lasserre at L’espace musée Québecor

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

3) that poetic or artistic license, visual literacy – and, while we’re at it, basic literacy – never mind “semiotic” and “performative“, are all terms with which a self professed “culture guy” should be comfortable.

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.

Art, Montréal, Painting, Québec, Ramble, Rave, Visual Art

The future belongs to crowds by Alain James Martin at Pink Espace

June 6, 2012 zeke

Howdy!

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.

Weegee Crowd at Coney Island, July 22, 1940, image courtesy The International Center of Photography

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).

Installation view of The Future Belongs to Crowds by Alain James Martin at Pink Espace

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.

Detail of Blue frame, 5 tone, ink crosshatch on Japanese paper by Alain James Martin at Pink Espace

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

In 1940, the population of New York City was about 7.5 million. There is no way that 13% of NYC went to Coney Island, absolutely no way. In 1947 attendance for the whole year was five million. Also Weegee died in 1968 and the book where the quote is taken was published in 1975.

Bright Red frame, 5 tone, ink crosshatch on Japanese paper by Alain James Martin at Pink Espace

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.

Art, Fountains, Montréal, Photo Essay, Québec, Ramble, Sculpture

Forces, by Claude Théberge at Square Viger

June 5, 2012 zeke

Howdy!

This is called death by neglect, and it is horrible.

Forces, by Claude Théberge at Square Viger

Believe it or not, it was built in 1985.

More information about it and him can be found here and here.

The view from Forces, by Claude Théberge at Square Viger

Art, Montréal, Photo Essay, Public Art, Québec, Ramble, Rant, Review, Visual Art

Diary of a Neighbourhood: a literary work by Michael Toppings

June 4, 2012 zeke

Howdy!

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.

Let’s start with the accusation of unoriginality first. Mr. Toppings’ piece is on Jeanne Mance in between Léo-Pariseau and Prince Arthur, for the most part on the east side of the street. If you were to walk two blocks west over to Hutchison, in between Prince Arthur and Pine you’d see some lines of personal poetry, this time engraved in stone, on the facades of some houses on the east side of the street. Back in 1988, Gilbert Boyer, a Quebecois poet decided that he wanted to write poetry on the sides of houses. (Actually come to think of it, there are lots of examples of officially sanctioned public poetry on the side of apartments.) But before I get hopelessly confused in my own parenthetical statements, M. Boyer decided to break up the lines of his poems onto different buildings, one can still be seen on the facade of 3703 Hutchison. yes, his was only two lines on Hutchison and the rest elsewhere around the city. But it’s close enough both by geography, theoretically and aesthetically that Mr. Topping should be somewhat embarrassed. Art, if anything is supposed to be original.

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

Art, Montréal, Québec, Rant, Visual Art

Art News vs. Real News

June 4, 2012 zeke 1 Comment

Howdy!

After reading for the umpteenth time (first, second, third) that Renata and Michal Hornstein are donating the rest of their collection to the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, and that the Quebec government was going to pay to build a new building for it, I almost blew a gasket.

First, the news was probably announced during the museum’s AGM. As the museum’s year end is March 31, that probably means sometime in April. Somehow the media failed to pick up on it then. Second, it was the lead item in the latest issue of the museum’s magazine (creatively named “M”) which was mailed to all VIPs at the beginning of May. It didn’t make the news then either. So finally, on the 25th of May, a full month after making the donation the museum released a press release (which for some reason isn’t on their website) and suddenly it was news.

Fourth, while the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal likes to tout that they are a private museum, this is the second building that they have succeeding in convincing the Quebec government to finance. (I do not know about the three previous expansions, as I wasn’t following things all that closely in the 70s and 80s). Man! I wish I could be have a “private” corporation and convince the government to build me a new building every time ~~my crap~~ collection of objects got larger than my place.

Fifth, and this is the one that really gets my goat. Included in every report is that the “new” building will be named after Renata and Michal Hornstein. But they all fail to note that there already is a building named after Renata and Michal Hornstein! So are there going to be two? Are they going to re-rename the Hornstein building after Beniah Gibb? Or some other collector?

As an aside, if I was Paulette Gagnon, I’d be pissed as all get out at Raymond Bachand.

And then, sixth and finally, just after this news, the building at 1350 Sherbrooke st. West (right across Bishop street from the museum) put a large banner on its walls after sitting empty for the better part of the past 10 years saying that they were turning it into condos. Coincidence?

Art, Montréal, Public Art, Québec, Ramble, Review, Visual Art

Jana Sterbak at Laroche/Joncas

June 1, 2012 zeke 1 Comment

Howdy!

Me and Jana go way back, I wrote about how her work in the 2003 Venice Biennale might have been copied from the George W. Bush White House, and was kind of dismissive of her photograph Generic Man that was hung at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal for what seemed like decades, but she is none-the-less an Important Canadian Artist®™ duly recognized by the people who recognize things like that. And somewhere in the dark deepest recesses of my memory I seemed to remember that she had won a prize recently. So I figured it would be as good od a time as any to go see her exhibition at Laroche/Joncas (which is on view until June 9). I quite like what they are doing there and maybe it would be possible for the leopard to change its spots.

If you want the quick and easy version, I was pleasantly surprised to find a piece of art by Ms. Sterbak that I did like. However I must inform you, that there were nine other art objects in the show as well. So perhaps a sign of a benign melanoma that’s better removed than a complete changing of my spots.

But to get to the meat of the matter, the show kind of gave me the feeling it was more like a garage sale than a cohesive show. Of the ten pieces there was stuff that was made in the late 1970s all the way up to 2009. But since there were only ten of them it did not feel anything like an retrospective. More like, here is some stuff hanging around my studio gathering dust, if I were to stick it in a gallery maybe it might sell. As well the show itself is called Back Home, which lend a certain personal touch to the works exhibited, either through them not being here, but literally being back home. Or allowing you to infer that she has been away for a time and has now returned, and decided that she no longer needed to possess any of theses objects. Then there was a general hodge-podge nature to the show. The pieces that were multiples varied from 7/15 to an artist’s proof #1, to 13/14 to all five of the edition. The uniques were drawings and sculptures, I was at a distinct disadvantage when it came time to try and figure out why everything was there.

Personally I think the better way to do something like that is to invite people who have previously bought your work to do some kind of studio visit, get a bottle of wine (or two) and then proceed to tell stories about the art that you want to get rid of. Assuming you invited people with some excess cash, I’m certain it would be extremely effective. Because when I tried to figure out what was the deal with Spare Spine, a five foot gently bowed bronze stick (and while I’m at it, what’s with the insistence on using the Metric system when something was made in Imperial units? 152.4 cm, my eye!) leaning against the wall, I was completely and thoroughly incapable.

Jana Sterbak Spare Spine, 1983, Bronze, 60" x 1" x 1"

But if Ms. Sterbak had been there, regaling me with something along the lines of how it corresponded to the earth’s curvature and/or was buttressing up the entire building, and/or had been used to threaten viewers when she was wearing Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic and/or had been used by someone, somewhere doing something, it would have changed it from a five foot gently bowed bronze stick leaning against the wall into something much much more.

As it was, the piece of hers that I liked, was in fact something where I was capable of finding a story. Dissolution a series of eight small photos all in one frame of a chair with an ice seat and back smelting was pretty cool (yes, that will be the one and only pun I use today, promise). Initially, while viewing it, I figured that since it dated from 2001, that it was some sort of documentation of of some kind of performance or something. Now, after some reflection, I’m not as convinced, but while I was there, it definitely was enough of a story to keep me in front of it for longer than any of the other pieces.

Jana Sterbak, Dissolution, 2001, Colour photograph 50 x 95 cm. edition AP#1.

As you might expect, it was very sparse in the gallery. Where normally, people with multiple PhDs in Art History like to go off about “how the art dialogues” and “conversations between pieces” when they are really just mean how two (or more) objects look near each other. In this case things were set up so far from each other that there wasn’t going to be any conversations happening unless one of the pieces suddenly had an urge to shout. Although there is a whole wall of works in the office that look positively cramped in comparison, and due to the placement of the desk, it’s not exactly the easiest thing in the world to get a good look at them.

Installation view of Jana Sterbak's Back Home at Laroche/Joncas

I’m not quite certain what to make of the things that look like kids drawings, the Iron House or the miniaturized lead ball painted to look like a plastic beach ball. I guess something could be said that they are all riffing off of the idea of home. Either things you would find in a home or representations of home, but I’m more inclined to think that’s a stretch and best left to the guys with the multiple degrees. After all Ms. Sterbak is an Important Canadian Artist®™ and explanations like that are best left to the professionals.

Me, on the other hand, I’m glad to see that my antipathy towards Ms. Sterbak’s work has tempered over the years. She no longer makes art that causes large emotional reactions in me, it’s basically there, fine, it’s not bothering anyone, so let’s get on to the next thing.

Art, Montréal, Québec, Ramble, Review, Visual Art

Instrumentation by Peter Flemming at Skol

May 31, 2012 zeke

Howdy!

Suffice it to say that Peter Flemming‘s work resonates with me (yuck, yuck, yuck! Sorry I couldn’t resist). In short, Mr. Flemming makes resonators. Quite fascinating ones I might add. The show is up at Skol until Saturday.

In a slightly longer version, Mr. Flemming’s exhibition, called Instrumentation, involves five linked pieces, plus six other small “display” objects some posters and videos. When you first walk around the wall into the main gallery you are confronted with four objects that if you squint enough look like large roughly built megaphones, ear horns or gramophone amplifiers, take your pick. Actually, three. There’s one that while functioning the same way actually looks more like a room divider for a tall person’s garage or workshop. Each of them make a different noise, although it is kind of difficult to figure out what noise emanates from which one.

Installation view of Instrumentation by Peter Flemming at Skol

Then in the back room is a large console of a vaguely mechanical nature with rotating plastic lids on plywood arms, three goose-necked lamps that change in intensity, some drums and some wires. Lots and lots and lots of wires. According to various websites the console (which really is just a large plywood table, but sounds more impressive if I call it a console) is responsible for making the various noises, dimming the lights and all sorts of other endlessly entertaining things.

On their own, the speakers were mildly interesting visually, mainly due to how they were constructed. Plywood and carpentry clamps were the main materials used in one and the others were similarly made out of items that are easily findable in just about any hardware store. It wasn’t until I ventured into the back room that I got excited. While I’ve never been accused of being part of any maker community (I tend to take things apart and break them instead of creating things) as a card carrying generic guy I’m fascinated by others that do. Which if you think about it makes sense, wince I tend to write about them.

The console had just the right number of mechanical doohickeys and automated gizmos to keep me fascinated for what seemed like hours. Then it slowly dawned on me, I’m not always the sharpest tack on the box, that it was controlling everything, and that was my moment of discovery. But how it was controlling things wasn’t exactly clear. Which obviously meant that I had to spend the better part of an hour studying it in minute detail trying to figure it out. Ultimately I wasn’t successful. Sometimes the machine does win. But I was undaunted. As I get older I don’t have to win everything absolutely every time.

For the curious, there are some very informative videos that do a good job of explaining how the sounds are made, unfortunately I didn’t take notes, so I can’t repeat them here. They’re short enough (I think the five different films are about 15 minutes long in total) that it isn’t difficult to sit through them all. And I was pleased to see that they were not playing on an endless loop when I visited, which made things that much more understandable. Also in what could be called the lobby, or the foyer to the gallery were six objects taken from what I presume was an earlier version of the console and were displayed on pedestals and mounted on the wall like regular run of the mill art objects.

Prior to understanding what was happening, I said that the speakers were “mildly interesting visually.” But once I realized that everything was hooked up a linked together, they became completely fascinating. I poured over them taking pictures from every possible angle trying to break the code. It’s a amazing what a little spark will do. Unfortunately, none of my pictures of the details do any of the works any justice. While I seem to be able to take reasonable pictures of objects, I haven’t quite mastered close-ups, yet.

On the whole Instrumentation was a pretty kick-ass show, taking maker culture at white cubing it. I enjoyed myself immensely trying to follow all the cables and figure out what bit was responsible for what movement, even if I was ultimately unsuccessful. It kind of reminded me of some of Mitchell F. Chan’s work. Personally I’m very glad that I don’t work at Skol being assaulted by the noise everyday would go a long way towards making me even loopier than I already am. But in shorter doses while I’m focused on how it’s being made is a completely different kettle of fish.

zeke.com

Category Archives: Québec

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Art News vs. Real News

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Instrumentation by Peter Flemming at Skol

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