Category Archives: Visual Art

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast. Episode 11

Howdy!

In today’s episode Chris ‘Zeke’ Hand and Eloi Desjardins from Un Show de Mot’Arts discuss the various exhibits that are not part of Brooklyn/Montreal or Montreal/Brooklyn.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast episode 11

Listen (35:45):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download: Ogg Vorbis 22MB, MP3 33MB, Flac 125MB, WAV 361MB.

Specifically Mathieu Beausejour‘s Le soleil invincible at Antoine Ertaskiran (where Chris ‘Zeke’ Hand points out that M. Beausejour pretty much copied Jürgen Mayer-Hermann). The multiple Serge Lemoyne exhibits at Lacerte, Yves Laroche and Loto Quebec. In passing, Zeke laments the prices of contemporary Quebecois art in comparison to other contemporary art.

Zeke and Eloi then talk about the Marcel Barbeau exhibit at Galerie Lounge TD in the Maison Rio Tinto Alcan above L’Astral, Winnie Truong and Max Wyse at Galerie Trois Points, Karen Trask and Andréanne Godin at Circa, then mention how they had a similar talk in French on the radio show Un Show de Mot’Arts. Then finally Zeke asks the trivia question of the week (email your answer to ezmontrealart@gmail.com, and you can win an amazing prize)!

If you would like to hear the previous episodes of The EZ Montreal Art Podcast click here: Episode 10, Episode 9, Episode 8, Episode 7, Episode 6, Episode 5, Episode 4, Episode 3, Episode 2, Episode 1.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast. Episode 10

Howdy!

In today’s episode Chris ‘Zeke’ Hand and Eloi Desjardins from Un Show de Mot’Arts discuss the various exhibits that are part of the Montreal/Brooklyn artistic encounter.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast episode 10

Listen (30:00):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download: Ogg Vorbis 20MB, MP3 28MB, Flac 124MB, WAV 314MB.

Specifically Julie Favreau, Patrick Martinez, Steven Brower, and Mathieu Beausejour at Galerie Clark. Videozones at the Galerie de l’UQAM – where Rosemarie Padovano’s Paloma, Michel de Broin’s Cut into the Dark, Sophie Bélair-Clement‘s Interlude 1974 are talked about and Elisa Kreisinger’s & Marc Faletti’s video

is compared to that of Kutiman‘s (which is not part of the exhibit).

The discussion continues about the exhibit at Articule re-marquer le territoire with Jérôme Havre, Michelle Lacombe, Emilie Roz, Patricia Smith and the show at Optica with Sylvie Cotton, Sebastein Cliche, Chelsea Knight and Mark Tribe.

We then wrap up the show with our first ever Monteal Art Trivia Question. Email us the response, and have a chance to win an amazing prize!

If you would like to hear the previous episodes of The EZ Montreal Art Podcast click here: Episode 9, Episode 8, Episode 7, Episode 6, Episode 5, Episode 4, Episode 3, Episode 2, Episode 1.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast, episode 9: Pierre Dorion, Janet Biggs & Aude Moreau

Howdy!

Last week, Eloi Desjardins from Un Show de Mot’Arts and I got together to talk about the Pierre Dorion, Janet Biggs and Aude Moreau exhibits at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast episode 9

Listen (31:06):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download: Ogg Vorbis 20MB, MP3 29MB, Flac 110MB, WAV 314MB.

The only thing I could really find online were these two excerpts from videos by Ms. Biggs. M. Dorion does not appear to do the internet and Mlle. Moreau hasn’t updated her website in a couple of years.

If you would like to hear the previous episodes of The EZ Montreal Art Podcast click here: Episode 8, Episode 7, Episode 6, Episode 5, Episode 4, Episode 3, Episode 2, Episode 1.

And don’t forget to listen to Un Show de Mot’Arts on Tuesday at 10:30 on CISM, 89.3 FM.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast episode 7

Howdy!

Earlier this month Eloi Desjardins from Un Show de Mot’Arts and I got together to talk about the Interactions art exhibit at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Derby by Jean-François Caissy at Galerie Clark and Rejouer/déjouer le folklore : Suisse – Québec at the Maison de la Culture Frontenac in Montreal.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast episode 7

Listen (30:44):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download: Ogg Vorbis 17MB, MP3 26MB, Flac 111MB, WAV 331MB.

We also briefly discuss the opening of Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran, the death of Armand Tatossian, and because we were recording outside in Parc Claude Jutra we got to see a Google Street View Car.

If you would like to hear the previous episodes of The EZ Montreal Art Podcast click here: Episode 6, Episode 5, Episode 4, Episode 3, Episode 2, Episode 1.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast episode 6. Montreal Fall Art Previews

Howdy!

Last month Eloi Desjardins from Un Show de Mot’Arts and I got together to discuss the fall art preview articles that appeared in La Presse, Le Devoir, and Art Intake.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast episode 6

Listen (32:47):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download: Ogg Vorbis 18MB, MP3 28MB, Flac 112MB, WAV 331MB.

If you would like to hear the previous episodes of The EZ Montreal Art Podcast click here:Episode 5, Episode 4, Episode 3, Episode 2, Episode 1.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast, episode 5, Melanie Gilligan at Vox

Howdy!

Last month Eloi Desjardins from Un show de mot’arts and I got together to discuss art in Montreal in the summer. We were in Joliette to see the Jacques Hurtubise exhibit there (more on it later) but the conversation quickly got focused on the Melanie Gilligan exhibit Popular Unrest at Galerie Vox. This is the second part of a recording we made at the same time as the The EZ Montreal Art Podcast episode 4, Ryoji Ikeda at DHC/Art.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast episode 5

Listen (20:27):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download: Ogg Vorbis 11MB, MP3 17MB, Flac 68MB, WAV 206MB.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast episode 4, Ryoji Ikeda at DHC/Art

Howdy!

Last month Eloi Desjardins from Un show de mot’arts and I got together to discuss art in Montreal in the summer. We were in Joliette to see the Jacques Hurtubise exhibit there (more on it later) but the conversation quickly got focused on the Ryoji Ikeda exhibit at DHC/Art.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast episode 4

Listen (21:23):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download: Ogg Vorbis 12MB, MP3 18MB, Flac 76MB, WAV 216MB.

Dil Hildebrand, Back to the Drawing Board (Reprise), Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain

Howdy!

Dil Hildebrand, Back to the Drawing Board (Reprise), Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Installation view
Dil Hildebrand, Back to the Drawing Board (Reprise), Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Installation view

Mr. Hildebrand is a significant and important contemporary Canadian painter. It’s obvious because his most recent exhibit was reviewed in Canadian Art magazine (written by no less than the editor-in-chief!), Le Devoir and one of Louise Blouin’s magazines. The only things that could make him a more important and significant contemporary Canadian painter would be a review/write-up/preview in ArtForum, the New York Times/New Yorker/New York Review of Books, or some publication in London, Paris Berlin or Shanghai.

This is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a good thing mainly because he is a very accomplished artist, looking at his work, I get a very strong sense that not only does he know what he wants to do, but he know how to accomplish it as well. There’s nothing namby-pamby about his work. Adjectives like forthright, bold, strong and direct are the ones that I would think of using in order to describe his work. It’s a bad thing because he only gets reviewed in local media outlets and his paintings sell for a song (The work in this exhibit was selling in between $800 and $15,500 depending on size, and how much (or how little) color there was). Both of these are examples of (apologies for repeating myself here) how little respect Canadian/Quebecois/Montreal art gets in the rest of the world. Mr. Hildebrand has exhibited in Auckland, Beijing, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami, among other places, and will be exhibiting in London but there is nary a peep in anything other than the good old Canadian intelligentsia about his work. It’s frustrating. It’s getting to the point where I’m beginning to question if Canadian art really is truly good art. Or if what is being called good is merely a function of myopia. (As an aside, I think I should point out and say that it is a good thing that I wear glasses).

But enough about the politics (at least for the time being) and on to the art. In all the other reviews that I’ve read and in the artist statement that accompanies the show, a big deal is made out of the use of the color green. While I understand both the significance, historical antecedents and reasons Mr. Hildebrand states for using green (“the chalkboard, the cutting mat, or the green-screen”) given that almost 40% of the show were drawings in a sort of architectural bent. Simple gray lines on a cream colored paper, I’m not certain I’m drinking that Kool-aid. I’d much prefer to put my emphasis on the title and the works themselves.

Dil Hildebrand, Back to the Drawing Board (Reprise), Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Installation view of Reconstruction 01 and Net Structures 01, 02 and 03.
Dil Hildebrand, Back to the Drawing Board (Reprise), Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Installation view of Reconstruction 01 and Net Structures 01, 02 and 03.

I think I’ve always been a big fan of drawing. Maybe because I can’t do it to save my life, or perhaps because of the simplicity of the act, or maybe I’m just full of it, and in fact I never really liked drawing ever. But for purposes of this argument, let stick with the positive for whatever reasons. Mr. Hildebrand’s drawings are of some extraordinary objects that at first appear to be some kind of structure. Something like the plans for a house of cards, an aerial view of some maze or now that I think about it the kite like structures from John Horton Conway’s mathematical Game of Life a representation of Pick-Up Sticks.

Viewed from a distance (and from my memory) the polytopes seem to form some sort of pattern. Not quite Penrose tiling but close. And I’m certain if I stared at them long enough I would be able to come up with some kind of mathematical formula to describe what they were doing.

Dil Hildebrand, Back to the Drawing Board (Reprise), Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Installation view of Replicating 02
Dil Hildebrand, Back to the Drawing Board (Reprise), Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Installation view of Replicating 02

By calling the show “Back to the Drawing Board,” Mr. Hildebrand is tacitly admitting that whatever was done prior didn’t quite work out the way he intended. I can’t help but think that the repetition of forms helped in finally getting the finished product the way he wanted. It’s almost as if you can see the process taking place even though the drawing in front of you is complete. Despite the simplicity of the drawings they are extremely powerful and even a full month after seeing the show I can still imagine them in my mind as if I had seen them half an hour ago.

The actual paintings in the exhibit, the things with the color green in them, did not affect me as strongly. It’s easy enough to see how they are related to the drawings, but I did not get a visceral sense of anything from looking at them. They almost appeared to be some kind of academic exercise, which is surprising as the drawings, when viewed from a technical standpoint could be considered by anyone’s definition academic exercises. I think that it might have something to do with the fact that, for the most part, the paintings are titled as objects (Compartment, Contraption, Module, Parabola, Spire) while the drawings, for the most part, are titled as actions (Reconstruction, Dismantling, Replicating). But then again, since grammar was (and still is) not my strongest subject and I’m picking a choosing titles that fit my theory, I could be very wrong.

Dil Hildebrand, Back to the Drawing Board (Reprise), Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Installation view
Dil Hildebrand, Back to the Drawing Board (Reprise), Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Installation view

And then there is Treehouse. A glorious painting if there ever was one. As you might expect I’m not entirely convinced it is a representation of a actual tree-house. To me it looks more like an imagined memory of what a tree-house was, or could be. Or more precisely like a collection of doors. Doors that are unlocked with the key of imagination.

But I digress…

Dil Hildebrand, Back to the Drawing Board (Reprise), Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Installation view of Treehouse
Dil Hildebrand, Back to the Drawing Board (Reprise), Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Installation view of Treehouse

More white than green, with some brown thrown in for good measure, it seems like some sort of gateway. I’m not certain how it fits in with the title, unless you go for the Helen Keller (or Alexander Graham Bell) quote about doors opening and closing, which I would have sworn was Zen or Buddhist and not American. But even then it’s kind of a stretch. I think the reason I like it has more to do with the form and structure of the painting than the actual content. It has a certain heft, that by extension makes it feel important.

I could kick in here with the cheesy puns and talk about how if Mr. Hildebrand doesn’t at first succeed, but I’ll avoid that. I also would like to try and figure out some way to link either his paintings or the drawings or both to some sort of hope or possibility of him being able to make it as a Canadian Artist (with the capital C and A) but I’ve been wracking my brain for the past hour and half trying to figure out some sort of way to tie things up neatly so it looks like I know what the heck I’m talking about. But I can’t, for the life of me think of anything. So I’m going to have to leave it like this, kind of dangling and not quite perfectly polished.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast episode 3

Howdy!

On Monday Eloi Desjardins from Un show de mot’arts and I got together to discuss the controversy surrounding Andre Desjardins attempt to donate a sculpture to the La Régie des installations olympiques here in Montreal.

The EZ Montreal Art Podcast episode 3

Listen (43:22):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download: MP3 35MB, Ogg Vorbis 24MB\

The articles Eloi compiled:

I also accidentally called Francyne Lord, the head of Bureau d’art public in Montreal Helene. I don’t know what came over me, apologies and mea culpa.

(And if you missed them, episode 1 is here and Episode 2 is here.)

Publicité Sauvage 25½ 6/15, 7/15, and 8/15

Howdy!

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.

Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 6/15 at City Hall.
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 6/15 at City Hall.
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 6/15 at City Hall.
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 6/15 at City Hall.
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 6/15 at City Hall.
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 6/15 at City Hall.
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 6/15 at City Hall.
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 6/15 at City Hall.

Exhibit 7/15 was at the Monument National and involved (for the most part) things that had happened in theatres.

Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 7/15 at the Monument National
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 7/15 at the Monument National
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 7/15 at the Monument National
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 7/15 at the Monument National

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)

Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 8/15 at Tohu
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 8/15 at Tohu
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 8/15 at Tohu
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 8/15 at Tohu

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

Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 8/15 at Tohu
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 8/15 at Tohu

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…)

Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 6/15 at City Hall
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 6/15 at City Hall

Nor do I think a poster for an album belongs in a collection of theatre posters

Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 7/15 at the Monument National
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 7/15 at the Monument National

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

Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 8/15 at Tohu
Installation view of the Publicité Sauvage 25½ exhibit 8/15 at Tohu

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.