-- Advertisement --
-- Advertisement --
-- Advertisement --
-- Advertisement --
A guide to the best exhibitions and events in the visual arts
The idea for “Yesterday’s Tomorrows” began with an installation by the Toronto artist Paulette Phillips on the architect and designer Eileen Gray. Seeing it got me thinking about the proliferation of artists who are revisiting modernism and why so many of them are focusing on a specific object, be it an iconic building or person. The works in the exhibition are not homages: they’re not naive or cynical. Architecture and design offer another way into the ideals and aspirations of modernism. Artists are aware of its contradictions and its failures, but by putting that history in a social context, they look at it anew.
Lesley Johnstone is the curator of “Yesterday’s Tomorrows.” The show runs to Sept. 6 at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, 185, rue Ste-Catherine O.
Quebec City’s L’Oeil de Poisson kicks off its 25th-anniversary year by taking over the village of Deschambault-Grondines for a summer festival of art interventions by BGL, Graeme Patterson and Kim Waldron, among others. June 18 to Sept. 26. Various locations, Deschambault-Grondines.
Conquerors versus conquered and decadence versus decay are two of the critical counterpoints raised by Miller in “Refining History,” a survey exhibition that brings together photos of sitespecific, azulejo-design sugar murals and new icing-sugar sculptures to re-examine the legacy of slavery and industrial trade in postcolonial Brazil. July 12 to Aug. 13. FOFA Gallery, 1515, rue Ste-Catherine O., Montreal.
The Montreal artist closes the reality gap between selfidentity and pop-culture obsession with her sound work ORCHESTRARIA. Pascal Dufaux’s perspective-bending “sculptural-video-kinetic automaton” The cosmos in which we are follows. Through July 4/on view July 15 to Aug. 29. Sporobole, 74, rue Albert, Sherbrooke.
Two intertwining threads run through “Magnetic Norths”: the North as a conceptual fantasy and also as a real space that is the site of colonialism, military enterprise and industrial exploration. On the one hand, there are archival objects like American military blueprints and photos of Alaskan oil fields from the Center for Land Use Interpretation. On the other, the show includes Michael Snow’s La Région Centrale, which frames the northern Quebec landscape as a lunar surface, and Kevin Schmidt’s recreation of Close Encounters of the Third Kind in the Yukon. It’s a diverse collection that revels in fantasy but is also critical of certain real histories.
Charles Stankievech is an artist and curator. He is the organizer of “Magnetic Norths,” which runs to Apr. 17 at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, 1400, boul. de Maisonneuve O., Montreal.
More than 60 drawings, sculptures and dioramas by the Winnipeg-born, NY–based artist make up a mid-career survey that attests to the lasting appeal of Dzama’s unclassifiable, elusive art. To Apr. 25. Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, 185, rue Ste-Catherine O.
Domesticity and isolation are awkwardly counterposed in a series of photos that profile residents of a queer campground in Quebec through exterior views of their tents, cabins and summer homes. To Apr. 13. Les Territoires, 527–372, rue Ste-Catherine O., Montreal.
Famed archaeological landscapes are inscribed into encyclopedias, dictionaries and rare books in Guy Laramée’s “Pluie,” a solo exhibition of sculptures and paintings that allegorize cultural presence and withdrawal. Apr. 8 through May 2. Galerie Orange 81, rue St-Paul E., Montreal.
The Croatian artist’s tongue-in-cheek conceptual practice is best exemplified by his tenet “There is no art without laziness.” A long-overdue Canadian survey exhibition highlights his bookworks, photos and installations. Opening May 8. VOX, 1211, boul. St-Laurent, Montreal.
I fell in love with Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s art in 1999, when I saw a work called Consolation Service, about a couple in the throes of divorce. In one scene, we see a baby handed from mother to counsellor and then to father during a therapy session as the parents literally bark at one another in a violent, primal and ultimately cathartic exchange. Eija-Liisa is an awesome, serious and occasionally comically absurd filmmaker who coldly dramatizes powerful emotions, plunging us deep inside psychological states— loss, madness, adolescent sexuality— while scrambling our perception of events in space and time in ways that make us think about how images and words unfold in narrative.
John Zeppetelli is Curator at DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art in Montreal. Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s solo show opens there on Jan. 29, 451/465, rue St-Jean.
Large-scale sculptures and paintings reinterpret monumentality. Jan. 14 to Feb. 20. Parisian Laundry, 3550, rue St-Antoine O., Montreal.
Some 80 works by the Pre-Raphaelite master, as well as his sketchbooks and letters, reflect Victorian-era spiritualism. To Feb. 7. Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, 1379–80, rue Sherbrooke O.
The poetic and transformative nature of cosmic events inspires a year-long series of residencies culminating in a performance combining live drawing, video and gesture. From Feb. 12. Articule, 262, ave. Fairmount O., Montreal.
Time and space become eerily contingent in “Equivalences,” a multi-gallery show of landscapes. Jan. 9 to Feb. 13. Galerie Donald Browne, 524–372, rue Ste-Catherine O., and other venues, Montreal.
“Historically the museum has been constructed as a space that is intended to be a backdrop for art, and I wanted to change that. An early catalyst for my architectural installation was Nikolai Gogol’s novel Dead Souls. In the spirit of Gogol’s book, it will be a sprawling work made of disparate materials. The viewer will walk on a false floor: on a basic level my intention is to transport you into another material world. This tactile experience of space is going to be different than what we’ve ordinarily come to expect from the museum. Hopefully my work will also allow for a different experience of time: maybe a new, non-linear presence will have sprung up within the museum.”
Tricia Middleton is a Montreal artist. Her solo show opens at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal on Oct. 10, 185, rue Ste-Catherine O.
Talk to take place January 26 at the Art Gallery of Ontario
Canadian premiere of new Marina Abramović documentary to be fêted February 22 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox
All our best wishes for the new year to come
Talks by Dan Cameron and Annie Cohen-Solal, free gallery programs among highlights of 2011
Support our educational programs today
The Canadian Art Foundation is seeking an online production professional to join its team
Buy two subscriptions for only $39!
Free exhibition at the Power Plant highlights our nation’s emerging painting stars
Award in Portrait Photography category recognizes Donald Weber's artist project in the Fall 2010 issue
More than 300 GTA teens enjoy free downtown-Toronto gallery talks during this fall’s School Hop
In 2010, at the age of 35, Toronto artist/DJ/promoter/activist Will Munro succumbed to brain cancer. Here, David Balzer reviews the first big survey of Munro’s work, which makes apparent how talented, prolific and perceptive this creator was.
The Dulwich Picture Gallery’s recent Group of Seven show was one of the UK museum’s biggest hits ever, drawing 41,000 visitors. The attention was deserved, writes Sarah Milroy, as the exhibition offered new insights even to seasoned Canadian-art observers.
The Occupy movement has galvanized the way we think about haves and have-nots. But where do artists fit in? As Joseph R. Wolin observes in this review of David Altmejd’s show at the Brant Foundation, context can be as powerful as content in determining the split.
What happens to identity when our relationship to land and language is disrupted? This is a key question raised in “A Stake in the Ground,” an exhibition of works by 25 First Nations artists, curated by Nadia Myre, that’s currently at Montreal gallery Art Mûr.
Our education and careers site has just posted more stories and tips to help students achieve a great winter term. Highlights include a profile of internationally renowned fashion designer Jeremy Laing, a Q&A on grad schools and more.
