We Want Miles: Creative Traffic
“We Want Miles” 2010 Installation view Courtesy Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal / photo Jean François Brière
The Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal sometimes seems like it has cornered the market on theatrical art exhibitions. Last year’s Victorian extravaganza on J.W. Waterhouse presented images of fey female figures set into room after room of dramatic, mausoleum-like settings. The show was a gliding, continually revolving promenade of beauty and death, and Waterhouse never looked so good, or so serious. This year, it’s Miles Davis’ turn. Though the trumpeter died in 1991, his music has never faded and with Montreal's summer jazz festival a major fixture of the city, some solid crossover thinking went into the mounting of this show. The result is a multimedia homage to one of the major figures of 20th century music—and 20th century celebrity culture. Musical excerpts, film and documentary clips, drawings by Davis, paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Mati Klarwein, photographs by Annie Leibovitz and Irving Penn, costumes, musical instruments and scores all find their place in a gallery exercise of lateral storytelling. In the past decade, the gallery has mounted several 1960s- and 1970s-related exhibitions. But “We Want Miles: Miles Davis vs. Jazz” pushes furthest into the realm where cultural curatorship delivers its own expanded definitions of art. (1380 Sherbrooke O, Montreal QC)
Miles Davis I Can U Can’t 1990 / photo Alex Krassovsky
Miles Davis in performance / photo Festival international de Jazz de Montréal
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