MMFA – New Bourgie Pavilion

Today, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) inaugurated the new Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion, which will become the home for the museum’s permanent collection of Quebec and Canadian Art. The pavilion also features a new 444-seat concert hall - Bourgie hall - build into the nave of the former 1894 heritage Erskine church, recognized for its excellent acoustics.

The new Bourgie pavilion is architecturally quite amazing. The old church masonry is combined with modern structures of large white marble sheets, glass and steel.

The Bourgie Pavilion of Quebec and Canadian Art

It is spread over 6 levels with 600 works. There are 4 stories above the ground level and one below. Starting from the top, this is how the collection is subdivided:

Level 4 – Inuit Art, featuring 100 works from rich collection of sculpture and prints.

Indian Art and colonial period portraits in the background to the left, Bourgie Pavilion, Level 3.

Level 3 – Founding Identities theme – will feature contemporary and historical Ameridian Art as well as  works of colonial period (1700 to 1870s), dominated by portraiture and religious art.

Alfried Laliberté, Lost in Though, 1924.

Bourgie Pavilion, Level 2.

Level 2 -  Features the Annuals Exhibition Era (1980s – 1920s), and such artists as for instance Maurice Cullen, Ozias Leduc, James Wilson Maurice and Alfred Laliberté.

Lawren S. Harris, Log Cabin, 1923.

Bourgie Pavilion, Level 1.












Level 1 – Towards Modernism (1920s - 1930s) - present the Montreal’s Beaver Hall Group and its Quebec cityscapes and landscapes. This level also highlights the paintings from the Toronto based Group of Seven, and painters like Emily Carr and Marc-Aurèle Fortin.

Paul-Emil Bourdua, Composition 44, 1944. Bourgie Pavilion, Street Level.

Sherbrooke Stree Level -  The Age of the Manifesto (1040s - 1960s), with artists Paul-Emile Bordua and Alfred Pellan. A special place is also devoted for the works of Jean-Paul Riopelle (from 1947 to 1977).

Bourgie Pavilion, The Undeground Level. 

The underground Level – “The Mountain Gallery” – a thick layer of the mountain rock had to be removed to open this space to house the art from 1960s to 1970s with such artists as Louis Archambault, Greg Curnoe, Jean McEwen, Guido Millinari, Michael Snow and Calude Tousignant among others. This level leads directly into the underground passage that links all three MMFA pavilions.

The Bourgie Concert Hall

The artistic highlight of this hall ate magnificent Tiffany stained glass windows, along with the stained glass windows by Haworth and Charles William Kelsey.

Tiffany Stained Glass Windows, Bourgie Concert Hall.

The Hall has two Steinway & Sons’ Grand Pianos. One is on the stage of the concert hall, and the other one is in the practice room below the concert hall. This ensures that if a piece written for two pianos were to be performed, this Bourgie Hall would easily accommodate it.

Bourgie Concert Hall - the back of the Hall, Parterre and Balcony.

125 concerts have been scheduled for this Inaugural Season, spotlighting local musicians. The performances will include classical music as well as jazz, world and new music. Bourgie Hall will also hold a number of concert series with renowned musical ensembles.

For more information visit the Bourgie Hall website

http://www.sallebourgie.ca/

Also visit the website of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

http://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/index.html

Canadian International Organ Competition

Montreal Notre-Dame Basilica Organ

This is the second edition of
CIOC - the Canadian International Organ Competition


It will be held in Montreal, Canada, between October 5 and October 16, 2011. It will feature 16 top young organists from 11 countries: 4 women and 12 men, between 24 and 33 years of age.

- The first round of the competition will be held on October 5, 6 and 7 at the Church of the Immaculate Conception.


- The second round will be held on October 10 and 11 at the Saint-Jean-Baptist Church.


- The final round will be held on October 14 at the Notre-Dame Basilica.


The 2011 edition will close with a Gala Concert honouring the prizewinners on Sunday October 16, 2011 at Notre-Dame Basilica.


The winners will receive the following cash prizes:

First Prize:       $25,000

Second Prize:   $15,000

Third prize:      $10,000


Admission to the Competition Rounds and certain activities is free.  Suggested donation is $10. The general admission for the Gala concert is $20.


See the CIOC website for more information

http://www.ciocm.org/index.php?lang=e

World Press Photo Montreal 2011

The exhibition is being held at Marche Bonsecours between September 8 and October 2, 2011.

This is the 54^th edition of World Press Photo 11. It presents large-scale works of 54 photographers of different nationalities, arranged by 10 categories such as world news, art, nature, sports, portraits and everyday events. Two important selection criteria ware journalistic importance and the aesthetic merit of the work.

In the past there was heard a criticism that too much violence is portrayed in the photos. This simply reflects what is happening in the photo media at large, what photo journalists are covering and what they are obsessed about. Yet the impression of the predominantly violent photos is relative. The photos this year fall into three categories:

1. 6 %      Actual violence happening at the moment.
2. 20 %    People under duress – consequences of violence, natural disasters, and disease.
3. 74%     Non-violent, non-duress situations.

So although the number of works with the content of actual violence or people under duress is only about one quarter off all photos, it is remarkable the impact they have on the viewers who come out of the exhibition overwhelmed by the immediate impact of those photos.

The World Press official poster above features photo by Joost van Den Broek. It is a portrait of a 16 year old cadet Kiril Lewerski from a Russian naval ship Kruzenshtern. The innocent and direct gaze of the young cadet obscures effectively the fact that he is being trained in the art of war, how to kill, and how to destroy.

A question could be raised, is photo-journalistic photography just a direct representation of reality, simply an act of clicking a camera, or is there artistry involved. I am of the opinion that a successful photo with a high potential to impact a viewer is definitely art and has aesthetic merit. It represents a photographer's point of view. He is not only a window on the world's reality, but a filter of it. He selects the focus, the angle, the distance, the light aspects of his picture, and is guided in this process by his emotion, intellect and the desire to express what he thinks and feels about what he sees. He is the one who chooses the subject and the subject matter, he makes the adjustments, he chooses the eye level and the angles of the shoot in order to express what he sees in all its complexity. The final result is not simply a realistic picture but a totality of a story it narrates. It is an artistry to make photos that are not simplistic prints but become symbols of forces beyond the immediate representation.

The photo to the left is by Feisal Omar. It is of a man carrying a shark through the streets of Magadishu, Somalia. Somalians generally do not eat shark, but dry and salt its meat for export. The destroyed street, the shelled remains of the buildings that surround the man, and his huge load cry out of the heavy burden of the sharks of this world that ordinary Somalians carry on their shoulders amid the imposed devastation.

This photo by Ed Kashi is of a 9 year old Vietnamese girls Nguyen Thi Li who suffers from disabilities believed to be caused by the defoliating chemical Agent Orange used by the US forces during the Vietnam War. Notice the artistic quality of the photo, the lines, the light, the play of light and shadow, and the fact the subject is off-centre. This photo with painting-like composition definitely has a high aesthetic value.

The centrepiece of the Montreal's exhibition is the photo by a South African photographer Jodi Bieber seen on the left next to her World Press winning photo of the year 2010. It shows a young 18 year old Afgan girl Bibi Aisha who was disfigured, as punishment, after fleeing the violent treatment in her husband's family home. Her nose and ears were cut off, and she was abandoned in the mountainous clearing. She was later rescued, almost dead, and taken to a shelter in Kabul. She now lives permanently in Queens, New York and awaits a reconstructive surgery.

The photo is remarkable. Although the photographer states it deals with domestic violence, it is really about much more than that. It projects the shear strength of the girl's character, who apparently now walks in the streets without covering her face. Although she has a temporary protease, she does not like wearing it, since it makes her feel uncomfortable.

The photo appears to be a traditional three-quarters portrait. Yet, the lighting is natural day light, not studio lights, though it certainly does not give that impression. The girl is sitting in front of a window, and Jodi's assistant used a screen to direct the day light onto girl's face. The effect is quite stunning. The right side of the photo is all dark, to remind us of the dark and horrible act the girl has endured. Yet her face is illuminated and radiates light, and is symbolic of her inner strength. Moreover, to the left and above her head there is light which looks like a hallo, bringing the photo into spiritual realms where a comparison to a religious painting of the Madonna could be invoked.

Another serious subject matter is portrayed by the photographer Benjamin Lowy. He captured images of the oil floating to the surface after the explosion of the Deep Water horizon oil-drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. These four photos give an impression of being abstract paintings that portray the deceptive beauty of a horrific act of massive pollution.

In the category of sport, the photo by Adam Pretty stands out. It captures the 2000-metre steeplechase event at Youth Olympics at Bishan Stadium, Singapore, in August 2010, when Brazilian athlete Ioran Etchebury trips and falls head-first.  Although the main subject seems to be the fall of the runner, the overall effect of the photo, the flying arms and legs, the splashing water, the athletes' small heads, the diagonal lines of the limbs, and the central prominence of legs that do not touch ground create an interesting effect where the athlete, the person, seems to take a background role to the overall aesthetic composition of the photo with the subsequent subtle comment on this human activity.

Visit he World Press Photo website.