MMFA: Big Bang

MMFA - the Montreal Museum of Fine Art is currently featuring Big Bang exhibition. It runs from November 6, 2011 to January 22, 2012.  This exhibition was created and produced by the Museum as a celebration of the creative process. A number of contemporary Quebec artists were invited to choose a work from the museum’s permanent collection as a starting point and on the basis of that work let themselves be inspired to create a work of their own. In this way, the museum is paying tribute to Quebec’s creativity.

Nearly 20 artists from various artistic branches, several of them internationally renowned, responded to the Museum’s invitation. As a result, the works of these artists are presented in this show: Jennifer Alleyn and Nancy Huston (film and literature), Denys Arcand and Adad Hannah (film and visual arts), Melissa Auf der Maur (music), Geneviève Cadieux (visial arts), Marie Chouinard (dance), Collectif Rita (design), Claude Cormier (urban design), Jean Derome (music), En masse (mural art), Pierre Lapoint and Jean Verville (music and architecture), Renata Morales (fashion), Wadji Mouawad (theatre), Jeannot Painchaud (circus arts), Rolland Poulin (sculpture), Michel Rabagliatti (comics), and Gilles Saucier (architecture).

Visit the Museum  and see the result of this creative process. Maybe you yourself will be inspired to created a work of your own based on some of the art piece from the Museum’s permanent collection.

I personally was inspired by one of the Museum’s gems to create and propagate my own artistic expression, inline with the Big Bang's objectives. Here is the result. I rather like it and feel it merits attention. If I had the means, I'd make it into a large poster celebrating the MMFA museum.

The painting to the left is by the French painter James Tissot, entitled October, 1877, from MMFA's permanent collection. On the right is my own take on that painting. It is a photo of the enigmatic and vivacious Grand Dame of the Museum, Madame Nathalie Bondil, the MMFA’s director and chief curator. I took this photo during the press conference inaugurating the Big Bang show on November 2, 2011. The postural likeness and expression of both women, and to some extent of their dress and shoes is quire remarkable, though Madame Bondil's look is obviously quite contemporary.

Parallel to Big Bang runs another show, called In My Mind’s Eye, a collection of paintings and other works by Dorothea Rockburne. It is her first Canadian retrospective. She was born and educated in Montreal, but later moved to the United States, where her works are featured in the collections of numerous institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MOMA.

The admission to all the Museums exhibitions and collections is currently free.

The painting to the left is by Dorothea Rockburne, entitled Mozart and Mozart Upside Down and Backwards, 1985-87.





For more information visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' website

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

McCord Museum

There are currently two exhibitions on display at the Montreal's McCord Museum.

Toys 2 

This exibiton which targets mainly children, or those who are children at heart, rans from November 18, 2011 to March 11, 2012.

This is the Museum's second exhibition of toys. The first one took place a year ago. It was a great success and attracted some 30,000 visitors. This year has a special theme: a cat chasing, or rather searching, for a mouse. The young visitors have “to help” a cat to find a mouse. All are assured that the cat does not really want to eat the mouse, but simply to play with it.

The exhibition is broken into four separate themes through which the chasing of the mouse is pursuit. This is an engaging way for children to view more than 200 toys and artefacts, some of which date back almost 150 years. The exhibited pieces for this show were chosen from an amalgamation of some 11,000 items from Museum's various collections.

The children will be engaged in some physical activity as they have to climb under low ceiling entries, as for instance is the case of a masterfully constructed igloo, where pieces of “ice” are made from white pillows which could be lifted to reveal some of the museum’s treasures. Another such crawling entry leads to a treasure trove with costumes, where children can dress up and assume role playing.

Admission to this exhibition is free for children 12 and under. 

The second exhibition currently at the McCord museum:

Edward Burtynsky : OIL

This is another excellent exhibition currently on display at the McCord Museum. It runs from October 6, 2011 to January 8, 2012. It consists of 56 large colour photographs by a Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky explores the subject of oil and how this natural resource redefines the world as we know it, how it affects nature and the natural scenery. The vast landscapes shown in the photographs, offer rarely seen glimpses of oil production and distribution, of oil fields, oil sands, and oil refineries. Burtynsky’s work shows the impact the petroleum industry has on the lives of people, cities, the land, and the environment. His stunning photo images carry a social and ecological message that is disturbing but also thought-provoking. The images are artistically superb and beautiful, yet this does not diminish the intended impact of Burtynsky’s message nor the concerned opinion of the viewer.

To find more about these and other exhibitions and activities, visit the McCord Museum’s website

http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/

Colours of India

 

The current exhibition at Pointe-à-Callière, the Montreal Museum of Archeology and History is on display from November 8^th 2011 to April 22^nd 2012.

India, a geographically, socially, and culturally diverse country, expresses its heritage and traditions by means of its different religions, clothing, theatre, celebrations, religious ceremonies, and its daily life customs.

This exhibition  represents “a voyage into a mosaic of landscapes, ethnicities, and beliefs that have shaped Indian life, artistic expression, and culture. Through this exhibition—which coincides with the Year of India in Canada—Pointe-à-Callière is seeking to convey the importance of India’s cultural and religious heritage.”

Objects on display are sculptures, works of art, textiles, clothing, and finery. There are also presented film excerpts and soundtracks depicting major Indian ceremonies and rituals which complete and enrich the visitor’s experience.

One hundred objects deplayed at the Pointe-à-Callière come from  the collections of the Musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet in Paris.

The vibrantly coloured Indian textiles on display - including saris, shawls, veils, odhnis, turbans, and coats from the 18th and 19th centuries - come from their impressive textile collection, mainly from the personal collection of Krishna Riboud, the great-grandniece of Nobel laureate for literature Rabindranath Tagore. Krishna Riboud , well aware of the textiles’ priceless heritage value, worked for many years to preserve various fabrics, costumes, and clothing that today are part of this collection. Since the days of antiquity, India has been world-renowned for its variety of textiles.

Other objects on display are captivating terracotta, stone, bronze, and wood statues dating from the 2nd to the 19th century AD, representing kings or mythical gods, deity ornaments, or objects associated with rites. A dozen objects from The Royal Ontario Museum complete the collection of artefacts presented in Montréal, at Pointe-à-Callière.

The great gamut of colour at the exhibition is supplied by superb works of a French photographer Suzanne Held, which were carefully chosen from a vast collection of photos taken by her over 40 years of her travel to India. 

In the following video Suzanne Held speaks about her photos she took in India and exhibited at Musée des Arts Asiatiques at Nice. You can see many of those photos now in Montreal.

Suzanne Held, Inde éternelle

You will find more about the Montreal Museum of Archeology and History at Pointe-à-Callière, about their opening hours and their other activities, at the PAC museum website.

List of Photos as they appear in the text

1. Visual of the exhibition created by Dominique Boudrias from Pointe-à-Callière. ©Suzanne Held

2. View of the exhibition room, Photo by Alain Vandal

3. A woman cuts rushes in Agra. The Taj Mahal is a tomb to the memory of Mumtaz Mahal, favourite wife of the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan, the “king of the world.” She died giving birth to her fourteenth child, a girl who did not survive. In his despair the inconsolable emperor, his hair turned white overnight, summoned 20,000 labourers and master craftsmen to build the tomb. After 17 years the work was finished, but the State’s coffers were empty. Shah Jahan lost his throne and was imprisoned until his death by his son Aurangzeb. ©Suzanne Held

4. View of the exhibition room and textiles, Photo by Alain Vandal

5. Ganesha is the god who removes obstacles, very popular in India because he ensures the success of any undertaking. According to legend, Ganesha was decapitated in error by his father, Shiva. To atone for his mistake, Shiva decided to replace Ganesha’s head with the head of the first living creature he came across. © Musée Guimet, Paris

6. Srirangam temple (17th century) stands on the small island of Koledam, in south India, Dravidian India. This vast religious complex, dedicated to Vishnu, is a microcosm where hundreds of priests reside. The horse courtyard contains 953 pillars sculpted in the round representing armed horsemen mounted on rearing horses. Each statue, six metres high, is carved from a single block of granite. ©Suzanne Held