Plateau Exhibition at PAC Museum, Montreal

Lives and Times of the Plateau

October 23, 2012 - September 1, 2014

Pointe-à-Callière Museum of Archaeology is presenting an exhibition about the history of Montreal's Plateau Mont-Royal neighbourhood, its distinctive character and creativity. It showcases the Plateau as a meeting place of the artistic and intellectual vitality as well as the entrepreneurial daring which symbolize Montréal’s diverse and vibrant culture. 

In less than 200 years, the Plateau was transformed from totally agrarian area, with four small villages, into a working-class neighbourhood which later became a fully diversified urban community. This rapid pace of urban evolution made Plateau Mont-Royal one of the sources of major transformations that marked the city’s history, while at the same time becoming a meeting place of people with colourful pasts and futures.

Plateau is known for its famous triplexes with balconies, spiral staircases and green back lanes. It  is even proclaimed as one of the best places to live. 

Plateau Mont-Royal is also considered to be a "creative" neighbourhood. A number of Quebec artists either lived in the Plateau, had their studios there, or painted the Plateau neighbourhoods.

For more information about the Lives and Times of the Plateau exhibition, visit the PAC Museum's website

http://www.pacmusee.qc.ca/en/home

Splendore a Venezia Exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Splendore a Venezia: 
Art and Music from the Renaissance to Baroque in the Serenissima

October 12, 2013 to January 19, 2014


 The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is hosting a new temporary exhibition on Venice art and music, ranging from the early sixteenth century to the fall of the Serenissima at the close of the eighteenth century. La Serenissima was the name for the Republic of Venice, from the title Serenissimo, literally meaning 'the most/very serene'.

This is an interdisciplinary and also an innovative exhibition. It aims to explore the  important interrelationships that existed between the visual arts and music in the Venetian Republic, and how they served the political ambitions of the state and its civic institutions, becoming increasingly central to the economy of the Republic.

The exhibition brings together approximately 120 paintings, prints, and drawings, as well as historical instruments, musical manuscripts, and texts. On display are masterworks by many renowned artists associated with the musical life of Venice, such as Titian, Tintoretto, Bassano, Giovanni Battista, Domenico Tiepolo, and Francesco Guardi, many of whom were also amateur musicians. There are also works by Bernardo Strozzi, Pietro Longhi and Canaletto whose paintings show the role of music in the the Venetian everyday life. 

This  exhibition  also  includes  manuscripts  and  publications  by  Venetian composers like the Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Albinoni, Lotti and Vivaldi and a number of Venecian musical instruments. The exhibition's halls are organized around various time periods, and also thematically. Each hall portrays a specific musical style which can be heard by the visitors as a background theme. In addition, the exhibition's free audio guide consists only of musical excerpts that connect by numbers to some works on display.

The works on loan for this exhibition, including precious historical instruments, have been contributed by 61 international collections in Canada and abroad: 

• From the United States – the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Morgan Library & Museum, the New York Public Library, the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art (Washington).
• From Italy – the Palatine Gallery, Uffizi, Capitoline, Cini Foundation, Accademia (Venice), Museo Correr.
• Rrom the rest of Europe – Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, Madrid’s Thyssen‐Bornemisza, London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery and National Gallery, and the Louvre. From the beginning, the Cité de la musique in Paris has contributed to this exhibition with its scientific expertise and by loaning major instruments.

After Montreal, the exhibition will travel to the Portland Art Museum in Oregon, where it will be open to public from March 7 to June 8, 2014.

Visit Montreal Museum's of Fine Arts' website, where you will find more information on this exhibition and related activities:

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

Splendore a Venezia: Christophe Koch Archlute Unveiling

 Christophe Koch Archlute Unveiled

This musical instrument unveiling took place in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' preparation for their upcoming exhibiton Splendore a Venezia: Art and Music from the Renaissance to Baroque in the Serenissima.

The exhibition will be held from October 12, 2013 to January 19, 2014. 

This archlute is one of the most important musical instruments among the 120 different that will be displayed works in the upcoming exhibition.  The Archlute of Christophe Koch is a lute to which an extended pegbox has been added to hold unfretted bass courses. This exceptional piece has arrived from the Cite de la Musique in Paris. It's body is made of kingwood decorated with ivory. It represents an excellent example of the Venetian mid-seventeenth century taste.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Art Musica Foundation will present a full-scale concert series: 20 concerts, 7 lectures, and two films.

Visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' website for more information on the exhibition and all the upcoming events.

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