MMFA Director Natalie Bondil, Order of Canada

NATHALIE BONDIL
Member of the Order of Canada

It was announced earlier this month that Natalie Bondil, the highly respected Director and Chief Curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, has received a very prestigious honour for her excellent and monumental work in promoting and benefiting the MMFA, the Montreal's prominent and well liked museum. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada for her contribution to the promotion of the arts and culture as a museologist and the museum's administrator. With great energy and many talents, she brought the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to a new level with many innovations, excellent international contacts and exhibitions, also enlarging and enhancing the museum with new pavilions and new concepts.

Additionally, on May 29, 2015, Natalie Bondil was awarded another honour: she received an honorary doctorate from the Université de Montréal in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the development of the MMFA, the promotion of culture and popular education, and for consolidating the links between the museum and the Université de Montréal.

The official photo of Madame Bonvil just above is very symbolic, with layers of meaning. First of all, she is shown not in the Museum's public area but in the inner space, the "innards" of the institution where her work takes place. On the left, in the background, is the painting by a French painter James Tissot October, 1877. It portrays a beautiful and elegant French woman, symbolic of Natalie Bondil's roots, who is a native of France. On the photo's right are two paintings by a Canadian painter Michael Snow from the series Walking Women, 1963. Canada is the county where Madame Bondil took her most prominent steps. This photo clearly illustrates that Natalie Bondil successfully unites the classical European heritage with modern North American trends, on the bases of which she builds museum's strong and prominent international presence. She further enhances the museum with worldwide art treasures and many international exhibitions and projects. 

I took the two photos below on November 2, 2011. Madame Bondil is on a podium during a press conference. You can read about this event and the MMFA exhibitions at that time here. As I have noted then, there is an uncanny postural likeness as well as facial and body expression in both women, the one in the painting and the real one. To some extent, there is also a similarity as to their dress and shoes, though Madame Bondil's style is very contemporary.

Find more about the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts by visiting the MMFA website.

Park Jean-Drapeau Public Art Audio Guide

Park Jean-Drapeau Sculptures
Audio Guide

The Portrait Sonore organization, in collaboration with the Société du parc Jean-Drapeau, has just released a walking tour-documentary which helps to discover the park's public art in a lively, poetic and musical manner. This is a two hour, a cell phone facilitated stroll, a true “pocket report” with sound and music, that puts one in the midst of the Park Jean-Drapeau to discover 15 public art works spread out on St-Hélène and Notre-Dame islands.

The audio guide presents many eyewitnesses, creators and experts who explain the issues regarding the conservation of the works, the artistic considerations and values that led to their design, and the spirit of the era in which they were created when art became accessible to all.

The Jean-Drapeau park audio guide also features 15 musicians from Québec’s local music scene, each providing their own musical interpretation of an art work. This results is 15 original compositions that hone senses and inject new life into sculptures in a very personal manner. The musical selection was directed by composer Antoine DJ Champion and Diane Labrosse.

Portrait Sonore is an independent non-profit organization whose main mandate is using new technologies to better understand and experience the modern city, its art, and its architecture. Parc Jean-Drapeau/Public Art is part of a broader project on the modernization of the major Canadian cities. This initiative was led by architect Sophie Mankowski with the collaboration of Antoine Bédard and Serge Rhéaume (all three are co-founders of PORTRAIT SONORE).

In 2017, three major anniversaries will be celebrated: the 150th anniversary of Canadian confederation, the 375th anniversary of the City of Montréal, and the 50th anniversary of Expo 67.  PORTRAIT SONORE is making a series of walking tour-documentaries about the history of the modernization of Canadian cities: Québec City, Toronto, Winnipeg, Québec, Vancouver, Halifax and Ottawa. From sea to sea, this project strives to contribute to the emergence of a modern, Pan-Canadian architectural awareness among the general public as it lends more visibility to bold but little-known works of art. It creates a bank of documentation and experts’ and Canadian creators’ accounts that are accessible to everyone. By 2017, all of these projects (and more) will be available and hosted on the PORTRAIT SONORE app, an intuitive application designed by graphic designer Serge Rhéaume.

The project has received support from the Canada Arts Council, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Heritage Canada, the City of Montréal, and Parc Jean-Drapeau. 

Click on any image to enlarge it.

Access Portrait Sonore Parc Jean-Draperau Public Art guide here. At the end of the introduction, click on any sculpture on the map to continue your tour.

This free application will also be shortly available at the Google Apps Store. You can also download the application for iPhone or iPad here.

Access all Portrait Sonor projects here.

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel in Montreal

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel Exhibition

July 10 - October 12, 2015

Montreal holds a premier of a stunning exhibition - the monumental work of the Renaissance artist Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), better known as simply Michelangelo. Several North American cities were in the bid to have the premier of this first ever travelling show of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, but it was Montreal that won. In the next 15 years the show will travel all around the world, providing to many people a great opportunity to see it. The scaffolding that is used to exhibit the works was made in Montreal. It mimics the scaffolding used when the Sistine Chapel was renovated. It also provides an easy travelling mounting system for this exhibition.

Michelagelo was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer who tremendously influenced the development of the western art. During his lifetime, he was considered to be the greatest living artist, and is still considered by many to be the greatest artist of all times. And now, the Montrealers and other visitors from around the world have a unique opportunity to experience in person the grandeur and scope of one of his most magnificent creations, the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel.

The works on display are the life-size reproductions of the original frescoes, created with a special photographic reproduction technique that captured the look, size and the feel of the original frescoes through the use of original licensed photos.

The exhibition is being held at the Montreal's Palais des congres, Espace 1001. The location offers a unique opportunity for visitors to views the works at a perfect distance proportional to their sizes, something that the Sistine Chapel does not offer, although, I am sure, many of us would have liked to also experience the original frescoes in their original setting in Vatican.

The Sistine Chapel's ceiling is 21 meters hight, not a comfortable distance to view the frescoes. Moreover, the experience in Montreal offers a leisurely visit in comparison to long waiting lines for the Vatican's Sistine Chapel.

Note the strong men-like arms that the female fresco personages have. It was a common practice at those times to only use male models in artists' studios. In addition, Michelangelo, being also a sculptor, perceived shapes as voluminous and textured. He deliberately intended to give his frescoes a sculptural effect with an illusion of three-dimensionality.

This exhibition offers a view into the Michelangelo's creative spirit, an understanding of his High Renaissance era and how he contributed to it, as well as tranquillity, relaxation and time for personal reflection by stepping temporarily away from the busy modern world. 

For more information, visit the exposition's website.

Click on any image to enlarge it.

The following professional photo was provided courtesy of the exhibition's organizers. It depicts the true size of the frescoes in proportion to a human body.

In case you cannot make it to the Montreal's show or the Sisiine Chapel, watch this YouTube video.

Read more on the exhibition in my subsequent post
http://artframe.blogspot.ca/2015/09/michelangelo-sistine-chapel-hidden.html