Céleste Boursier-Mougenot

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot 
from here to ear V. 19

November 25, 2015 - March 27, 2016

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has an ongoing policy of bringing together art and music. Keeping up with this policy, the museum is presenting the Canadian premiere of from here to ear v.19 by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot. The artist represented France in the 2015 Venice Biennale. His 19th edition of this installation at MMFA's Contemporary Art Square, transformed into a giant aviary, is the largest one.

In this unusual pairing of birds and electric guitars, the installation presents more than seventy zebra finches. The little birds are native to the Australian grasslands. The birds produce sounds (music) by perching on electric guitars and basses that are plugged into amplifier. The live sounds on instruments that have either open blues tunings or rock power chords create an ephemeral piece of music. Itchanges as visitors walk around the gallery, the aviary, or rather, in the MMFA's Contemporary Art Square.

The first version of from here to ear was presented at MoMA PS1 in 1999. Since then, various works have been exhibited under the generic title from here to ear. While these installations share a common principle—an aviary where visitors can get close to the birds, whose activity creates a live piece of music—each installation is to be considered as a unique work determined by the circumstances of the exhibition setting. After New York, Paris, Milan, Linz (Austria), and Brisbane (Australia), this is the nineteenth presentation of the installation.

Although this is a unique concept to create music using live birds and musical instruments, I felt quite uneasy about this piece. The Australian birds need natural sun and open air, and also the sounds they are familiar with in the Australian grasslands. At the museum, they looked to me hopelessly encaged, at times spooked out by their limited spatial setting and people, and especially by the type of sounds and sudden strong audio vibrations they created. Although ornithologists approved of this exhibition, and the birds receive the appropriate care, I still could not help but feel that it was not entirely above the board to express one's artistic intellectual concepts using living beings - animals or birds - in an intellectually contrived, unnatural setting for those birds or animals.

Peggy Guggenheim - Art Addict

PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT

Film by LISA IMMORDINO VREELAND

2015 / Colour, Black & White/ USA / 96 min. / English

When one hears the name Guggenheim, what first comes to mind is the renown New York's art institution Guggenheim Museum, the full name of which is Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. What is much less known is that the first art collector in this very rich extended family was not Solomon, but his rather eccentric (by the standards of those times) niece Peggy Guggenheim.

The film narrates Peggy's biography and, most importantly, it presents an in depth look on how and why she became interested in art and in collecting art. It tells the viewer about her art galleries in Europe, New York, and of her opening later in her life an Art Museum in Venice, Italy.

Peggy Guggenheim had a very keen eye for the avangard modern art of her time. For instance, she was the one who first promoted Jackson Pollock and commissioned his works. She also knew and associated with all the who-is-who of the emerging new art in the beginning of the twentieth century. She was even married to the surrealist German painter Max Ernst.

The film is a fascinating kaleidoscopic presentation of life and accomplishments of this very unique woman. I highly recommend it especially to all the art and art history lovers.

Film's Official Synopsis

"She discovered Jackson Pollock and married Max Ernst. She exhibited the works of a very young Lucian Freud in her London gallery, and those of Robert de Niro’s mother in her palace in Venice. Her father died on the Titanic, she was photographed by Man Ray, played tennis with Ezra Pound and had a passionate love affair with Samuel Beckett. In the 20th century, she witnessed and assisted with the making of the greatest contemporary artists, while developing an eccentric, endearing personality. Using rare archival images, interviews with experts and recordings of her interviews with biographer Jacqueline B. Weld, filmmaker Lisa Immordino Vreeland lays out the fascinating, stranger- than-fiction life of the most remarkable Peggy Guggenheim."

Prix Québec / Wallonie-Bruxelles 2015

PRIX QUÉBEC/WALLONIE-BRUXELLES 2015
For Children's Literature

Le Salon du livre de Montréal 2015 was marked yesterday by the Awards Ceremony for the prestigeous  PRIX QUÉBEC/WALLONIE-BRUXELLES for Children's Literature. The prize is given every two years concurrently to authors or illustrators from Quebec and also to those belonging to the French Community in Belgium. This award comes with a cash prize of $ 3,500 for the winners and an additional financial assistance of $ 6,000 to their publishing houses so that they can ensure the books' promotion and marketing in their respective region. This year, the award specifically targeted the category "First novel for beginning readers".

Mélanie Rutten and Alain M. Bergeron

The winners for PRIX QUÉBEC/WALLONIE-BRUXELLES 2015 were:

For Wallonie-Bruxelles, author and illustrator Mélanie Rutten for her book L'ombre de chacun (éditions MeMo).

For Québec, author Alain M. Bergeron and illustarator Pierre-Yves Cezard for the book Le géant qui sentait les petits pieds (éditions Québec Amérique).

Pierre-Yves Cezard

For more information, visit the Salon's website.

Salon du Livre 2015

Le Salon du livre de Montréal 2015
November 19-23, 2015

If you like books and reading, you will once again enjoy the annual Le Salon du Livre de Montréal being held, as always, at the Montreal's Place Bonaventure. There are many rows of shelves with books of various kind, directed to divers age groups, interests, fields of knowledge, and all presented and promoted by a great number of different publishing houses. 

Some books at the Salon du livre are arranged in truly scupturesque manner.

A special tribute is being held at this year's Salon to Agatha Christie, whose exclusive exhibition will open at Montreal's Pointe-à-Callière (PAC) Museum on December 8, 2015. You can read more about it in my post here. 

Find the time to visit the Salon du livre, especially keeping in mind the quickly approaching holidays season and thus the upcoming traditional presents exchanges.

For more information, visit the Salon's website.

McCord Museum 2015: Mister Rabbit’s Circus

Mister Rabbit’s Circus 

November 1, 2015 - April 17, 2016

The exhibition is the latest edition of the McCord Museum's annual toys exhibition for children aged 3 to 9. The Museum has partnered for this event with the publisher Les 400 coups – which is celebrating its 20th anniversary – and the successful children’s book series Monsieur Lapin, written by Pascal Hérault and illustrated by Geneviève Després.

Parents and children will explore the circus and discover toys from the Museum’s collection in a setting entertaining for the whole family. In addition, visitors will have a chance to take part in an investigation with a long-eared celebrity Mister Rabbit during activities for the Holiday Season and also the Spring Break.

Visitors will have a chance to see more than 200 artefacts from the McCord Museum’s toy and decorative arts collection, several of them on display in public for the first time. Among them are fortune-telling deck (1919), animals and characters from the Humpty Dumpty circus (around 1920), a mechanical toy inspired by the roller coaster in Coney Island, New York (1945-1949) and the clown puppet Clarabell (around 1950). Further information about the toys is provided with each display.

The circus tent also includes photographs from the Notman Photographic Archives that recall moments in the history of the circus in Montreal. A reading area, a space dedicated to costumes and games, was also added to the route. 

Admission is always free for children 12 and under. 

For more information, visit the McCord Museum website.

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