McCord 2016: Nadia Myre

Decolonial Gestures or Doing it Wrong?

Refaire le chemin

February 18 - May 29, 2016

The McCord Museum of Montreal, a public research and teaching museum dedicated to the preservation, study, diffusion, and appreciation of Canadian History, is presenting a new exhibition by Nadia Myre, an artist from the museum's Artist-in-Residence Program.

Nadia Myre is an Algonquin multidisciplinary artist. For this exhibition she draws her inspiration from Victorian (1837-1901) women’s periodicals, journals and publications to create her work. The periodicals came out once per month, and at the end of each year were bound together and published as a book. Those books consisted of a number of household advices for the comfortable, well-to-do class of women. There were musical scores for songs and compositions to entertain guests at a piano, and also instructions how-to do crafts, which included beadwork and making native-like objects.

Myre's project consisted of creating four items mentioned in the Victorian era journals that McCord Museum has in its permanent collection. One such item was a basket, featured in an image of a page just above on the right. The items from the magazines were selected by the museum's staff. Myre had no idea what they selected. The instructions how to make the items were recorded by the museum's staff, skipping and omitting all the words that named or identified the objects. All Myre had to work with were these oral, truncated instructions. Her task was to reconstruct and create the items without knowing what they were. The exhibition presents side by side the artist's final creations as well as the similar period items made by the native craftsmen which are in the McCord Museum's permanent collection.

Myre's idea was to recreate the native craftsmanship through the colonial appropriation of the instructions how to make the objects. By means of this conceptual installation, the artists reconnected to her native roots. She worked backwards, in a blind-like manner, without knowing exactly what she was making.

The results are pretty impressive. Come and visit the exhibition and see for yourself how it was done. Just imagine how you would have been able to manage with the skimpy instructions that Nadia Myre had, to create any items of use and beauty. The audio recordings of those initial instructions are available to the visitors, as well as a large video in the middle of the exhibition hall that depicts how the artist herself was handling this issue, working, reconstructing the objects on the bases of instructions she received.

You will see some other interesting items and documents on display like, for instance, period photos that attest to the Victorian people's interest in native artefacts.

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For more information, visit the McCord Museum website.

PAC 2016: Fragments d’humanité - Book

Archaeology of Québec Book Series

Fragments d’humanité - Pièces de collections

Montreal's Pointe-à-Callière Museum of Archeology (PAC Museum) has launched the second book of its Archaeology of Quebec Book Series, which will consists of 5 volumes dedicated to Quebec archaeology. These books will summarise the results of about 50 years of archaeological research in the Province of Quebec. They will show in full the richness of Quebec’s historical heritage and artefacts, the importance of preserving them, and making them better known to all.

The book presents many items from different collections of artefacts uncovered in Québec. It complements the exhibition now on view at the PAC Museum Fragments of Humanity - Fragments d’humanité.

The present publication Fragments d’humanité – Pièces de collections, is a new volume in the “Archéologie du Québec” book collection, which already includes Air – Territoire et peuplemen, the first volum in the series, published a year ago. You can read about that first volume and peek inside the book here.

This second book just launched features some of the most important archaeological discoveries made over the last few decades in Québec, from the perspective of collections. The subjects addressed in the book are the same as those in the Fragments of Humanity exhibition that you can read about here. Moreover, book is enhanced with photographs, artefacts, and rich iconography.

This book is the result of a partnership between the Ministry of Culture and Communications and Pointe-à-Callière. It was produced under the direction of Louise Pothier, Head Archaeologist at Pointe-à-Callière, and published by Éditions de l’Homme. The complete collection will be made up of five books; the first two books are available at the PAC Museum Shop and in regular bookstores.

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For more information, visit the PAC Museum website.

To purchase the book, visit the PAC Museum's Online gift shop.

PAC 2016: Fragments of Humanity

Fragments of Humanity - Fragments d’humanité

Archaeology in Québec 

February 13, 2016 - January 8, 2017

This is the very first major exhibition dedicated entirely to Québec archaeology. It celebrates the 50 years of archaeological discovery in Québec. It features some 350 significant pieces, chosen from among collections and finds from archaeological digs carried out at over 10,000 sites throughout the territory of Québec. They are objects that reflect Quebec's past and tell the province's story while revealing a wide range of of the objects' origin and variety. The great majority of the pieces have never been seen by the general public. They were taken out of the Ministry of Culture and Communications’ (MCC) archaeological reserve for the very first time.

Fragments of Humanity also features objects from extensive heritage collections that are largely unknown to the public. The Bécancour collection, a treasury of projectile points, some of which may date back over 8,000 years, is the oldest archaeological collection in Canada.

The Burger collection, for its part, includes some objects that date back 5,000 years. This collection was amassed between 1930 and 1950 by an American, Valerie Burger, who collected close to 2,000 artefacts around Kempt and Manouane lakes, in the Upper Mauricie region, with the help of members of the Atikamekw community. Visitors to the exhibition will also get to see several pieces from the archaeological collection of Place-Royale in Québec City, designated as heritage objects, and also from Pointe-à-Callière’s collection.

Conceived and promoted by the Pointe-à-Callière (PAC) Museum of Archaeology and History, the exhibition also featuring objects from about ten other lenders including the City of Montréal, Québec City, Pointe-du-Buisson/Musée québécois d’archéologie, the Musée des Ursulines in Trois-Rivières, Avataq Cultural Institute, and Parks Canada.

The exhibition looks back at the events and ways of life behind the discovered fragments of our historical humanity. Each in their own way, these fragments reveal various facets of our heritage.

Presented both chronologically and thematically, the exhibition—which highlights the richness and diversity of Québec’s archaeological collections—is divided into four zones:

• ancient stories or prehistoric archaeology
• a land of trade and commerce
• chronicles of daily life
• and stories from the depths

After Montreal, the exhibition will embark on a tour that will take it to several other places in Québec and Canada.

Fragments of Humanity. Archaeology in Québec is an exhibition produced by Pointe-à-Callière, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and Communications. The exhibition received financial support from the Government of Canada. 

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For more information, visit the PAC Museum website.

On This Day

Centaur Theatre
February 9 – March 6, 2016

Written by Alexandria Haber | Directed by Alain Goulem

Written and directed by a wife-husband team, this play stands out for touching on some core issues encountered in couples' relationships like fidelity-infidelity, differences in personal needs, goals, lifestyle aspirations, irritabilities towards each other, and even a somewhat aggressive and abrupt manner of talking to each other.

Although one of the five characters in the play, a young girl Grace, is not in a relationship, she is central to the plot as to holding the play's story line together, as well as a catalyst which indirectly helps to reveal the two couples' fallacies or strengths.

The play has both tragic and comic components which weave rhythmically through each other, helping to advance the narrative and on-stage acting. These mini-themes also ensure that the play becomes an enjoyable and even personalized experience with many elements for the audience to identify with.

 
“Relationships are very tricky and endlessly entertaining to explore for scripts, in my mind,” claims the playwright Alexandria Haber. “We’re pretty complicated and simple at the same time.”

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For more information, visit the Centaur Theatre website.

MAC 2016: Ragnar Kjartansson

RAGNAR KJARTANSSON

The Visitors

February 11 -  May 22, 2016

The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC) is presenting Ragnar Kjartansson, an internationally recognized Icelandic artist who combines music, theatre, performance, visual arts and film in works filled with retrospect probings that unfold over time. The world he creates in his works conveys elements of irony and philosophical melancholy.

Born into a family of actors/directors, and having worked as a stage technician himself, Kjartansson is fascinated by the theatre, particularly the world behind the scenes. Also, the idea of repetition is a recurring motif in his work.

The centrepiece of the Montréal presentation, The Visitors, 2012, is a nine-channel video installation that revolves around a musical performance put on at Rokeby, a 19th-century mansion in upstate New York. For this impressive production that has attracted wide attention, the artist gathered a group of his musician friends and acquaintances from Reykjavik and beyond. Together, they perform Feminine Way, a long, tender, captivating poem, each playing their instruments in isolation in separate rooms. The audience finds itself in the midst of this recording session that offers an ode to friendship. The Visitors documents, in a single take, the 64-minute performance of the song.

This show is the artist’s first major museum exhibition in Canada, consisting of three large  video installations as well as a  musical/theatrical production which will be presented at Place des Arts for one evening only. The performance will take place on March 3, at 8 p.m. 

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For more information on this exhibition and the museum, visit the MAC website.

MMFA 2016: POMPEII

POMPEII
February 6 - September 5, 2016

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is presenting a new exhibition POMPEII, about the tragic demise of the Roman city when Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. In a sense, MMFA is bringing Pompeii back to life with many facts, artefacts and visual presentations of the splendour of this ancient city.

The exhibition has been organized by the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and the MMFA, in collaboration with the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli and the Soprintendenza Pompei.

A selection of more than 220 of the best preserved works from the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, the largest repository of archeological objects, and a;so from the site of Pompeii itself, which is managed by the Soprintendenza Pompei. Some of the works also come from the neighbouring city of Herculanum which was destroyed by the Vesuvius eruption along with Pompeii.

The exhibition takes visitors through thematic sections and immersive installations. It is a journey through time and space, where past and present interact, thus providing an opportunity to envision the daily life in Pompeii before the volcano erupted.

The exhibition presents the people of Pompeii, their history, their appetite for life and their delight in the sensual, as portrayed through the works on display. It includes frescos, mosaics, and statues made of bronze, terra cotta and marble, luxurious accessories, silverware, everyday utensils, religious paraphernalia and even a selection of erotica from the Secret Cabinet of the National Archeological Museum in Naples.

The MMFA has added three pieces to the Montreal's leg of the exhibition which come from the National Museum of Archeology in Naples that show the importance of physical activity and fitness for Pompeiians: fragments of a fresco depicting wrestlers, a strigil (a scraper for cleansing the skin)and an aryballos (a flask for massage oil). The exhibition also includes some works from the MMFA: a Harry A. Norton collection of Roman glass from the first century and some coins recently acquired from Dr. Demers.

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For more information, visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts website.