MMFA 2019: Van Horn's Japanese Ceramics

OBSESSION:

SIR WILLIAM VAN HORNE’S JAPANESE CERAMICS

November 20, 2019 – March 1, 2020 

Sir William Van Horne was a man of many achievements. As the president of the Canadian Pacific, he build Canada’s transcontinental railway. As a private man, he was an avid collector of Japanese ceramics which was made for the Japanese domestic market. Though he never visited Japan during his lifetime, the crates with the ceramics he purchased while in Canada were shiped to him by boats over the Pacific ocean.

He lived at 1139 Sherbrooke Street West in Montreal, just steps from the Museum. Between 1883 and 1893, he acquired close to 1,200 examples of Japanese ceramics. His collection was world renowned during his lifetime. It is exceptional not only for the number of objects it consists of, but most remarquably for the compulsive diligence with which he documented it. He knew every item in his collection by heart, and had an individual relationship with each item. Absolutely every item was catalogued in a series of notebooks, some on of them on view at the exhibition. In addition, Van Horn carefully illustrated his ceramic pieces, in some cases rendered them in large watercolour paintings. The MMFA exhibition includes several of these “case studies,” where an object, its description, sketch and watercolour are displayed side by side.

Van Horn lived at an era of private collectors, who knew each other, belonged to the same social circles, visited each other's collections, and staged private exhibitions at their homes. The collection of artistic objects activity was highly regarded and praised by Van Horn's peers.

Sir William Van Horne

William Cornelius Van Horne was born in 1843 in Illinois. At a very young age, he developed an interest in paleontology and fossil classification. Leaving school at age 13, he found a job with the Illinois Central Railway and then with the Chicago & Alton Railway, where he became superintendent general at the age of 29. He subsequently became president of the Southern Minnesota Railroad, where in his first year he successfully turned around the financially troubled company with his innovations.

In 1881, the Canadian Pacific Railway faced a daunting challenge: a dream of connecting the West Coast of the country with the East Coast by building a railroad within 10 years. To do so, the company called upon Van Horne’s talents. His assignment was to lay 4,665 kilometres of rail across a continent that had scarcely even been surveyed. He rose to the challenge in 1885, despite a host of obstacles, and spent 11 years as president of Canadian Pacific. Under his auspices, the company was restored to financial health and would become the world’s largest transportation system. He left this position to launch a railway in Cuba. His success and his involvement with the boards of directors of some 40 Canadian companies and organizations – including the Art Association of Montreal, the forerunner to the MMFA – made him one of the country’s most influential businessmen. When he died in 1915, he was a Canadian citizen, British knight, and a multimillionaire.

In 1944, Van Horne’s daughter donated a group of 595 works to the Art Association of Montreal, including paintings by Canaletto, Cézanne, Daumier, Greco, Guardi, Monet and Tiepolo, along with 217 Japanese ceramics. This was the beginning of the MMFA’S collection of Asian art. During his lifetime, Van Horne also gave 150 other ceramic objects from his collection to the ROM. 

  

Exibition Location

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Liliane and David M. Stewart Pavilion – Level 2

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For more information about the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts exhibitions and activities, visit the museum's website.

Little Dickens

Centaur Theatre / 51th Season

LITTLE DICKENS

Quebec Premiere

November 19 - December 21, 2019

Created & Performed by Ronnie BURKETT

With Musical Arrangements by John ALCORN

Production Manager & Artistic Associate Terri GILLIS

Stage Manager Crystal SALVERDA

Every performance of Daisy Theatre show is unique, improvised on the spot, adjusted to the audience's mood and reactions. It also relies on the volunteers from the audience Burkett gets to participate in his play. Stated plainly, there is no written script. These puppet performances cannot be reproduced or performed by anybody else but their creator Ronnie Burkett.

Little Dickens is a funny and edgy remix of Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas Carol. It also launches the early Yuletide celebrations at Centaur.

The Dickens's character Scrooge is impersonated by the aging Diva Esmé. As she launces her midnight journey that leads to her inner redemption, she encounters many other Daisy Theatre well-known puppets, now all interpreting Dickens’ infamous characters. Presented in vaudevillian style, music ties all parts of the performance together: Christmas remixes and sultry jazz solos helping with the joyful merriment of the Fezziwig’s party.

ABOUT RONNIE BURKETT

Captivated by puppetry since the age of seven, Ronnie Burkett began touring his shows at the age of fourteen. His Theatre of Marionettes was formed in 1986, playing on Canada’s major stages and abroad. Ronnie received the 2009 Siminovitch Prize, The Herbert Whittaker Drama Bench Award for Outstanding Contribution to Canadian Theatre, a Village Voice OBIE Award and four Citations of Excellence from the American Center of the Union Internationale de la Marionnette. In 2019, Ronnie Burkett was appointed as an Officer of The Order of Canada.

AGE RESTRICTION: 16 years and over

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All photos courtesy of @ Centaur Theatre.

For more information, visit the Centaur Theatre website.

More about this performance here.

CCA 2019: Americanizm in Russian Architecture

Building a New World:
Americanizm in Russian Architecture

November 13, 2019 - April 5, 2020

Building a new New World examines the history of Russian architecture and urban design in light of an enduring Amerikanizm. It focuses on an expanded definition of architecture and culture, as well as industrial and graphic design, music, photography, film, and literature. It also provides examples of various buildings, factories, industrial infrastructures, urban planning and product design.

The exhibition presents a wide-ranging succession of images and objects in which architecture serves as the unifying thread, including photographs, books, maps, drawings, magazines, portraits, models, postcards, and film excerpts. It examines numerous themes: imagined forms and buildings inspired by American sources, recurring investigative journeys undertaken by Russian explorers, political leaders, and architects; the multitude of Russian publications devoted to the United States, ranging from technical reports to poetry and novels.

Jean-Louis Cohen, the exhibition’s curator, stated:

“The bilateral relationship between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America was paradoxical. Americans never aspired to turn their nation into a ‘new Russia,’ neither from a political nor a cultural standpoint, while generations of Russian politicians, intellectuals, and engineers envisioned modelling their country after the United States, hoping to cast it as a new America.”

CCA Director Mirko Zardini explained:

“Through the CCA’s critical curatorial framework and calculated exhibition design, Cohen interprets Amerikanizm as a multifaceted phantasmagoria—borrowing Walter Benjamin’s term for the stimulating and ominous spectacle of the commodity—that helped shape not only the built form but also the consciousness of one of the greatest global powers.”

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Building a new New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture is the result of extensive research by curator Jean-Louis Cohen and features drawings, photographs, posters, books, publications, models, historical documents, and films from both Russia and the USA. The decades-long dialogue between Russia and the USA is reflected in the materials on display, which include rarely seen Russian holdings from the CCA’s own collection—including rare books and magazines, evocative drawings, and important photographs—shown alongside loans from important international institutions and lenders including, among others, the Alex Lachmann collection, with 33 objects on view in the exhibition; an emblematic and rare illustration from the MOMus - Museum of Modern Art - Costakis Collection in Thessaloniki, Greece; the Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation in Vienna; the Library of Congress; posters and key visuals from the Collection Merrill C. Berman; and works on loan from the Albert Kahn records at the Bentley Historical Library of University of Michigan and Albert Kahn Associates, Inc. The exhibition content is structured along specific themes including America and the Modernization of Czarist Russia; American Industries for Russia: Taylor, Ford, and Kahn; Amerikanizms of the Avant-Gardes; Amerikanizm in Stalinist Architecture and Culture; From War to Triumph; and The Post-Stalinist USSR: Reaching and Surpassing America. Throughout the succession of images and projects on display, architecture embodies the phenomenon of Amerikanizm that was also apparent in literature and film. Indeed, throughout the exhibition, film remains an important leitmotif, with excerpts from works by Sergey Eisenstein and Grigory Alexandrov, Mikhail Chiaureli, Esfir Shub, Frank & Lillian Gilbreth, Lev Kuleshov, Sergey Komarov, Alexander Medvedkin, Mikhail Kalatozov, and Charles & Ray Eames on display in key locations within and between galleries.

THE PUBLICATION

Building a new New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture is accompanied by a book of the same title by Jean-Louis Cohen, available in English and French editions in February 2020. Co-published by Yale and the CCA in English and Hazan and the CCA in French, the book follows the themes of the exhibition within a broader interpretive narrative and is illustrated by 450 colour and black and white images of drawings, photographs, maps, charts, and posters. The book will be available online and in-store through the CCA Bookstore, and distributed to select bookstores internationally.

RELATED PROGRAMS

Public programs related to Building a new New World will include a series of talks titled Search for a new New World by invited guests whose work relates to the themes explored through the exhibition. Adding examples beyond the terrestrial focus of the exhibition, this series looks to Russian science fiction as a site of social and technological fantasy: reflection and experimentation beyond what was possible in Russian reality. In parallel to the exhibition chronology, Russian society is read through four case studies from science fiction texts, images, and films. 

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All photos © Nadia Slejskova.

For more information about CCA projects, visit the CCA website.

MMFA 2019: New Wing

Stephan Crétier and Stéphany Maillery Wing

For the Arts of One World

10 galleries creating a dialogue between works from every continent 

Opened on November 9, 2019

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) had unveil the new Stephan Crétier and Stéphany Maillery Wing for the Arts of One World. Located on the 4th floor of the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion. The wing has 10 fully refurbished galleries. Each gallery creates a dialogue between works of ancient cultures and those by local and international contemporary artists, attempting to establish a new intercultural and transhistorical perspective is. This project was made possible thanks to the generous support of Stephan Crétier and Stéphany Maillery and the wing is named to jonour them.

The 1025 m² of the Stephan Crétier and Stéphany Maillery wing contain more than 1500 objects and works by artists from every continent. The wing presents treasures from Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Oceania and the Americas dating from the 4^th millennium BCE to the present days. It invites visitors to take a 360-degree look at our collective ancient heritage as well as contemporary creations. The wing’s layout highlights the exchange between various cultures of the past and the present, thus showcasing current artistic disciplines and social concerns, bypassing the discourse of art history.

Tthe Stephan Crétier and Stéphany Maillery Wing for the Arts of One World promotes inclusive values that reflect Montreal, a metropolis made up of nearly 120 cultural communities. It invites cultures to come together to better understand each other in the 21^st century, assuring the cultural togetherness will not be a challenge.

Nathalie Bondil, Director General and Chief Curator of the MMFA, explained:

“Conceived of five years ago, this project is based on a generous and bold intercultural and transhistorical vision. It is the culmination of a decade of hard work (studies, rediscoveries, restorations, an  acquisitions) with our curators, conservators, archivists, archeologists, experts and donors to enhance, reinforce, study, and renew our archeological collections and those from traditional cultures. The wing includes more than 1500 works: pieces that have been acquired over 10 years along with many pieces from our collection that have been rediscovered from our reserves. I wanted this wing to provide complex perspectives and diverse voices through more contemporary works that echo our global world. These great artists are from every continent and include Canadians who are part of diverse, Indigenous, and local and international communities....

More than ever, we need to think as One World, or a world of togetherness as our societies fracture. We want individuals to marvel at our plurality of cultures in a world that has never experienced such close proximity. This wing represents a journey toward the Other as we become aware of our common fate as we currently struggle to achieve sustainable development and protect life's diversity. This poetic journey refers to the extremely open and far-reaching thought of Caribbean poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant. His ideas are that we must crisscross the traditions of our world and that the imaginations of humanities must change.”

Location:

Thw new Stephan Crétier and Stéphany Maillery Wing for the Arts of One World is located on the 4th floor of the the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion, the largest and most visited of the Museum's five pavilions.

“One World"

A tribute to Édouard Glissant

The MMFA's World Cultures collection has been completely revamped. The new name of this collection echoes the One World concept introduced by Martinique poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant (1928-2011). "Relationship" is the key to his vault of thoughts on diversity and plurality. Questioning ethnocentric views of the world and history, Glissant interprets modernity as a relational process in a non-hierarchical world between all peoples and all cultures.

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All photos  © Nadia Slejskova

For more information about the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' exhibitions and activities, visit the museum's website.