MAC 2020-2021: Materiality of Language

La machine qui enseignait des airs aux oiseaux

34 local artists reflect upon the materiality of language

Virtual preview of the exabits available from December 17, 2020

Click on 3 images on this MAC webpage

The Montreal Museum of Contaporary Art (MAC) presents La machine qui enseignait des airs aux oiseaux. It showcases two curators Mark Lanctôt and Francois LeTourneux and their engagement with the local art scene, as well as the notion of language in all its permutations. These ideas evolved considerably over the course of the past two years, with visits to more than eighty local artists’ studios, conversations with a multitude of artists, writers, researchers, thinkers and diverse art practitioners, culminating in the current exhibition. 

 
“The artists and collectives selected for the show represent an extensive and richly diverse body of works around the theme of language, and how, beyond its spoken and written form, it can also be inscribed upon bodies, gestures and on the very material world around us,” explain the curators. “These works enable us to observe the transmission and translation of knowledge, memory and affects as these come toe to toe with the boundary between the body and technology”.                         

World events shape the narrative
 
Numerous questions were raised during the preparation of this show, which bringing forth new meanings especially in light of the current circumstances. “What is body language at a time when a world-wide health crisis literally force the confined separation of our bodies? How our focus, awareness of time, and our physical senses have been transformed? How can the tools we now rely on to communicate with others subjugate their just scrutiny?”

The show assembles a number of works that explore these issues and offer responses that are, according to the curators, “significant for their kaleidoscopic voices each of which fragment into a unique view of the world.” Every piece contains its own logic while concurrently weaving conversations with other pieces at the exhibition, inviting the visitor to discover and to interpret.

Artists:

• Vikky Alexander
• Trevor Baird
• Thomas Bégin
• Simon Belleau
• Scott Benesiinaabandan
• Sandeep Bhagwati
• Jacques Bilodeau
• Rosika Desnoyers
• Mara Eagle
• Surabhi Ghosh
• Carla Hemlock
• Kristan Horton
• Sheena Hoszko
• Isuma
• Kelly Jazvac
• Suzanne Kite
• Moridja Kitenge Banza
• Karen Kraven
• Marlon Kroll
• Nicolas Lachance
• Yen-Chao Lin
• Anne Low
• Luanne Martineau
• Manuel Mathieu
• N.E. Thing Co
• Jérôme Nadeau
• Isabelle Pauwels
• Guillaume Adjutor Provost
• Walter Scott
• Erin Shirreff
• Eve Tagny
• Samuel Walker
• Nico Williams
• Thea Yabut

Noteworthy: digital preview, film program, podcasts, catalogue

• A free digital preview acting as an introduction to the exhibition, the works and the artists will be available on the MAC’s website starting December 17th.
   
• Author, Ronald Rose-Antoinette, proposes as guest curator a film program entitled chorus, talk through life during the course of the exhibition with artists Denise F. da Silva & Arjuna Neuman, Esery Mondésir, Darlene Naponse, Jamilah Sabur, Kengné Téguia, and Suné Woods.
   
• Daisy Desrosiers, an independent curator, will host a series of podcast interviews with some of the artists of the exhibition.  Available soon on the MAC’s website.
   
• A catalogue accompanies the exhibition and includes an essay by Krista Lynes, several short texts written by Nicole Brossard, Marie-Andrée Gill, Rawi Hage, Symon Henry, Joana Joachim, Michael Nardone, Madeleine Thien, Maude Veilleux, Jacob Wren, as well as a number of extracts compiled by Raymond Boisjoly, by Maya Deren, Jeanne Favret-Saada, Branden Hookway, Alfred Jarry, Catherine Malabou, Ferdinand de Saussure and Michel Serres.

MAC is fully committed to supporting and encouraging the Québec art scene.