McCord Stewart 2023: James Duncan

BECOMING MONTREAL

THE 1800s PAINTED BY DUNCAN

From town to metropolis: Montreal revealed though five decades of watercolours

June 2, 2023 - April 21, 2024

This exhibition at the McCord Stewart Museum, Montreal, pays homage to the 19th century Canadian painter and watercolourist James Duncan. This is his first retrospective as the museum continues with its cycle of exhibitions dedicated to the transformation of Montreal’s urban landscape, this time focusing on a pivotal period in the growth of Montreal into the metropolis it has become today.

Curated by Christian Vachon, Curator of Documentary Art and Head of Collections Management at the McCord Stewart Museum, and Laurier Lacroix, C.M., Professor Emeritus, Université du Québec à Montréal, the exhibition presents the artist’s many views, which, when combined, provide a vivid and detailed portrait of the city from the 1830s to the late 1870s. Visitors will discover the island’s topography, Montreal’s cityscape, and scenes from the life of its inhabitants. The exhibition is presented by La Presse.

James Duncan was a true chronicler of his time, who documented the city’s evolution over the five decades. The scenes he painted - some of which were published in the British press - provide an invaluable visual record of then current events, before the invention of photography. Duncan chronicled the happy and tragic events that made the everyday life in Montreal. During that period, Montreal grew from a medium-sized town of about 27,000 people to a metropolis with a population of more than 140,000. The exhibition visitors could see this rapid transformation from the artist’s favourite viewpoints: Mount Royal and St. Helen’s Island. 

Duncan also witnessed the construction of Montreal’s Canadian identity within the British Empire, this identity with a clear desire to distinguish itself from the United States and Great Britain, and involved appropriating Indigenous practices as popular recreational activities. Works illustrate lacrosse games, snowshoe races and tobogganing.

He was particularly interested in local customs and painted the city dwellers going about their daily lives. He was sensitive to the changing seasons and celebrated the changing colours of the fall as well as the winter activities. Since he mainly earned a living from commissions and sales to tourists, James Duncan’s work focused on aspects of Montreal that were perceived as exotic by foreign audiences: winter, clothing, market scenes, transportation, recreation, and features of the urban physical environment. 

Co-Curater of the exhibition Christian Vachon stated:

 “Duncan was one of the first British artists to settle permanently in Montreal. Looking at his work, you can see that he loved his adopted city. I hope that people will discover a side of the city’s history that they didn’t know, and will remember that Montreal is a splendid and unique city, and always has been.”

Co-Curater of the exhibition Laurier Lacroix stated:

“I had a superficial understanding of Duncan from the few images most often reproduced. I discovered a painter who’s attentive to the city’s evolution, a unique witness to the habits and customs of urban life, a talented artist involved in Montreal’s community and educational life. Through Duncan, we get a glimpse at a little-known chapter of Montreal’s history.” 

As an epilogue, a digital artwork studio Iregular reinterprets Duncan’s work in the form of computer-generated images depicting a composite world of dreamscapes of a Montreal that no longer exists. 

Click on Images to enlarge them

All photos @ Nadia Slejskova

For more information about current exhibitions and activities, visit the McCord Stewart Museum website.

For this article's dedicated internet address, click on the title above the very first photo.

MMFA 2023: Indigenous Colombia

Portable Universe

THOUGHT AND SPLENDOUR OF INDIGENOUS COLOMBIA

June 3 – October 1, 2023

Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion – Level 3

This new exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is the result of the collaborative efforts of the following cultural institutions: the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Houston's Museum of Fine Arts, the Colombia's Museo del Oro and the Unidad de Artes y Otras Colecciones of the Banco de la República, Colombia. 

The exhibition is the culmination of several years of close collaboration between the curatorial team and the Arhuaco community of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region in northern Colombia. The largest exhibition of art from Colombia ever to be presented outside of that country, it proposes alternative ways of approaching the world around us and presents a completely new perspective on Indigenous art from this region.

The exhibition brings together some 400 works of art from Colombia dating from about 1500 BCE to the present day, most of which have never been exhibited in Canada. This major show gives centre stage to Indigenous perspectives in what is a departure from the more traditional museum discourse about the arts. It invites visitors to engage in a cultural dialogue across space and time and to reflect on a different way of understanding the world and our place in it.

The objects on display, as stated by Erell Hubert, the Curator of Pre-Columbian Art at the MMFA and also the Curator of the Montreal exhibition, have a deeper meaning:

“The works that make up the exhibition are not simply material objects but vectors of ancestral memory and knowledge. Their messages continue to hold great relevance for our world today and lead us to think, among other things, about the interdependence between our planet and all the beings that inhabit it. Portable Universe offers an opportunity to reflect on our individual and collective roles in maintaining a balance in nature. The Arhuaco community invites visitors to connect with the works, hear their messages, and become active participants in preserving this balance.”

 

With the European conquest, Indigenous cultures of the Americas were discredited, and the well-established system to which millions of people turned to understand the meaning of life and existence was reduced to crude superstition. This exhibition attempts to restore a number of these millennia-old teachings by revealing the works’ intrinsic meaning and the life they contain. It draws from contemporary Indigenous concepts to paint a vision of the world in which ancient works of art have relevance for today and tomorrow.

Arhuaco wisdom also teaches that the works in this exhibition were made in conjunction with the principles of creation, and therefore have no beginning or end, which is why the decision was made to not include dates on the individual labels for these items. Instead, the focus is put on their role as participants in the networks of life.

Coming in large part from the Museo del Oro in Bogotá, the creations attest to the diversity and richness of Colombia’s Indigenous cultures. The exhibition features some of the most remarkable artworks ever made in this region, including intricately cast gold pendants, hammered gold masks, ceramic effigies of mystical creatures, rare ancient textiles and a series of contemporary watercolours. These works are displayed against a backdrop of image projections and a soundscape composed by Luis Fernando Franco, featuring ancient ocarinas.

 A PARTICIPATIVE REFLECTION AREA

The exhibition ends with a participative reflection area that is unique to the Montreal presentation. It aimed at inspiring visitors to reflect on their place and role in the universe.

DOCUMENTARY SERIES UNPACKING THE UNIVERSE: THE MAKING OF AN EXHIBITION

This nine-episode documentary produced by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art takes the public behind the scenes of this major exhibition. The series retraces the six years of research and design that went into this collaborative project with the Arhuaco community. In addition to showing the making of the exhibition, Unpacking the Universe allows the public to see archaeological sites and breathtaking scenery, as well as witness enriching conversations with Arhuaco elders on their view of the world and present-day issues.

Visit the the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts website to check on the opening hours and to purchase your ticket online.

Click on images to enlarge them.

All photos @ Nadia Slejskova

For this article's dedicated internet address, click on the title above the very first photo.