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.
Rebecca Belmore, Nadia Myre, Chloë Lum &
Yannick Desranleau, Ragnar Kjartansson & The National
The
Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC) has just opened its summer exhibition. This exhibition, which has not been originally previewed, is taking place because the museum's renovation project that had been scheduled to begin this summer was postponed. (You can read about MAC's transformation plans here.) MAC will continue to hold its activities throughout the summer and early fall in its current location, on Saint-Catherine Street, offering various programming to its visitors.
Rebecca Belmore
June 20 -October 6, 2019 MAC presents an award-winning Anishinaabe artist Rebecca Belmore. Her sculptures, videos, and photographs address some urgent issues of Native history and of our times. This exhibition was originally organized and presented last summer (2018) by the Art Gallery
of Ontario (AGO), under the name Facing the Monumental.
Nadia Myre
June 20 to August 4, 2019
MAC also presents works of a Montreal Native artist Nadia Myre. Some of the pieces come from the MAC's permanent collection, others were newly acquired. Nadia Myre deals with the topics of Indigenous identity, desire, loss, resilience and knowledge. Meditations on Red,
2013, is a series of photographs depicting a meticulous bead-work. Through this piece, Myre offers a critical reflection on identity as defined by blood and concepts such as “white man” and "red."
Chloë Lum & Yannick Desranleau
June 20 to August 4, 2019
Chloë Lum & Yannick Desranleau, are also included in the MAC's summer program. Their large installation is full of seemingly unrelated objects and vibrant colours. They move the objects around and wrap themselves into them during their performances.
Click on images to enlarge them.
Hover your mouse over images for description and credits.
In August, MAC Museum will once again partner with MUTEK festival by presenting the world premiere of theISM Hexadomeinstallation, a collaboration between MUTEK and the Institute for Sound & Music in Berlin (ISM).
For more information about MAC, visit the museum'swebsite.
Françoise Sullivan Retrospective of Her Career October 20, 2018 - January 20, 2019 The Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art - Musée d’art
contemporain de Montréal (MAC), is presenting a retrospective of a leading figure of
Québec’s avant-garde and signatory of the Refus
global manifesto: Françoise
Sullivan.
TheFrançoise Sullivan exhibition celebrates the artist’s wide-ranging artistic approaches with an impressive selection of works and archival pieces representing milestones from the artist’s career and celebrating Sullivan’s development from the 1940s to the present day.
A prominent figure in the history of Québec art,
Sullivan began her career in the 1940s as a member of the emerging
Automatist movement, and she never ceased reinventing herself. This major MAC
retrospective is showcasing her wide-ranging, prolific artistic career that has
left an important mark on contemporary art in Canada. Some fifty works are shown, including paintings, sculptures, and archival documentation, accompanied
by a special program of unique performances. “Already an accomplished painter,
dancer and choreographer seventy years ago, Françoise Sullivan is now
considered Québec’s first multidisciplinary artist,” notes John Zeppetelli,
Director and Chief Curator of the MAC.
Exploring the sources of human nature
Françoise Sullivan’s involvement with the Automatists marked a watershed
moment in the artist’s life and Québec art history. Yet her contribution to modern
Québec runs much deeper. Over the course of a prolific career, Sullivan has
explored the sources of human nature, posing a number of aesthetic questions
that brought her into the fold of multiple avant-garde movements in Québec art.
In the words of Mark Lanctôt, Curator at the MAC, Sullivan spent her career
“searching for new ways of both being of her time and expressing a timeless
interiority, a new universalism driven by the desire to reach beyond herself.”
Performances at the MAC
In addition to the artworks on display, the MAC will present a cycle of performances
representative of Françoise Sullivan’s important work as a choreographer and
contemporary dancer. To integrate these performances in the exhibition, the
Museum commissioned performing artists to present new works in a specially
designed performance space. Invited artists include Dana Michel (associate
artist at Par B.L.eux), The Two Gullivers (Flutura & Besnik Haxhillari),
Dorian Nuskind-Oder, Simon Grenier-Poirier, Catherine Lavoie-Marcus and Maryse
Larivière. Performances will be presented beginning on October 23. The
performance schedule is available on the MAC website: https://macm.org/en/activities/performances/
Françoise Sullivan Biography
Born in Montreal in 1923, Françoise Sullivan
studied at Montreal’s
École des beaux-arts in the 1940s, during which time she and a circle of artist
friends headed by Paul-Émile Borduas established the movement known as “Les
Automatistes.” A co-signatory of the group’s Refus global manifesto,
she contributed a seminal essay on contemporary dance, “La Danse et l’espoir”
(Dance and Hope). An accomplished painter, dancer and choreographer, she spent
the years from 1945 to 1947 in New
York studying modern dance under Franziska Boas,
among others. Shortly after returning to Montreal,
she created Danse dans la neige (Dance in the Snow) (1948),
which marked a defining moment in her artistic career. In the 1960s, she turned
her attention to sculpture, working notably with steel and Plexiglas. She made
her first trips to Greece
and Italy
in the 1970s, and, as a member of the Véhicule Art artist-run centre, Sullivan
experimented with performative and “immaterial” approaches associated with
conceptual art. The 1980s marked a return to painting, with matierist tondos
and later figurative works inspired by ancient mythology. During the second
half of the 1990s, she embarked on a lengthy exploration of abstract painting,
a passion she continues to pursue today.
Françoise Sullivan taught at ConcordiaUniversity’s Faculty of
Fine Arts from 1977 to 2009. Her works have been shown in Canada, the United
States, France,
Italy, Belgium, Germany,
Denmark and Japan. She has
received the Prix Paul-Émile Borduas and the Order of Canada and was named a
knight of the Order of Québec. Retrospectives of her work have been mounted by
the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal and the Musée national des beaux-arts du
Québec. In 2005, Françoise Sullivan won the Governor General’s Award in the
Visual and Media Arts, and in 2008, the Gershon Iskowitz Prize.
Catalogue
For the Françoise Sullivan retrospective, the MAC will publish a
substantial catalogue (288 pages, 180 illustrations),
featuring essays by Mark Lanctôt, exhibition curator, Vincent Bonin, Ray
Ellenwood and Noémie Solomon. An illustrated chronology, written by Chantal
Charbonneau, completes the publication. The catalogue is available for $39.95
at the MAC Boutique.
The Françoise Sullivan
retrospective will embark on a multi-city Canadian tour
organized in collaboration with two Ontario
museums: the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, and the Art
Gallery of Windsor. It will then be shown in the Musée régional de
Rimouski (Québec) and the ArtGallery of Greater Victoria
(British Columbia).
This travelling exhibition is funded in part by the Government of Canada.
For more information about MAC, visit the museum'swebsite.
Also see my article about Françoise Sullivan exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine arts that opened in November 2023 and celebrated her 100th birthday here.
May 24 - September 9, 2018, The Musée d’art
contemporain de Montréal (MAC) is hosting an exhibition by the Montreal-based and internationally-acclaimed artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. It is his largest solo show in Canada or the United States. It provides an unusual and a unique museum experience where the visitor participation and interaction with the exhibited pieces is necessary for the full functionality of the art work. Those participating will in effect become a part of the works since they are needed to reveal the installations' underlying central concept. Unstable Presence is a major survey of
Lozano-Hemmer’s work over the past 18 years. It brings together 21 pieces,
including several large-scale immersive installations. In his work,
Lozano-Hemmer draws on science, technology, politics, sociology, poetry, music
and art history, while engaging the public in a conversation
Born in Mexico, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, as a conceptual artist, is a leading international figure in
participatory and digital-media practices. He is known on the art world
stage where his work is regularly shown in the most prestigious institutions.
During the 1990s, he began exploring the performance and interaction potential of his works, in particular, the merging of various artistic disciplines with technology, which he described as the language of our time, basic and inevitable.
The participatory and
technological aspects of Lozano-Hemmer’s works are based on co-presence, where live and recorded data overlap. Through the use of
microphones, face-recognition algorithms, biometric scanners and computerized
surveillance, artworks interact with the visitors in performances that could be perceived as both playful and intimate, but where the technology underlying the
interaction often echoes more troubling social, economic and political
dynamics.
Showing how we interact
with technology and making the internal mechanisms of devices visible is one of
the strategies deployed in Lozano-Hemmer’s works. As one walks through the
exhibition, the physical presence of the works and their sculptural occupation
of space, makes the invisible digital world on which they are based quite factually present. This concept overpowers the visitors right in the Museum's entry hall, where the impressive Pulse
Spiral (2008), is displayed. 300 light bulbs and kilometres of electrical wire are configured to
reproduce, through light, the beating hearts of the Museum’s visitors. The evanescent spiral of lights swill betrays the fascination with seeing one’s heartbeat, and the way it eventually merges with the recordings of the previous 299 participants.
For music lovers, there is Sphere Packing:
Bach (2018, a new work by the artist presented for
the very first time), and Sphere
Packing: Wagner (2013). These installations are two in a
series of 17 works that concentrate the entire musical production of a composer
into a single multi-channel sphere. The black-glazed porcelain sphere dedicated
to Richard Wagner (13 centimetres comprising 110 channels of sound) hangs
from the ceiling and visitors have to bring their ear up close in order to hear
the individual compositions. The far more prolific composer, Johann Sebastian
Bach, required 1,128 individual speakers distributed through a 3-metre sphere
that visitors may physically enter and thus immerse themselves in the totality
of the Baroque composer’s opuses, played simultaneously.
In Call on
Water (2016), the writings of celebrated Mexican poet
Octavio Paz, who was the artist’s uncle, are presented in a fountain that acts
as a poetry machine. The water is turned into cold vapour by ultrasonic
atomizers, which project the words into the air above the basin for a few
compelling instants. Contemplative and poetic, the work highlights the
materiality of language and converts it, as the poet would probably have
appreciated, into a breathable atmosphere.
In a whole different
register, one which engages with power relations and surveillance equipment, Zoom Pavilion (2015), made in collaboration with
Polish artist Krzysztof Wodizcko, is a room-sized interactive installation
where participants are surrounded by projected black-and-white images of faces
and bodies localized within the space. Twelve computerized surveillance cameras
track the presence of participants and, employing facial recognition combined
with background subtraction and machine-learning algorithms, record their
spatial relationships to one another. The piece makes evident the omnipresence
of surveillance cameras, but what is at stake is the tracking of public
assembly, and keeping an archive of how long and how far each visitor was from
each other.
Vicious
Circular Breathing (2013), is a large sculptural
installation evoking both a curious scientific device and a gigantic musical
wind instrument, similar to an organ. It consists of brown paper bags that
inflate and deflate at human breathing rates, a set of motorized bellows and
valves that control the bags, and a sealed glass room with a decompression
chamber. Visitors are invited to enter the glass chamber to breathe the air
that was previously breathed by earlier participants. Despite its amusing
musical allusions, the piece is disturbing and uncomfortable: it includes
warnings regarding the risks of asphyxiation, contagion and panic. Among other
interpretations, the piece is a statement on the limits of the planet’s
resources but also a commentary on the supposedly empowering culture of
participation, — in this piece your participation makes the air more
toxic for future visitors.
Rafael
Lozano-Hemmer is a recipient of the2015 Governor General's
Awards for Visual and Media Arts.
In June 2016, he was named aCompanion of the Ordre des
arts et des lettres du Québec by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.
Click on images to enlarge them.
Hover your mouse over images for description and credits.
For more information about MAC, visit the museum'swebsite.
MAC Transformation On April 9, 2018, the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art (The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal - MAC) has unveiled the winning project of the architectural competition launched in June 2017 for the museum'srenovation and transformation. The images in this article show the design and preliminary drawings for MAC's new look. MAC enters a pivotal stage in its development. Museum attendance has increased steadily over the last 5 years, culminating with this year’s record of over 600,000 visitors. As an important national museum dedicated exclusively to the promotion of contemporary art, the MAC in its current condition faces a desperate lack of space to exhibit its vast collection.
It was the proposal of
Saucier+Perrotte Architectes / GLCRM & Associés Architectes, a consortium
of Quebec
architects, that captured the top honours. This proposal was selected unanimously by the jury as inspiring, luminous, and relevant, and as resulting in a striking contemporary construction fully coherent with the Museum’s raison
d’être. With this transformation, the MAC will embark on a
new chapter in its existence and to embrace its full
potential.
Highlights
of the new MAC:
Close to a 100% increase in exhibition spaces and rooms,
including three new exhibition rooms.
Every space, from lobbies to circulation areas, has been
redesigned to showcase contemporary art.
New and expanded educational spaces.
An exterior façade that has been transformed by the
expansion of the main entrance and the added area on the 2nd floor.
The optimization of the Beverly-Webster-Rolph multimedia
room.
New spaces for the Restaurant du MAC, including an
outdoor terrace on the 2nd floor.
New
spaces for the MAC Boutique, including a bookstore and a coffee shop.
The new
Museum’s architectural vision
The
proposal by Saucier+Perrotte Architectes / GLCRM & Associés Architectes
builds on open and light-filled spaces to strengthen the special connection
that joins the MAC to the quadrilateral defined by Place des Arts and to the
Quartier des spectacles. In particular, the essential link between the MAC and
the Place des Festivals will be maintained with a new transparent, light-filled
expansion. On level 2, a large window will showcase the Museum restaurant, a
double-height space that will open onto an outdoor terrace.
The museum
will enjoy far greater visibility on the lower, Sainte-Catherine Street of the Esplanade,
with the angular overhang of the expansion. Under this jutting structure, the
museum square will naturally guide visitors to the main entrance, while freeing
up the space necessary for holding the festivals.
From an
urban planning perspective, several features will link the new MAC to its
context. On the ground floor, the Museum will glow with transparency and the
hustle and bustle of its public spaces, while on the Place des Arts Esplanade
level the architectural proportions and expression will integrate with the
existing architecture. he upper section will be composed of an
envelope of folded metal blades revealing the interior spaces and
filtering natural light. The created verticality will express and harmonize - in a
contemporary manner - with Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier and Théâtre Maisonneuve.
A new
Museum in 2021
On the
current timetable, the main project phases are scheduled as follows:
April 2018 Start of architects’ mandate
January 2019 Temporary closure of the Sainte-Catherine
Street MAC
Spring 2019 Opening of the temporary MAC
Summer 2019 Start of the Sainte-Catherine Street MAC
construction
Fall 2021
Opening of the new MAC
The
temporary MAC
The MAC
must remain active and on hand throughout the construction period in order to
maintain its relationship with the city and community presence. Between the
closing and reopening, the MAC will set up headquarters in a permanent location
and all the while make its influence throughout the city with multi-site and
ephemeral exhibitions.
The
programming, while limited, is nevertheless planned to be of excellence and
rigour. None withstanding that this transition period will come with its
share of challenges, it will also give the MAC an opportunity to explore
both new partnerships and new exhibition spaces, and will challenge to display greater
creativity.
Click on images to enlarge them. All images in this article courtesy of @ MAC
For more information about MAC, visit the museum'swebsite.
Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art 2018 Programming
Today, theMACMuseum announced its programming for 2018, which includes a number of large-
scale exhibitions. This final year of its current location before the
significant transformations that are planned for 2019, MAC will present three new
exhibitions.
First, visitors
will have the chance to enter the universe of Mexican and Montréal artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer,
whose work will be showcased as a major solo exhibition. In the fall, the
public will be invited to explore a retrospective of Françoise Sullivan,
a Québec multidisciplinary artist and co-signatory of the Refus global,
and to view Manifesto, a multi-screen cinematic work by Julian Rosefeldt,
starring Cate Blanchett.
John Zeppetelli, MAC Director and Chief Curator, presenting 2018 Programming
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is one of the most
prominent international artists working in Canada today.Over the past few
decades, he has earned a reputation for large-scale, participatory
installations that frequently incorporate technology, light and the
architecture of public spaces.Rafael
Lozano-Hemmer’s work has gained international prominence and is regularly shown
by major art institutions.
More than a mid-career survey, the
exhibition offers a new conceptual perspective on the artist’s work over the
past decade, exploring its poetic and political dimensions from the standpoint
of one of its central principles: the notion of co-presence. This concept
refers first and foremost to the coexistence of voices, perspectives and
singular experiences in Lozano-Hemmer’s works: to the interactions between
strangers, to the situations elicited by the dialogic devices deployed by the
work. However, co-presence also evokes other, more asymmetrical relationships,
such as forced cohabitations and power relations, and speaks to the interplay
of gazes and bodies subjected to contemporary techniques of surveillance and
control. Staying clear of
techno-optimism, Lozano-Hemmer’s work reminds us that new technologies are
often double-edged swords.
Coproduced by the MAC and the San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), the
exhibition will also be presented at the Museo de arte contemporáneo de
Monterrey (MARCO), Mexico, from March to August 2019 and the SFMOMA from
April 25 to September 6, 2020.
Julian Rosefeldt is Professor of Digital
and Time-based Media at the Academy of
Fine Arts in Munich, Germany.
Inspired by the histories of film, art and popular culture, he is
internationally renowned for his visually opulent and meticulously
choreographed moving-image artworks, mostly presented as complex multi-screen
installations.
Manifesto is an immersive video installation consisting of
thirteen large-screen projections that stands as a tribute to the literary
power of artistic manifestos. This artwork/event, which lies at the crossroads
between film, performance and installation, allows audiences to experience a
series of scenes screened simultaneously showing us the same actor, Cate
Blanchett, taking on various roles.In a
performance that “invokes immediate awe,” according to The Independent,
and was described by the New York Times as a “tour de force,” the
actress becomes a chameleon, showcasing the full extent of her extraordinary
talent.
All of the monologues spoken—actually,
the only words spoken in the piece—are formed out of various artistic
manifestos published over the last 150 years or so. From schoolteacher to
homeless man, the thirteen characters embodied by Blanchett pronounce the
manifestos of Claes Oldenburg, Yvonne Rainer, Kazimir Malevich, André Breton,
Elaine Sturtevant, Sol LeWitt and Jim Jarmusch, among others.
The MAC is particularly proud to welcome
this work to Montréal for its second North American presentation, following the
one at the Park Avenue Armory, in New
York, in 2016. This famous installation was also
presented in the world's largest artistic cities, including Paris, Berlin
and Melbourne.
This retrospective exhibition highlights the
key role of artist, painter, sculptor, dancer and choreographer Françoise
Sullivan in the history of modern and contemporary art in Quebec. It’s a chance for visitors to
discover or rediscover an artist whose major impact on Quebec and Canadian culture deserves to be
more fully recognized.
In addition to presenting the artist’s
diverse and multidisciplinary practice, the exhibition offers an in-depth exploration
of some of the milestones in her career. The various styles and approaches
adopted by Sullivan over the years are contextualized with the help of archival
documents
.
MANIFESTES – OCTOBER 18, 2018 TO JANUARY 20, 2019
In connection with the exhibitions of Françoise
Sullivan and Julian Rosefeldt, the Musée will be presenting a documentary
exhibition consisting of original manifestos, including a number of the ones
cited in Manifesto.
The presentation will also showcase local manifestos,
such as the famous Refus Global, which is celebrating its 70th
anniversary in 2018, and was co-signed by Françoise Sullivan.
PERMANENT COLLECTION:PICTURES FOR AN EXHIBITION
Ongoing since November
2016, Pictures for an Exhibitionis an evolving cycle of exhibitions based on works from the
collection and intended to generate new connections between historical works
and recent acquisitions, between the different media and artists of various
generations. This evolving series takes
on various forms, the most recent being The Gaze Listens (presented until March 25, 2018) and That’s
How the Lights Gets In (presented until August 26, 2018).
Pictures
for an Exhibition will
also take the form of two new exhibitions this year: The Prophets
(April 6 to August 26, 2018) with artworks from Richard Ibghy and Marilou
Lemmens, as well as Josef Albers, Jack Bush, Sol LeWitt and Jana Sterbak, and
Alone Together (May 16 to August 26, 2018) with artworks from Sarah Anne
Johnson, Graeme Patterson, Jon Rafman and Jeremy Shaw.
Credits for the top-most image above:
Left: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (in collaboration with Krzysztof Wodiczko), Zoom
Pavilion, 2015
Shown here: Art Basel Unlimited - Art Basel 47, Bâle, Switzerland Projectors, 9x infrared cameras, 3x
robotic zoom cameras, 3x computers, 2x IR illuminators, 1x ethernet
switch, HDMI and USB extenders and cables Photo: Sebastiano Pellion
Center: Julian Rosefeldt, Stills from Manifesto, 2015
