artch festival 2025

The artch Festival kicked off today!

Workshops, meetings, and performances
focused on artistic collaboration

October 15 – 19, 2025
12 p.m to 7 p.m.

Lobby, 1 PVM
1, Place Ville Marie, Montréal, QC

The artch festival kicks off today in the lobby of 1 PVM at Place Ville Marie, inviting the public to discover its 8th edition, centered on cooperation and creating together. Until October 19, from 12 PM to 7 PM, visitors can explore 150 works by 18 emerging artists, take part in workshops and critical discussions, and engage in creative activities focused on new forms of artistic collaboration.

artch stands out for its emphasis on artistic collaboration and collective innovation, questioning the ways in which artists organize themselves and interact with other stakeholders beyond the traditional art circle. In a context where the sustainability of artistic practices is more important than ever, this festival offers a fresh perspective on the role of artists in society.

Sarah Kitzy Gineau-Delyon, Executive and Artistic Director of artch stated:

"This program particularly reflects our mission: to support emerging artists in their professional development while creating spaces for dialogue and collective reflection. Each workshop and each meeting has been designed to offer concrete tools to artists, but also to question our ways of working and collaborating."

 Highlights of the week

• October 15–19 → Continuous performances by Madison Strizic

• October 15, 4 PM → Workshop Organizing an Artist Collective: Building, Structuring, and Funding Your Project

• October 16, 1:30–4:30 PM → Performance by Amara Barner

• October 17, 4:30 PM → Bilingual Panel Archiving Self-Managed Art Centers: Remembering Centers Across Canada

• October 18 → Creative workshops focused on recycling and material reuse

• October 19, 1 PM → Participatory Workshop Tie Alteration with Fannie 

Additional opportunities for discovery

True to its mission of democratizing contemporary art, artch maintains free access to its entire program. As places are limited for workshops, registration is required.

Since 2018, artch has supported more than 167 artists in their artistic careers, who now enjoy regional, national, and international recognition.

Check out the complete program here.

Musée des Hospitalières 2025: Medicine and Charity

Medicine and Charity:

Hôtels-Dieu from the Middle Ages to New France

From October 15, 2025

What did hospitals in New France inherit from French medieval hospitals?

Montreal's museum Musée des Hospitalières is presenting a new exhibition where the visitors of all ages will find the answer to this question and many others in a brand-new exhibition that covers two continents, the largest temporary exhibition ever mounted by the Musée des Hospitalières de l’Hôtel-Dieu. This exceptional and truly vibrant exhibition, Medicine and Charity: Hôtels-Dieu from the Middle Ages to New France, produced in collaboration with France, should be of interest to many visitors.

Featuring stained-glass pieces, sculptures, paintings, furnishings, tapestries, common objects related to patient care, and archival materials, the exhibition opens a fascinating window to the extraordinarily rich hospital heritage of France and Québec.

The Musée benefited from a fruitful partnership with four Hôtels-Dieu in France, founded between the 13th and 17th centuries in Tonnerre, Beaune, Chalon-sur-Saône, and Baugé. Several religious communities in Québec also lent artefacts: the Augustines of Québec City, the Sulpiciens of Montréal, the Grey Nuns, and, of course, the Hospitalières de Saint-Joseph. In addition, there was the valuable support offered by the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, the Université de Montréal, and McGill University.

Items never seen before in Canada

Visitors will have an opportunity to see almost a hundred remarkable works and archival materials from France classified as cultural assets and never before displayed in Canada, as well as more than fifty artefacts from Québec.

The exposition is a celebration of the history and heritage of hospitals in France and Québec, stretching back hundreds of years. The Hôtels-Dieu established in New France in the 17th century followed the long hospital tradition that began in the West in the Middle Ages, when charitable institutions – places of worship and welcome – were founded on Christian charity. Their purpose was to care for the poor and all those in a situation of vulnerability: the most disadvantaged, the infirm, the sick, pilgrims, and the elderly.

Pioneering women in the spotlight

The hospital environment was one of the few areas in which women, lay or religious, had the opportunity to put their management and/or caregiving skills to good use. The exhibition highlights women who played an essential role as founders or patrons, from Margaret of Burgundy to Jeanne Mance, who were respectively the founders of Hôtel-Dieu de Tonnerre in 1293 and Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal in1642, as well as Guigone de Salins, who, in the 15th century, took the torch from her late husband, Nicolas Rolin, at Hôtel-Dieu de Beaune.

This vibrant, vivid exhibition highlight an important part of the history of France and Québec – don’t miss it!

 

Acknowledgments

This project has received support from the Société des Attractions Touristiques du Québec through the Tourism Growth Program of Canada Economic Development for Québec Regions. The Musée receives operating funding from the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec and from The Ville de Montréal. The Musée des Hospitalières extends its warmest thanks to its lenders, sponsors, and partners

All photos @Nadia Slejskova

For more information visit the museum's website.

Portrait of Jeanne Mance, Oil on wood.

MMFA 2025: Kent Monkman

KENT MONKMAN:

History Is Painted by the Victors

September 27, 2025 – March 8, 2026

The Montreal Museum of Fines Arts (MMFA) presents the Canadian premiere of the exhibition by Kent Monkman that brings together some 40 of his monumental paintings. The exhibition includes works on loan from Canadian and American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, some private collectors, and also a selection from the MMFA's permanent collection.

Mokman is a figurative painter par excellence, who draws and creates human bodies on his canvases with the precision of the classical painters of past eras. He is also a superb calorist, who generously uses the rainbow gamut of bright colours to dazzles his audience. His huge canvases are not only striking but also quite overpowering, bringing the viewer inside the dramatic universe of his imagination.

The story narratives that Monkman creates on canvases are quite uniquely portrayed. They are interlaced with historical elements, mythology, and his personal interpretation of the historical past. His detailed compositions are strongly dramatic, complex and monumental. Yet, they are extremely elegant, and the language of his colours is striking. A number of his compositions seem to be inspired by the great painters of the past.

Credits and curatorial team

The exhibition was organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Denver Art Museum. It was curated by Léuli Eshrāghi, Curator of Indigenous Practices at the MMFA, and John Lukavic, the Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Native Arts, Denver Art Museum.

For those curious about Monkman’s artistic creative process, do not miss to watch the short documentary filmed in his studio. The screen is located on the wall to the right when one comes up the staircase and before entering the exhibition halls. His studio is very much like those of the medieval painters who had a number of assistants performing various task ranging from helping with some painting details and taking care of organizational and studio needs.

All photos @Nadia Slejskova

Visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts website for more information and to purchase your tickets online.

This article's dedicated internet website address here.

MMFA 2025: Kent Monkman

Also check my previous article about Kent Monkman in this blog.

MMFA 2025: Berthe Weill, Parisian Avant-Garde Art Dealer

BERTHE WEILL

ART DEALER OF THE PARISIAN AVANT-GARDE

A large-scale exhibition dedicated to the gallerist who shaped the destiny of modern art 

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

May 10 – September 7, 2025

Berthe Weill was the first woman art dealer to have sold works by Pablo Picasso and exhibited Henri Matisse, Berthe Weill (1865-1951) championed some of the greatest artists we have come to know today. This Canadian exclusive is the first exhibition dedicated to the career and artistic vision of this trailblazing woman who had an extraordinary impact on the history of Modern art.

This landmark exhibition is the first devoted to the fascinating career of gallerist Berthe Weill (1865-1951), an important, but nearly forgotten figure of modern art history. Weill was the first woman to focus primarily on championing young painters just as they were beginning their careers. In her gallery, she exhibited some of the greatest artists we have come to know today: Pablo Picasso, Raoul Dufy, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Diego Rivera, Henri Matisse and Suzanne Valadon, among many others.

Among the nearly 100 works presented in the exhibition, some have become milestones in the history of art, while others will enable you to discover the work of still unsung figures, including women artists.

Featuring exceptional loans from major museums in Europe and North America, the exhibition brings together paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, jewellery pieces, and archival documents that testify to the quality of Weill’s gallery and deepen our understanding of its historical context.

In an exclusive showing in Canada, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA)
is bringing to light the story of Berthe Weill: a nearly forgotten figure of Modern art who played a seminal role in the development of Avant-garde movements in France in the first half of the 20th century. A trailblazing female art dealer, Berthe Weill (1865-1951) was the first to sell Pablo Picasso’s work and to exhibit Henri Matisse. She was also the only dealer to organize a solo show for Amedeo Modigliani during his lifetime. Passionate, outspoken and visionary, Weill unwaveringly supported fledgling artists, many of whom went on to become icons
of Modernism.

Comprising over 100 works and archival documents, Berthe Weill, Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-garde features exceptional paintings and sculptures by major figures of Modern art ranging from Pablo Picasso to Suzanne Valadon. It is the first large-scale exhibition dedicated to the career and artistic vision of Berthe Weill.

Weill opened her Paris gallery in 1901 in the bustling neighbourhood of Montmartre. She was the first woman to show the work of young artists and the only one to specialize in emerging talent. Her efforts led to the discovery of some of the biggest names we know today. She exhibited works by Pablo Picasso, Aristide Maillol, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Maurice de Vlaminck, Robert Delaunay, Diego Rivera, Amedeo Modigliani, and Marc Chagall, among others, before they had made a name for themselves. She also strove to foster the recognition of women artists, like Émilie Charmy, Hermine David, Alice Halicka, Jacqueline Marval, and Suzanne Valadon. With unflagging enthusiasm and biting humour, the one whom artists affectionately called la petite mère Weill persevered in supporting young artists throughout the nearly four decades of the Galerie B. Weill’s existence (1901-1941).

The exhibition examines Weill’s overlooked contribution to the history of Modernism, highlighting the remarkable achievements of this indomitable businesswoman who overcame sexism and anti-Semitism to preserve her freedom and autonomy.

Exceptional loans and works from the collection

Organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Grey Art Museum, New York University, and the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, the exhibition boasts exceptional loans from major European and North American museums, some of which will be shown exclusively at the Montreal presentation. It brings together over 100 works by 55 artists, consisting mainly of paintings, but also of sculptures, drawing and prints.

Stéphane Aquin, the Director of the Montreal Museum of Fine arts:

“Over the course of her career, Berthe Weill championed artists who are now considered pillars of Modernism, among them Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, and Suzanne Valadon. Yet her contributions to the history of Modern art have remained largely overlooked, unlike her male counterparts Ambroise Vollard and Paul Durand-Ruel, who have been the subjects of major exhibitions and extensive scholarship. This exhibition aims to rectify this oversight and to help restore the place of this extraordinary art dealer in the cultural firmament.“

Mary‐Dailey Desmarais, Chief Curator of the MMFA:

“We are thrilled to introduce Quebec and Canadian audiences to the first art dealer to devote her gallery exclusively to the promotion of emerging artists, and to celebrate her profound influence on the history of art. Conceived in collaboration with the Grey Art Museum in New York City and the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, this exhibition offers a rare chance to delve into the life and legacy of this bold, and visionary woman who discovered some of the greatest artists of her time – including many women. Works by leading figures of the 20th century avant-garde, several of which are on exclusive view in Montreal, shed new light on the lasting impact of this extraordinary trailblazer.”

Anne Grace, Curator of Modern Art at the MMFA and co-curator of the exhibition:

“Of modest beginnings, Berthe Weill showed a selfless commitment to supporting emerging artists. She introduced the world to some of the greatest names in art in the 20th century, and championed many others whose works merit being better known today. At a time when we are working to bring women out of the margins of history, this exhibition offers a unique opportunity to see the extraordinary art that passed through Weill’s Parisian gallery while bringing to light her fascinating story.” 

Marianne Le Morvan, guest curator and founder of the Berthe Weill Archives:

“This exhibition marks the culmination of 15 years of research. At long last, Berthe Weill is receiving her due – a vindication made possible through a striking selection of works that once passed through her hands. These pieces restore her rightful place among the world’s great art dealers after half a century of her languishing in obscurity. Beyond acknowledging her pivotal role during the heights of the Modernist era, it is also an act of justice to recognize that her discerning eye and unwavering dedication helped shift the artistic sensibilities of her time. Her life stands as a powerful example of resilience and independence – an enduring source of inspiration.”

 

On tour

Following its run in Montreal, the exhibition will be presented at the Musée de l’Orangerie, in Paris, from October 8, 2025, to January 26, 2026.

All photos @Nadia Slejskova

Click on images to enlarge them.

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

Two portraits of Bertha Weill at the exhibition: