World Press Photo Montreal 2011

The exhibition is being held at Marche Bonsecours between September 8 and October 2, 2011.

This is the 54^th edition of World Press Photo 11. It presents large-scale works of 54 photographers of different nationalities, arranged by 10 categories such as world news, art, nature, sports, portraits and everyday events. Two important selection criteria ware journalistic importance and the aesthetic merit of the work.

In the past there was heard a criticism that too much violence is portrayed in the photos. This simply reflects what is happening in the photo media at large, what photo journalists are covering and what they are obsessed about. Yet the impression of the predominantly violent photos is relative. The photos this year fall into three categories:

1. 6 %      Actual violence happening at the moment.
2. 20 %    People under duress – consequences of violence, natural disasters, and disease.
3. 74%     Non-violent, non-duress situations.

So although the number of works with the content of actual violence or people under duress is only about one quarter off all photos, it is remarkable the impact they have on the viewers who come out of the exhibition overwhelmed by the immediate impact of those photos.

The World Press official poster above features photo by Joost van Den Broek. It is a portrait of a 16 year old cadet Kiril Lewerski from a Russian naval ship Kruzenshtern. The innocent and direct gaze of the young cadet obscures effectively the fact that he is being trained in the art of war, how to kill, and how to destroy.

A question could be raised, is photo-journalistic photography just a direct representation of reality, simply an act of clicking a camera, or is there artistry involved. I am of the opinion that a successful photo with a high potential to impact a viewer is definitely art and has aesthetic merit. It represents a photographer's point of view. He is not only a window on the world's reality, but a filter of it. He selects the focus, the angle, the distance, the light aspects of his picture, and is guided in this process by his emotion, intellect and the desire to express what he thinks and feels about what he sees. He is the one who chooses the subject and the subject matter, he makes the adjustments, he chooses the eye level and the angles of the shoot in order to express what he sees in all its complexity. The final result is not simply a realistic picture but a totality of a story it narrates. It is an artistry to make photos that are not simplistic prints but become symbols of forces beyond the immediate representation.

The photo to the left is by Feisal Omar. It is of a man carrying a shark through the streets of Magadishu, Somalia. Somalians generally do not eat shark, but dry and salt its meat for export. The destroyed street, the shelled remains of the buildings that surround the man, and his huge load cry out of the heavy burden of the sharks of this world that ordinary Somalians carry on their shoulders amid the imposed devastation.

This photo by Ed Kashi is of a 9 year old Vietnamese girls Nguyen Thi Li who suffers from disabilities believed to be caused by the defoliating chemical Agent Orange used by the US forces during the Vietnam War. Notice the artistic quality of the photo, the lines, the light, the play of light and shadow, and the fact the subject is off-centre. This photo with painting-like composition definitely has a high aesthetic value.

The centrepiece of the Montreal's exhibition is the photo by a South African photographer Jodi Bieber seen on the left next to her World Press winning photo of the year 2010. It shows a young 18 year old Afgan girl Bibi Aisha who was disfigured, as punishment, after fleeing the violent treatment in her husband's family home. Her nose and ears were cut off, and she was abandoned in the mountainous clearing. She was later rescued, almost dead, and taken to a shelter in Kabul. She now lives permanently in Queens, New York and awaits a reconstructive surgery.

The photo is remarkable. Although the photographer states it deals with domestic violence, it is really about much more than that. It projects the shear strength of the girl's character, who apparently now walks in the streets without covering her face. Although she has a temporary protease, she does not like wearing it, since it makes her feel uncomfortable.

The photo appears to be a traditional three-quarters portrait. Yet, the lighting is natural day light, not studio lights, though it certainly does not give that impression. The girl is sitting in front of a window, and Jodi's assistant used a screen to direct the day light onto girl's face. The effect is quite stunning. The right side of the photo is all dark, to remind us of the dark and horrible act the girl has endured. Yet her face is illuminated and radiates light, and is symbolic of her inner strength. Moreover, to the left and above her head there is light which looks like a hallo, bringing the photo into spiritual realms where a comparison to a religious painting of the Madonna could be invoked.

Another serious subject matter is portrayed by the photographer Benjamin Lowy. He captured images of the oil floating to the surface after the explosion of the Deep Water horizon oil-drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. These four photos give an impression of being abstract paintings that portray the deceptive beauty of a horrific act of massive pollution.

In the category of sport, the photo by Adam Pretty stands out. It captures the 2000-metre steeplechase event at Youth Olympics at Bishan Stadium, Singapore, in August 2010, when Brazilian athlete Ioran Etchebury trips and falls head-first.  Although the main subject seems to be the fall of the runner, the overall effect of the photo, the flying arms and legs, the splashing water, the athletes' small heads, the diagonal lines of the limbs, and the central prominence of legs that do not touch ground create an interesting effect where the athlete, the person, seems to take a background role to the overall aesthetic composition of the photo with the subsequent subtle comment on this human activity.

Visit he World Press Photo website.

DÉJÀ - The Collection on Display

Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art (Musée d'art contemporain deMontréal) is located right next to the Quartier des Spectacles at the very heart of Montreal. If you will attend any of the numerous free concert offered this summer at the Quartier, do not forget to drop into the Museum. Here is their website http://www.macm.org/en

Until September 4, 2011 the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, or MAC as it is called by the Montreal art aficionados, is solely featuring works from their own collection, amassed since 1964 when the Museum was first established. Their collection consists of over 7,000 works by more than 1,500 Quebec, Canadian and international artists. It encompasses many branches of artistic expression: painting, sculpture, installation, photography and works on paper. Many works also incorporate audio, video and film elements.

The diversity and uniqueness of works presently on display is quite remarkable. You will get a sparse overview of it from the video link at the bottom of this article. Yet, even that short video hints eloquently at the treasures to be discovered at the museum. For a more profound experience, visit the museum in person.

I will discuss only one of the works on display, just enough to entice you to attend the exhibition.















Louise Bourgeois, The Red Room – Child, 1994
Collection du Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal
Photo : © Succession de Louise Bourgeois/Sodrac (Montréal), Vaga (New York)

The installation by Louise Bourgeois "The Red Room - Child" is not only a visual experience but an intellectual one as well. The meaning of the work is to be discovered by yourself. Look through the window pane in one of the doors that encircle an intimate space inside. What is behind that circle of closed doors? The predominant colour is red, as of fresh blood. Red thread from a number of spools stretches through the space. Are they blood vessels or are they raw threads of life still waiting and ready to be unwind from the stationary spools? Two cylindrical spools are of blue colour. Do they represent a royal blue blood or rather a hope for heavenly-like life?

Also inside are red hands truncated at mid-arm. They are made of wax and are of the same colour as the red thread. They are male, female and child hands. To the right, two child hands are enclosed by a man’s and a woman’s hands. At the back, on two iron pedestals, are placed two vase-like objects made from thick red wax ropes. The ropes resemble intestines. The vases’ shapes are somewhat feminine. Do they represent a mother and her female child?

Also at the back, a red lantern obscures the cut-off head of a lamb equally made of wax but of white colour with red blood stains. Is this a head of a sacrificial lamb? Are there religious connotation?

What does a red painted ladder-like object at the background below the blue spools represent? Trying to climb up on the path of one’s life? Striving towards the sky, towards one’s spiritual perfection?

You can ask a question: Are the cut-off hands and the blooded head of the lamb simply gross images, or do they signify the raw realities of life that in our everyday preoccupations we choose to be blind about, blotting them from our field of perception?

This conceptual installation by Louise Bourgeois generates more questions than answers. One can weave a story about it. One can project one’s own life s into it. One can interpret it according to one’s personal taste and one's emotional makeup. Bourgeois’ art is made in such a way that her aesthetic, emotional and intellectual sensibilities as well as her personal story woven into this piece will trigger a personal and even intimate response in a spectator.

Come and discover what you can find behind the closed doors of the Louise Bourgeois’s sculpture, as well as behind the open doors of the Montreal Museum of the Contemporary Art.

Here is the video I mentioned above

Déjà Exhibition Hightlights (Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Iui11tDfqI

Because you read this article this far, I will give you a hint. MAC is free of charge on Wednesday nights after 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. But you should really visit the Déjà exhibition during the regular hours on Tuesdays to Sundays between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. to support the museum.

FIFA 29th Edition: Anich Kapoor - Spiritual Sculpture

The Year of Anish Kapoor

(UK, USA, Netherlands / 2009 / 55 min. / Director Matthew Spingford)

The Year of Anish Kapoor was designated to be the closing film of the 29th edition of FIFA – International Festival of Films on Art, held in Montreal every year in March. Kapoor, a world renown sculptor, dazzles public with color, monumental sculptural designs, and the play on inverting and containing space. The film deserves the focused attention of the public since it brings into the forefront a very accomplished sculptor with a one-of-the-kind spatial and sculptural aesthetics, and it also raises a number of pertinent questions.

The concept ‘spiritual’ and ‘spirituality ‘ is heard throughout the film. Anish Kapoor says of his work, “Just as you can’t set out to make something beautiful, you can’t set out to make something spiritual. What you can do is recognise that it may be there. It normally has something to do with not having too much to say. There seems to be space for the viewer, and is sometimes something we identify as being spiritual. And it is all about space.”

This perception of spirituality being all about space is very specific to Kapoor. A number of questions could be asked in regard to the statements made in the film by him and others about spiritual aspect of Kapoor’s work:

-Is space spiritual?

-Is enticing you to enter into an artistically created, modified, and even distorted space a spiritual act?

-Are the feelings spectator experience vis-a-vis such artificial artistic spaces of a spiritual nature?

-Does artificial activity of shooting paint in to a corner in a gallery and thus visually reconstructing the space and the perception of it, represent a spiritual activity and a spiritual experience?

-Is a sculptural object placed in the middle of a countryside, in the middle of nature, that reflects, or distorts, or enhances nature a spiritual statement?

-Is the distortion of real space as perceived either on the surface of a sculpted object or in the inner cavities of it an act of creation of an illusive spiritual space?

-Could the abstractly represented dismembered body of a Saint, and the spectators walking between the separate body parts, be equated to an experience of a Christian pilgrimage?

-Would the act of creation itself, of creating a unique artistic object, give an artist a consciousness that he is involved in a spiritual act?

- Is our modern society so spiritually starved that it would seeks to find spiritual experiences and sensations through artistic statements of contemporary artists and through inanimate aesthetic objects they create?

The photo at the top, at the very beginning of this article is that of “Cloud Gate” (2004-2006), Chicago. Kapoor sais about it, “Distorts, people see themselves in, see the city, plays with your mind like a woman, simple and beautiful outside, complex and perhaps discovery inside.” Discovery of what? Of the sculpture’s souls or perhaps simply of the sculpture’s aesthetics?

Below are several examples of sculptures presented and discussed in the film.

Above, Kapour’s sculpture “C Curb” (2009) near Brighton is set in the middle of a field. It reflects, distorts and inverses the natural space in its mirror surface. It is a very remarkable sculpture with a playful theme, and liked by public. But does it offer a spiritual experience or only an aesthetic one?

The sculpture above is called “Dismemberment of Jeanne d’Arc” and was presented at Brighton Festival in 2009. It is bright read. Kapoor states, “One is literarily walking in her, through her, through her body. The implication is that the viewer is involved – something fundamental to sculpture. One body, one person responds to another, the memories of various parts of the body… It is as if this body is laid out in almost religious way. A kind of pilgrimage, as if somebody is to go to Santiago de Compostela.” Why red? Kapoor explains, “it makes it kind of black the way blue does not. It’s the black you see when you close your eyes. It’s something you know intuitively. And that sort of knowing… is the real subject of the work.”

So what is true spiritual knowing? Is is not supposed to be of Light rather than of blackness?

Kapoor’s above sculpture “Svayambh” (Musee des Beaux-Arts, Nantes, 2007) is a structure made of red wax that passes through museum’s doors, where wax is subtracted and then added again . Kapoor comments about it “Self generated, leaving a trail, violent, collecting stuff, dropping stuff… Spiritual… What is a physical experience and metaphysical experience? … Terminology of spiritual… Spiritual powerful effect on you … dimension away from rational… You are forced to feel something.”

Site-specific Work at the Farm, Kaipara Bay, New Zealand 2009, is build into landscape, restructuring, enhancing, and “beautifying” the natural landscape. Kapoor comments about it, “Somewhere deep in my heart is a Wagnerian will to the grand.” Is it possible that it is this type of will that could be mistaken for spirituality?

I will conclude this article with a question I asked already earlier: Is our modern society so spiritually starved that it would seeks to find spiritual experiences and sensations through artistic statements of contemporary artists and through inanimate aesthetic objects they create?

FIFA 29th Edition: Emily Carr – Spiritual Painting

Winds of Heaven: Emily Carr, Carvers and the Spirits of the Forest

(Canada / 2010 / 90 min. / Director - Michael Ostroff / Screenplay - Michael Ostroff / Cinematography - Leigh Uttley)








The film presents an eloquent portrait of the Canadian painter Emily Carr (1871-1945). It focuses on her creative journey, on the reasons for her artistic drive, as well as her choice of themes, style, and colours. It is generously interlaced with the quotations from Carr’s own writings. What comes to the forefront is her search for something that would satisfy her fully and not being able to find it.

She searches for it in the nature, in the Canada’s vast British Columbia forests. Right at the beginning of the film she is quoted asking herself this question, “What do these forests make you feel? What is it you are straggling for? What is the vital thing that woods posses that you want? Why do you go back to the woods unsatisfied, longing to express something that is there, being unable to find it? It’s in there, yet so far away. You cannot reach it. Oh, you old fool, do not try to force these great forests, woe them.’

Thought Carr had rejected the organized religion at an early age, she never rejected her spiritual needs, “No church, no philosophy, you have to travel the road for yourself, you must find for yourself.”

She embraces loneliness, not finding consolation in the human crowds.

“What most attracts me in those wild, deep, solitary places – nobody goes there. The loneliness and quiet are unbroken. The loneliness repels them, the dug smells, the awful solemnity of the aged old tree makes you feel perfectly infinitesimal. They stay outside and talk about it. It’s bad for them but good for those who enter because holiness and quite are unbroken. I see clearer what I am away from humans in the woods.”

The film makes it obvious that Carr is searching for her own spirituality through the act of painting. It is as if by trying to capture on a canvas the spirit of the woods and wilderness, and the spirits that animate the Indian totem poles and carvings, she tried to reclaim her own spirituality and her connection to the ‘holiness’, a word used repeatedly throughout the film when quoting her writings.

Native Americans believed that the spirit of a person got caught in a picture, and this is why they refused to be photographed. Was it the same principle by which Carr was trying to capture the spirit of the nature, of the woods, and of the totem poles and imprint them onto her paintings, trying to repossess them for herself in an attempt to reconnect to her own spirituality? Is this why she is using the brush strokes, colours and shapes in such a novel way for her times so they would portray that all illusive spirit she is searching for?

Her art was too avangard for her times. It was not accepted and she stopped painting for 15 years. This changed when the National Gallery approached her to exhibit her art and when she discovered the Group of Seven and began a long lasting correspondence with Lawren Harris.

“Oh God, What have I seen! Something had spoken to the very soul of me! Wonderful! Mighty! Not of this world! Oh, these men, this Group of Seven, what have they created? If I knew where to find the God, a God to pray to, I would pray. God Bless the Group of Seven.” She also wrote about Lawren Harris’ paintings, “There is holiness about them, something you cannot describe but just feel.”

After seeing Emily Carr’s works, Lawren Harris tells her that she is one of them. Encouraged, Carr begins to paint, but this time, advised by Harris to depart from the native motives and to find herself instead ( He wrote to her, “Put aside Indian motives, strike out for yourself. ” ) she focuses more on painting the nature and the woods.

In another letter, Harris also tells her, “We are only content when all our sails are full with the winds of heaven. I hope all your winds are up and full of the winds of heaven.” This statement makes it obvious that both Harris and Carr perceived their creative impulse as that of being of heaven, as being spiritually inspired.

Carr once again embarked on a vigorous search of the spiritual through her painting. Yet there comes a startling realization: “the great forest, full of unseen things, and great silence…..and when I look at my paintings, there is nothing in it.... Oh, I am frightened when I look over at my paintings. There is nothing to it, just paint, dead and forlorn. I want my things to rock and sway with the fluids of life. But there they sit, weak and still.” And once again he asks herself in desperation: “What is it you are struggling for? It’s there … but I cannot catch hold of it.” Then she states, “I do not believe in the supernatural beings. Still, who understands the mystery of the forest?”

When in the middle of the night, all alone in the woods, she steps into a flowing water she exclaims, “I stand alone on my own perfect good feet in the stream at night, Life, Life, Life.” With this realization she begins to attempt to catch the light and the movement of the forest, her brush strokes becoming more free, fluid, and flowing.

“Everything is waiting and still. Colours you have not noticed come out.”

“I am looking for something so light, so tender, as mysterious as a tear.”

“Slowly things begin to move and slip into their places, groups and lines tie themselves together. Colours come out … Everything is alive, air is alive, sun is alive, silence is full of sound.”

At the end of the film a quotation is read, “I never before realized the relation between one’s pictures and oneself. Maybe the Indians were right and that something of you can get trapped forever in the picture as long as it lasts.”

Did Carr succeed in discovering her own spirituality or did she simply leave us something of herself permanently trapped in her paintings? Or maybe they are simply the spirits of the woods and of the Indian sacred objects as seen through her eyes that got caught in the paintings?

Can one’s spirituality be found by means of the creative act of painting? Can light and life be created through artistic means, through a person’s will for them to be expressed on canvas?

There are two short videos with excerpts form the film Wind of Heaven posted on YouTube:

EMILY CARR: WINDS OF HEAVEN

FIFA 29th Edition: Antwerp Central Station - Spiritual Architecture

Antwerp Central Station 

A 90 min. film directed by Peter Krüger, starring Johan Leysen (the narrator), shot by Rimvydas Leipus (2010).

The film goes beyond presenting the history of why and how the station was build at the end of the 19th century by King Leopold II of Belgium, and beyond discussing its main architectural features. Right from the start the focal statement is pronounced “It was clearly the intention to be overwhelmed by the feeling of holiness in a cathedral devoted to world trade and traffic.”

The station, dubbed by the Belgians the ‘Railway Cathedral’, is truly an architectural marvel caught in stunning shots by the cameramen. What is shown is the real as well as a specifically focused perspective, the play of light, the architectural details, the movement of passengers through space and time, as well as the intimate mood of the narrator, the presenter of this architectural gem to the viewer.

The magnificence of the station’s exterior architecture is even surpassed by the interior design and décor. There is a lot of marble: decorative columns, balustrades, balconies, galleries, regal stairways, and the floor, laid out in a squared pattern composed of 3 different kinds of Belgian marble. This train station is indeed “a place of beauty and glory” as stated by the narrator.

The camera zooms on to and lingers over the architectural details that one finds in Christian cathedrals. The imposing Dome which lets in the light is not unlike that of the St. Peter’s cathedral in Rome. And then there is a choir standing on the marble stairway singing about Devine creation: “Let there be light, and there was light.”

The narrator chooses to compare the train station’s dome to that of the Pantheon. He comments that the dome’s supporting walls are not decorated as in the Pantheon (not with Roman Gods) but rather with the sculpted symbols of trade and commerce. He notes that “in the place where in the Pantheon an emperor’s image would be located, is placed a clock…These are the Gods of the 19th century looking down at the visitors.”

The film forces one to ask a question, if the power of trade and commerce is so strong that it runs our modern life from the late 19th century to the present, why did the architects of this building resorted to incorporate the traditional elements that were part of the spiritual worship into a seemingly mundane public building of a train station?

The train station's main building was designed in the 19th century by the Bruges architect L. Delacenserie. What was his vision in conceiving it in such a monumental way? Did he consider that the commerce and trade would be becoming the Gods of the future centuries, the new objects of “worship”, requiring therefore the new type of a cathedral? Is this why he incorporated elements from the traditional places of worship into it, to signify the continuation of time and space through which a society moves forward?

What is also spiritualized in this building, through architecture, the interior reliefs, and the exterior roof sculptures, is the regal power of the state. The stone Belgian lion on the roof, the replica of the royal crown above the archway, and the live lion let roam freely at night in the empty station’s hall, called by the narrator “the income hall”, state that not only the past but also the present Belgian power is alive, well and strong.

Beside the Christian monotheistic and early Roman pantheistic elements of spirituality encompassed in the architecture of the station, the narrator also discovers that this monument also includes metaphysical concepts such as those of non-existence of time, the blending of time and space, and space being dissipated by areal lines and emptiness. The linear platforms covered by an immense expanse of iron and glass of the vaulted ceiling create a strange type of a perspective causing one to question what is real and what is not regarding time and space.

The station recently underwent extensive reconstruction. A new open concept was added: two new lower levels of platforms for high speed trains, passing underneath the city. This brought the light down into the underground, allowing it to be lit from above, in addition to lighting panels. The narrator comments, “By adding lighting panels one never has the feeling of descending in the underworld.” So the building’s architecture denies the existence of the underworld as well as of time and space, the same as these concepts are denied by the metaphysics.

The hall has now become a social place where people meet, have coffee, and participate in cultural events: choir singing, tango dancing, etc. The new Gods of the present century are usurping the train station’s space, and they are the Gods of culture and art.

This short video on YouTube is a series of images from the film:

ANTWERP-CENTRAL / MIDDENSTATIE by PETER KRÜGER

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swUsnrjQSvM

The photo at the very beginning of this article is from blog.petaflop.de

Harold Pinter - Modern Drama at Its Best

The Caretaker 

The Centaur Theatre’s production of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker is a must to see. This play, no doubt, contributed to Pinter’s winning of the Noble Prize for literature in 2005. The play opened on March 29, 2007, and the performances will continue until April 22, 2007.

You might be interested to know that the play had real-life origins. Pinter became acquainted with two brothers who lived together. One of them brought an old tramp to the house for a brief stay. At the time Pinter himself had very little money, and therefore somewhat identified with the tramp, with whom he spoke occasionally.

Pinter - a contemporary, modern dramatist - has created a play that might not readily appeal to those who like vigorous physical action on stage. In The Caretaker, a much subtler type of forward movement is achieved, surprisingly created with total silences or words and phrases uttered seemingly out of the blue. The play, often identified as absurd, in fact very much resembles life. As in real life there are discordant words and conversations, uninterested and self-absorbed listeners, misunderstood and misconstrued statements. The characters often talk past each other rather than conversing. They also dishonour confidences, play power games, manipulate to gain advantage, not realizing that in the process they “bite the hand that feeds them”. Worst of all, they are blind to caring gestures by others, either taking them for granted, or dismissing them altogether as a nuisance.

Though the play is often compared to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in that nothing really happens regardless of an implied sense of expectation, there is however a significant difference between the two plays. The Caretaker’s characters are not waiting for anybody (like Godot) and therefore doing nothing because of it, as in Beckett’s play. They are simply procrastinating, regardless of their plans and projects. Such plans and projects are totally absent in the Beckett play. However, what makes both plays similar is the sense of expectation, of some impending change to shortly take place which, of course, never happens.

Pinter’s play is about people with mundane plans that have absolutely no chance of ever materializing. Beckett’s play is about people without any plans but with a hope of seeing Godot (some critics postulate that Godot is actually God), and this hope also never materializes.

The Caretaker has the power to make you question your life, and to examine your own projects which have been shelved, where they have been gathering dust. Though nurtured periodically in your thoughts, they remain right where they are, non-materialized. This play might also force you to take a better look at your interactions with those close to you. It could even propel you to be more attentive to others, more appreciative and grateful for any gestures of kindness and concern.

Where:
Centaur Theatre Company453 St.
François-XavierMontreal QuebecH2Y 2T
www.centauretheatre.com
Box Office Telephone: (514) 288-3161

Photo Above:
An earlier photo of Harold Pinter
by Martin Rosenbaum

In Search of a Missing People

The St. Lawrence Iroquoians, Corn People

Jacques Cartier, the famous French explorer, made 3 trips to Canadian shores between 1534 and 1542. Each time he encountered native people and saw their settlements. During his last two voyages he came to interact with the Iroquoian people along the shores of the St. Lawrence, and left detailed accounts of those encounters.

About 60 years later, when Samuel de Champlain of France also sailed up the St. Lawrence in 1603, he saw no Indian villages along his route. What had happened? Why have the Iroquoian people disappeared from the region?

The new exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History Pointe-à-Callière  In Search of a Missing People addresses this issue. Although it has been considered that the white men’s diseases might have devastated the native population, the evidence suggests otherwise. First, the Iroquoian population was still intact between Cartier’s voyages; and second, the settlements had already started to disappear before Cartier’s first arrival at the St. Lawrence region. This process started in the west, in what is presently Ontario (where Cartier never set foot) and continued in a domino-like effect towards the east.

It is now assumed that the settlements were wiped out by the ongoing war between the different groups. Cartier had noted that each village was heavily protected by several tiers of palisades with watch platforms in the upper tier. In addition, the arrival of the Europeans might have destabilized the precarious power-struggle equilibrium between the groups, even creating jalousies because of iron tools and decorative beats acquired from the whites.

It is speculated that the Iroquoian people did not disappear completely, but were rather absorbed and integrated into other Indian tribes.

So what made St. Lawrence Iroquoian Indians unique?

Contrary to Algonquian Indians who were nomads, Iroquoian Indians, thanks to corn cultivation, no longer had to fallow the migration of game. They began building year round permanent settlements, and acquired characteristics of an agricultural society.

Corn was adaptated by the St Lawrence Iroquoians between 800-1200 AD. This was a culmination of corn’s long journey from Mexico. A variety of corn widely used was Northern Flint that has some or all purple kernels. It contains little moisture and becomes very hard and shiny when dry. It is still used today especially during Native ceremonies. You can buy a sachet of Northern Flint kernels for $2 at the Museum, and can even start growing this corn yourself!

Corn (maize) was a result of a very rare mutation in a wild spiked grass called Teosinte (see Photo 3 below) which had only about 10 inedible kernels. 7,000 years ago people gathered Teosinte for its sweet chalks. They ate the pith, and ferment it to make alcohol. They also ate unripe cobs. The Teosinte mutation took place about 5,500 years ago, and today’s corn cobs are much longer and thicker and have a lot more kernels.

It was a woman’s job to cultivate corn. They planted it in small round patches together with two other crops, and called this triad “Three Sisters”. The beans would wind around corn stacks and deliver nitrogen to the soil, so no fertilization was needed, and the squashes’ wide leaves preserved the ground moisture, so it did not need to be watered.

One of the staples of Iroquoian diet was a soup called sagamite: a handful of flour, dried fish, meat, beans, and squash. Women also baked pumpkins and squash in embers, and made carraconny or corn loafs, by setting them on a broad flat stone and covering them with hot pebbles.

Iroquoian women handled all the work of growing food, including sowing, tending, harvesting and drying the crops They made corn flour, gathered and carried firewood, water, fruit, and nuts. They made ropes, nets, mats, baskets, ceramic pots, and farming tools. They hunted small game, fished, made garments, and put the finishing touches to snowshoes and canoes. And, of course, they were also wives and mothers.

Women were the prime movers in domestic life, and this kept them tied down to the villages. Even the social structure revolved around some of the women, the “clan mothers”. An Iroquoian house was a woman’s place. A man came to live with a woman. Iroquoian society was matrilineal - the family line was passed down from mother to daughter rather than from father to son. It was also matrilocal – a married couple lived with the wife’s family, flanked by families of daughters and grand daughters, with their husbands and children. These lineages in turn formed clans that were led by a clan mother.

A village civil chief - always a man - was chosen by women elders. They also revoked the chief’s powers if needed.

But men chose the war chief. Besides going to wars and organizing big game hunting expeditions, men also cleared land from trees and build longhouses, protective palisades and canoes.

The present exhibition at the Museum will immerse you in the everyday life of the Iroquoian people. You will also see many Iroquoian pottery pieces, as well as pipes, ornaments, and other items such as those used in game playing and gambling. You will also see the very first map of various Iroquoian settlements along the St Lawrence River. And, of course, you will learn a lot about our collective history.

Where: Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History Pointe-à-Callière
350 Place Royal,
Montreal, QC H2X 3Y5
Canada

When: November 7, 2006 – May 6, 2007

Museum’s Website:
http://www.pacmuseum.qc.ca

Photo 1
Iroquoian Vase
Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History Pointe-à-Callière
Photo 2
Multicolored corn
By Keith Weller This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons
Photo 3
Two plants believed to be of the species hybridized to create maize. Jardín Etnobotánico (Ethnobotanical Garden), Oxaca, Mexico, June 2005.
Cc-by JerryFriedman 21:26, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons

Romeo and Juliet

The most romantic, and yet the most tragic love story that William Shakespeare ever wrote is indisputably that of Romeo and Juliet. Most of us have seen this masterpiece interpreted either on stage or on screen. And some of us have seen it several times. And yet we are always drawn to this piece and are ready to see it one more time.

Right now, you have an opportunity to see once again another interpretation of this ageless love story, this time on stage right here in Montreal. This ballet, set to the music of Sergei Prokofiev, is presented by Les Grands Ballets Canadiens at the Théâtre Maisonneuve at the Place-des-Arts.

If you are in a mood for romanticism, you might not find it in this staging of the famous love story. Some of the elements used to create a heightened romantic mood – luscious colours, elaborate period costumes and seductive lightening are not present in this piece. Neither is present the precise, traditional choreography with a set of effective means of expressing emotions which communicate to the public with ease and immediacy.

Let us momentarily contemplate the subject of ballet.

Until recently, the ballet of the past had gone unchanged for a very long time, trying to preserve the purity of its traditional forms of expression which had the power to communicate emotions with easily understood clarity. In addition, the traditional ballet was concerned with the gracefulness of movements which effectively created an overall poetic, dignified, splendid, and even noble effect.

Let us be honest, can we call our present times noble, poetic and dignified? In the world where in order to be noticed you have to be “chic”, “with it” and “cool”, the old ballet values are no longer understood or appreciated.

It has been a couple of decades now that the traditional ballet has found itself at odds with the present reality, and has even been perceived as outmoded. New artistic forms from modern and jazz dance have been steadily seeping into ballet. Yet let’s hope that the purely traditional ballet would not die completely, and that it will be preserved and staged periodically as an alternative to the mixed style that is currently in vogue and is taking over the ballet.

So how is current interpretation of the famous love story Romeo and Juliet by Les Grands Ballets Canadiens different?

This Romeo and Juliet is not a period mis-en-scène. There are no lush stage sets, nor colourful costumes or lights. As a matter of fact, the decor by Ernest Pignon-Ernest can be referred to as minimalist. He achieves the definition of the space with several movable white screens, which, depending on the scene, change colour by means of spot lights. But do not expect any bright and vibrant colours such as reds or greens. The pallet ranges from white to black, passing though various degrees of grey and beige with a tinge of ochre. As for the costumes, designed by Jerome Kaplan, they match the minimalist colour palette of the mis-en-scène. The only exception is a luscious, shimmering gold dress of Juliet which she wears in a masquerade scene where she first meets Romeo.

What might be the reasons for the removal of colour and of blossoming elements from this interpretation of Romeo and Juliet? (As a matter of fact, you will not even see the traditional balcony from which Juliet calls dreamily to her lover.) Is the stern decor chosen in order to zoom the spectator’s attention to the sculptural quality of the dance? If that is the case, could this explain the color scheme of this production - that of metals, plaster and clay, which are the traditional sculpture materials?

The choreographed movements in this ballet are purely sculptural. Each grouping of characters, each pas-de-deux, creates a sculpture in space. The movements own the space. The space is constantly restructured with bodies and limbs, and is permeated with visceral energy.

What you see on stage is sculpture in motion. Each dance is choreographed in such a way as to restructure with every movement the three-dimensional space.

By all means, go and see this ballet. You might find yourself enchanted with the Prokofiev’s music, and with the kaleidoscopic movements on stage. And above all, you will be once again reminded of the great Shakespeare’s genius, which has fascinated us through many centuries.


Photo above
by Sergei Endinian
Romeo and Juliet
Dancers of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens

Girodet – The Romantic Rebel

Who was Girodet? And why should we really care?

For starters, he was the first one ever to make a full length portrait of a black man as a true western political legislator, dressed in European clothes. See below the Portrait of Citizen Belley, Ex-Representative of the Colonies (1797).

Girodet was also a master draftsman. His drawings are alive. The precision of rendering is almost photographic, and each detail breathes life into the subject.

Girodet became a painter against his parents' will. He was a pupil of the renowned neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825). Of all his students, Girodet was the most gifted and also the most erudite. Moreover, he was rebellious and competitive. This led him to part with the strict neoclassical teachings and to embark onto Romanticism.

Girodet was the first French painter to portray emotion. David said of him “on nous fait les personnages de crystal” (“He makes crystal-clear personages”). And indeed he did. Each evocative gesture in Girodet’s paintings and drawings, each facial and bodily expression reveal internal world of people he portrayed.

Girodet was also interested in unusual colour effects and in the problems of concentrated light and shade. He masterfully employs light and shade in rendering the volume of a human body, or to create a specific allegorical, sensual, or “romanticized” effect in his paintings.

Girodet was born on January 29, 1767, and was named Anne-Louis Girodet. At that time, Anne was considered to be both a masculine and a feminine name. His father died in 1784 and his mother in 1787 when Girodet was barely 20. A neighbor, a friend of the family Doctor Trioson took Girodet under his protection and guidance right after Girodet’s father death. In 1908, when Girodet was 41, Dr. Trioson, whose wife and children have died, adopted Girodet as his own son. And this is when Girodet’s official name became Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson.

We can only assume that it was thanks to the Dr. Trioson’s constant support and care that Girodet’s talent has blossomed freely. Not only did he become known as a historical painter, but he also painted allegorical subject matters and excelled in sensual depiction of human body. He also illustrated books, for instance those of Virgil, as well as many poetical works.

What was less know of Girodet, and what has come to light quite recently, is that he also painted a lot of commissioned portraits of various well-to-do people, both men and women. It is speculated that many such portraits are still held in private collections and are unknown to the art world.

After his death on December 9, 1824, King Louis XVIII made Girodet posthumously an officer of the Legion of Honour, in recognition of his artistic contribution to France.

Girodet’s paintings, drawings and sketches are presently on display at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Girodet’s collection has been shown in Paris, Chicago and New York. Many of his works have traveled to North America for the first time ever.


Photo 1
GIRODET de Roussy-Trioson, Anne-Louis
Self-portrait with Neckerchief and Hat
About 1790
Black crayon, black chalk, white guash highlights
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Delia E. Holden Fund, 1978.79
Photo © The Cleveland Museum of Art

Photo 2
GIRODET de Roussy-Trioson, Anne-Louis
Portrait of Citizen Belley, Ex-Representative of the Colonies
About 1797
Oil on canvas
Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon
Photo © RMN/Gérard Blot

Who Lived Here Before Me?

How often do you think about people who lived in Quebec before you, and who little by little contributed to the present way of our life? If you never do, than right now, during this month of August, you have an excellent opportunity to discover more about who inhabited this land before you and how they lived.

The way of life of those people who lived on the Quebec territory long ago was nothing as what we enjoy presently. These ancient inhabitants were the true ancestors of this land. Their lives were simpler than ours, their tools quite rudimentary. Nevertheless, they possessed very effective skills to survive in a very harsh environment. Their know-how contributed to building villages and habitats where the growth of social interaction was possible.

Right now, you have an excellent opportunity to discover the Quebec’s fascinating history ranging from the ancient Indian cultures and progressing through various stages of colonization of this province. For the second year in the row, the month of August was declared to be Quebec’s Archeology Month. More than 50 archeological sites and exhibitions are participating and opening its doors to visitors.

If you don’t mind to make your hands dirty, you can even take part in real archeological digs, as illustrates on the photo to the right, and become a real archeologist yourself! Imagine how much you and your children could learn from such an experience!

The sites that are participating in the Archeology Month are spread across the province. Here is the website that lists them all: www.archeoquebec.com . Just click on the face of the smiling boy, and if you do not read French, choose English at the bottom of the topics listed on the left.

In case you prefer a personal touch, you can call for more information:
1-887-BONJOUR (1-877-266-5687)

The visit of the archeological digs might raise some questions in your mind: What type of archeological heritage are we leaving for the generations that will follow ours? What will those future people discover about us from what we leave behind? And how highly would they think of us?





Photos by Eric Piché


Photo 1. – Top: Fort St. Jean
Photo 2. – Middle: Pointe-du-Buisson Archeological Park
Photo 3. – Bottom: Droulers - Tsiionhiakwatha, St. Anicet

The Mystery of Ancient Japan

An Argument for the Extraterrestrials?

The photo on the left is the same one as in the beginning of my article of June 10, 2006 Ancient Japan and Extraterrestrials? Take a closer look at what the Goggled Dogu, also called Shako Dogu by the Japanese, is wearing. It is definitely is not an animal hide.

What is known about Jomon is that their garments were made from animal skins. Jomon were, in many respects, a rather primitive culture of hunters and gatherers. So why does the above shown dogu wear such a unique garment that very much resembles some sort of armor? And if it is not armor, than it definitely is a very unique type of clothing. Who could have imagined such a dress in a culture that had no concept of clothing other than that made of hides?

Even more curious is the fact that that Goggled Dogu is not a sole such object found in Japan. A number of goggled figurines, very much resembling one another, were excavated throughout the ancient Jomon territory, mostly in the north. This representation was obviously a common knowledge. Considering that the Jomon population of the Japanese archipelago, even at its peak, was only about a quarter of a million (see the previous article of July 23, 2006), how could people scattered far apart produce almost identical clay representations? Remember, there was no means of transportation at the time other than one’s own feet.

Though Jomon, being hunters, were partially nomadic, that does not explain why the image of a goggled figurine was so readily accepted by all the different Jomon clans who were not in a regular communication with each other.

Could a primitive culture have such an inventive imagination as to dream up of images never seen by anybody, translating them into physical representations accepted collectively by far scattered populace?

In addition, why did Jomon people waste their time and energy making elaborate clay dogu that had no utilitarian use? If these were indeed religious or talismanic objects, could they have been actually inspired by something encountered in real life? Judging on the aesthetic complexity of these objects, their religion was not simplistic.

Jomon also left mysterious stone circles, as did many other ancient cultures like, for instance, the ancient Brits with their Stonehedge and other circular stone formations. It is not known what exactly these stone circles were used for. It is speculated that they were used for religious rituals, and also to keep track of astronomical calendar events like solstices and equinoxes.

Though Jomon pottery is highly advanced in craftsmanship and detail, it was produced without a potter’s wheal since they did not know it. It is hard to imagine the Jomon vases featured in my June 10, 2006 article being used in everyday life as mundane food preparation utensils and storage containers.

During the Yoyoi period (300 BC-300AD) that followed the Jomon, pottery was very simplistic and utilitarian. It had no aesthetic elements or conceptual and artistic complexity of the Jomon pottery. Not a single clay dogu sculpture was found belonging to Yoyoi period. The impetus that had inspired the creation of the Goggled dogu was no longer present.

It appears that either Jomon were culturally far more advanced in their everyday habits and the mode of life than is presently believed. Or they were influenced by something outside of themselves that has not yet been accounted for.

It is very clear:
1) There is a dichotomy between the aesthetics portrayed through Jomon clay creations and the supposedly primitive conditions of their everyday life.
2) The origins of their unique artistic inspiration as well as their elaborate religion have not yet been sufficiently explained.

* “Goggled” dogu
Important Cultural Property
1000 to 400 BC
Prehistoric period: Jomon (10,000 to 400 BC)
© Tokyo National Museum collection

This figurine is presently on display at the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History Pointe-à-Callière, 350 Place Royal, Montreal, QC H2X 3Y5, Canada, until Oct. 15, 2006
Museum’s Website:
http://www.pacmuseum.qc.ca

Here is an example of a fragment of another Goggled Dogu, not shown at the museum.

Japan Without Rice?

Try Nut Cookies Instead!

It is difficult to imagine Japan without Rice. Today, one half of all arable land in Japan is devoted to rice paddies. But rice was brought to Japan only in 300 BC by Korean peninsula inhabitants.

It is certain that the ancient Japan’s Jomon period from 10,000 to 400 BC - that I talked about in my two previous postings - was totally without rice. Unlike the contemporaneous population on the continent, the Jomon people were not agricultural, though they tended some plants, and were good at exploiting the islands’ recourses. They hunted deer and wild boar with bows and arrows, gathered and cooked nuts, harpooned whales, fished for salmon, and harvested shellfish.

The Jomon lived in large villages. In colder regions, they made pit-dwellings with sunken floor that took advantages of the soil’s natural insulation. Throughout the archipelago, they also build wood structures, some of them quite large. The archaeologists uncovered the remains of such buildings, as well as dug-out holes that originally held enormous upright chestnut trunks. At the Japan Exhibition currently held at the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History Pointe-à-Callière (http://www.pacmuseum.qc.ca ) you can see photos from the Jomon Sannai Maruyama dwelling site. They show gigantic holes in the ground where tree trunks were inserted, and a hypothetical reconstruction of a three-floor building.

Nut Cookies Instead of Rice

So if Jomon did not have rice what did they eat instead? Nuts!

The archaeologists found that many dwelling sites had pits containing nuts. The Jomon soaked some types of nuts to remove bitterness, and grounded them to make edible dough and cookies. At the Japan Exhibition you can see a photo of the charred remains of cookies excavated at the sites.

And the recipe for those cookies?

Ground hazelnuts
Yams
Perilla (spice)
Basil
Garlic
Shallots

Grind and mix all the ingredience, make cookie patties, put them on a flat stone used as a cookie sheet - also found during excavations - and cook over an open fire pit.

How large was Jomon population?

According to some estimates, the archipelago’s population grew from 20,000 in the early Jomon, to over 260,000 by the Middle Jomon. But around 900 BC the number of Jomon dwelling sites started to decline. By the end of that period there were only about 75,000 people left. So what had happened?

It is difficult to say why there was such a market decline. Despite the fact that the climate was cooling and Mount Fiji erupted a few times, that did not cause the population to decline. Something else may have been responsible: the arrival of immigrants from the continent. The new know-how that they brought with them transformed daily life in the archipelago.

Around 400 BC political turmoil rocked the East Asian continent. For some time, small groups of people have been leaving the Korean peninsula. Most of them migrated to Kyushu, the Japanese archipelago island closest to the continent. They also spread northeast almost as far as the island of Hokkaido. It is not known if their encounter with Jomon was peaceful. What is clear, they mixed with the local population – as shown by modern day Japanese DNA research.

And thus in 300 BC began the Yayoi period, which lasted up to 300 AD. It was the period of bronze, iron, and rice. And this is when rice became a staple of Japanese cusine.

The photo in the beginning of this article shows a dogu clay mask.*

* Earthenware mask
2000 to 1000 BC
Prehistoric period: Jomon (10,000 to 400 BC)
© Tokyo National Museum collection

This eloquently simple mask shows only relief modelling and a distorted mouth. It was unearthed by a farmer clearing land.

What Is Dogu?

The readers of my previous article

Ancient Japan and Extraterrestrials?

(published on June 10, 2006)

have expressed a great interest regarding the picture which appears at the very beginning of that article - Photo 1.

What is a dogu? It is a type of Jomon ritual object. The first such object was discovered in the 17th century, and labeled dogu, “an earthen-ware figurine”. The archaeologists have since turned up approximately 15,000 of these dogu. Some represent animals, but most are human shaped. It remains unclear what they were used for. Since most dogu have feminine features: breasts, wide hips, and pregnant bellies, it is therefore assumed that they were perhaps intended to invoke the fertile earth goddess.

Almost all of dogu were found in fragments. They might have been broken deliberately and their pieces scattered like those of “medicine dolls”, used in purification rituals to dispel the source of a person’s suffering. Later in the Jomon period, dogu were placed in graves. Dogu were no longer produced after the Jomon period, which lasted from 10,000 to 400 BC.

The Goggled Dogu is among the largest dogu of its kind, and is the best preserved. As was mentioned before, many science-fiction enthusiasts claim it to represent an extraterrestrial. But scientists argue that dogu figurines should not be taken literarily. According to them, dogu daringly push the boundaries of the representational form. They claim that this particular figurine appears to be wearing the sort of bone “goggles” once worn by Inuit to protect their eyes from sun’s glare on the snow. However, no goggles of this type have ever been found in Japan. It is also claimed that “goggles” may represent eyes closed in death, or portray the magical power attributed to eyes.

The picture above, at the begging of this article, also shows a dogu (* see below for more comments). It is called Dogu with almond shaped eyes. The figure is female, and comes from 3,000-2,000 BC. It is, therefore, more ancient than Goggled Dogu which comes from 1,000-400 BC.

Dogu with almond shaped eyes was produced during the time when pottery was reaching its zenith; and so were also some dogu true masterpieces. It was made during the same time as “Flame-style” deep bowl, on Photo 3 in the article from June 10, 2006. During that period, as can be seen in the above photo, the base was broader, so the figurines could stand on its own, while the head and torso remained narrow. This resulted in an oddly attractive shape. This remarkably preserved piece is the largest hollow cone-shaped dogu.

Both dogu figurines discussed above (and much more) are currently on display at the Japan Exhibition, Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History Pointe-à-Callière, 350 Place Royal, Montreal, QC H2X 3Y5, Canada, until Oct. 15, 2006.

Museum's Website:
http://www.pacmuseum.qc.ca/

* Dogu with almond-shaped eyes
Important Cultural Property
3000 to 2000 BC
Prehistoric period: Jomon (10,000 to 400 BC)
© Minami-arupusu City Board of Education, Yamanashi, Japan