MMFA 2017: Nadia Myre

NADIA MYRE 

TOUT CE QUI RESTE – SCATTERED REMAINS

November 15, 2017 – May 27, 2018

This is the first solo survey exhibition of Nadia Myre, a Quebec Indigenous artist, at the Montreal Museum Of Fine Arts. It features the Canadian premiere of Code Switching, a series Myre produced during an artist residency at the Darling Foundry, sponsored by the MMFA, in 2016-2017. The exhibition includes some twenty works – photographs and sculptures – created between 2000 and 2017. It is part of Woman. Artist. Indigenous. season at the Museum, devoted to female Indigenous artists.

This is an imaginative presentation of several individual works by the artists. The way they are displayed together, a coherent whole is achieved and is perceived as a single artistic installation. As one walks within the exhibition room from one displayed object to the next, it is becomes obvious that what one sees are separate puzzle pieces of the same unified body of art that tells the story how the artist reconciles her reality, the reality of her native roots, the overpowering European stronghold that took over, and the modern multi-ethnic cultural fabric of the society within which she lives and creates. She uses elements not produced by the natives to express native motives and designs, thus recreating her own identity through the blending of all separate realities of her present life. For instance, the native ornamental piece in the photo at the very top of this article was made with ceramic pieces Myre found in the mud during a river Themes' low tide, a popular activity called mud-larking by the Londoners. These ceramic pieces were used in manufacturing pipes. A a remnant of one such pipe, also found by the artist, appears in the image above this paragraph.

About Nadia Myre

Nadia Myre is a member of the Algonquin First Nation of Kitigan Zibi Anishnabeg. In her works, she revisits official history and the political and social struggles of Indigenous peoples. She juxtaposes her personal experience with that of others, creating highly symbolic works that spark contemplation and reflection. She takes a participatory approach and tackles topics of identity, language, desire and memory. The works in the exhibition reflect on the encounter between Indigenous peoples and the Europeans.

Born in Montreal in 1974, Nadia Myre is a graduate of Camosun College, Victoria (1995), Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver (1997), and Concordia University (MFA, 2002). She received the Banff Centre for Arts Walter Phillips Gallery Indigenous Commission Award (2016), and the prestigious 2014 Sobey Art Award, for outstanding Canadian artists aged forty or under. In the past 15 years, her works have been presented and collected by museums in Canada and abroad, including the Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Art Gallery of Ontario, Mackenzie Art Gallery, Winnipeg Art Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, the National Museum of the American Indian (New York), Eiteljorg Museum (Indianapolis), the Compton Verney Art Gallery (GB), Fresnoy (France), and the Sydney Biennale in Australia.

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WOMAN. ARTIST. INDIGENOUS.

This fall, the MMFA is spotlighting female Indigenous artists with exhibitions and acquisitions of their works, as part of Woman. Artist. Indigenous. In addition to the exhibition of works by Nadia Myre, this cycle presents the work of Ontario photographer Meryl McMaster, with the exhibition IN-BETWEEN WORLDS (until December 3, 2017), consisting of two photographic series entitled In-Between Worlds (2010-2015) and Wanderings (2015); artists Eruoma Awashish, Meky Ottawa and Jani Bellefleur-Kaltush, with their immersive installation KUSHAPETSHEKAN / KOSAPTCIKAN – A GLIMPSE INTO THE OTHER WORLD (until February 4, 2018), as well as recent acquisitions of works by Maria Hupfield and Rebecca Belmore. Woman. Artist. Indigenous. follows She Photographs (2016), which featured seventy works by thirty contemporary female photographers from Quebec and further afield, and Her Story Today (2015), which presented works by six contemporary Canadian female painters

For more information about the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts exhibitions and activities, visit the museum's website.

MMFA 2017: Wool War One

WOOL WAR ONE

An army of 780 small woollen soldiers in memory of the victims of the war and an ode to peace.

By artist Délit Maille 

November 11, 2017 - January 7, 2018

The installation opened on November 11, at the occasion of Remembrance Day. It pays tribute to the victims of the World War One (1914-1918) and commemorates the centennial anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. With this exhibition, the MMFA joins in solidarity to launch a message of peace.

Wool War One highlights the fragile destiny of the World War One participants and soldiers in general. It represents a battalion of 780 small soldiers knitted by five hundred volunteers from around the world. These small figurines, hurled together in marching rows, show how vulnerable and unprotected were the young men enlisted into this brutal war by the world powers that had no regard for their lives. All from different countries, yet they march together, even though they were killing each other on opposite sides of battlefields, being all equally heroes and victims of a war they did not create nor wished for. 

This installation is part of the MMFA's Year of Peace, a vast program of activities and exhibitions that began in November 2016 with the inauguration of the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion for Peace. The installation was conceived by the MMFA museum in collaboration with Atout France – the France Tourism Development Agency – and the First World War Centenary Partnership Programme. 

Wool War One: A 1,000-Hand Project

The idea of Wool War One emerged in 2013 when Délit Maille was asked by La Piscine, Musée d’art et d’industrie André Diligent, in Roubaix, to create a work for the centenary of the Great War. Wool War One took form after a visit to one of the immense military cemeteries in Northern France, where she noted names and ages of the fallen soldiers. She then launched a public appeal to make the 15 cm high soldiers. In just a few days, 499 women and one man volunteered to knit for the project. They were all ages, from all continents (just as in 1914 the soldiers came from all the continents).

Délit Maille assembled a 18 metre long army of little soldiers who render a silent vigil to the millions of lives shattered by this global conflict. The 780 soldiers are dressed in uniforms of nineteen countries that were engaged in the conflict; allies and enemies. They echo the Tricot National movement instituted in France at the outset of the war by French President Raymond Poincaré, who encouraged women to knit warm clothes for their brothers, sons, husbands or countrymen at the front.

Canadians Present in the Woollen Army

Newly arrived in Montreal, the woollen soldiers of Wool War One are grouped by nationality, with the French contingent being the most numerous. There are only 5 Canadian soldiers in this knitted army, although they were proportionately quite numerous and played a major role during the First World War when they succeeded in taking Vimy Ridge in 1917. They attacked a position that was already considered a graveyard, as the previous French attacks had all been driven off. Vimy became a symbol of sacrifice of Canadian soldiers, where 11,285 of them are buried. In the photo below, the line of 5 Canadian soldiers in khaki-beige uniforms.

This installation is on view in Atrium Moses Deitcher, at the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion for Peace – Level 2. 

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For more information about the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts exhibitions and activities, visit the museum's website.

MAC 2017: LEONARD COHEN

LEONARD COHEN

UNE BRÈCHE EN TOUTE CHOSE / A CRACK IN EVERYTHING

November 9 - April 9, 2018

Le Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC) – The  Montreal Museum of Contemorary Art - is presenting an international exhibition Leonard Cohen – Une brèche en toute chose / A Crack in Everything, inspired by the world of Leonard Cohen and the great themes of his work and his life. This major exhibition is the first to be entirely devoted to the imagination and legacy of this Montreal’s native son, who was the great singer/songwriter, a man of letters and a global icon.

CBC/Radio-Canada is the presenter of this unique exhibition, which will be opening tomorrow, on November 9, 2017, one year after Cohen’s passing.

The exhibition is part of the official program for this year’s Montréal’s 375th anniversary celebrations. It will be open to the visitors for 5 months and is presenting a number of works by artists: 

• 20 new works of art
• 40 artists from
• 10 countries
• A series of concerts and events in parallel with the exhibition

Klara Blake, Offerings

Leonard Cohen, a poet, novelist, singer and songwriter whose work is renowned worldwide, remains one of the most fascinating and enigmatic figures of our time. Having attracted a global audience during five decades of writing and music-making, he gained a huge cross-generational fan base. He is still revered by younger musicians and artists as a major figure from the 1960s who worked right into the early 21st century.

 

Candice Breitz, Cohen Grid

Bringing a major project to fruition

The MAC was especially proud to announce the exhibition program today since it has taken more than two years of work by the curators and artists to bring it to life. The exhibition, which was authorized by Leonard Cohen himself before he died, is designed to be a contemporary exploration of the great master’s impact and influence, coupled since his recent death, and with a desire to pay tribute to his life and work.

A life’s work revisited through contemporary art

This is a truly multidisciplinary exhibition combining visual art, virtual reality, installations, performances, music and writing. Leonard Cohen – Une brèche en toute chose / A Crack in Everything offers to the public a collection of brand-new work commissioned from and created by local and international artists who have been inspired by Leonard Cohen’s style and recurring themes. At the same time, it is a particularly Montreal-centric exhibition that has received outstanding support from the community.

The exhibition also includes innovative multimedia environments where Cohen’s songs will be covered and performed, as well as a survey of his archival material (writings, drawings and recordings produced over the past half-century).

Kota Ewaza, Cohen

Kota Ewaza, Cohen

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For more information on this exhibition and the numerous MAC museum activities, visit the museum's website.

Old Czech Legends by Jiří Trnka

OLD CZECH LEGENDS / Staré povesti ceské

ANIMATION FILM

CZECHOSLOVAKIA | 91 MINUTES | 1953| Czech with English Subtitles 

The Czeck film Director Jiří Trnka is renown as the great master of puppet making and puppet animation. His contribution to that special art form is quite significant. Because of his influence in animation, he was called "the Walt Disney of Eastern Europe".

For his Old Czech Legends, Trnka chose six classic Czech folktales, more specifically, historical legends that were put into a literary form in 1984 by the writer Alois Jirásek in his book with the same Czech title as Trnka's film.

Trnka is careful to vary the tales' tone and tempo, transforming long forgoten heroes of national legends into living characters, incarnated by his very unique puppets he designed and made himself. Trnka’s work is equally impressive for his innovative editing, lighting, and sound. He was a winner of many international film award, raising the bar for the future puppet animators and influencing their work, even of the Quay Brothers. 

The film represent a unique opportunity to become acquainted with the work of a master puppeteer Jiří Trnka, and to get to experience his way of transmitting a narrative through his animated puppets.

The film was featured at the Montreal's FNC 2017 film festival (Festival du noveau cinéma) in LES INCORTOUNABLES (THE UNAVOIDABLE) category.     

FNC OFFICIAL SYNOPSES

"The lives of the earliest inhabitants of the historic land of Bohemia, recounted in a series of six stop-motion animation segments. Released in 1953, this film by the Czech director breathes humanity and empathy into the folk tales behind the heroes and legends of Czechoslovakia. Inspired by the book Ancient Bohemian Legends by Alois Jirásek, Old Czech Legends is proof not just of Trnka’s outstanding artistry and puppeteering talent, but also his amazingly inventive use of cinematic language."

MMFA 2017: The Western

ONCE UPON A TIME… THE WESTERN
A New Frontier in Art and Film
October 14, 2017 - February 4, 2018

The Western is first major multidisciplinary exhibition on the myths and stereotypes associated with the genre of the Western film from the 19th century to today. It examines the creation, transmission and transformation of the Western myth in North America in both the United States and Canada. Over 400 paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, artefacts, film stills and excerpts show how the genre has evolved through ongoing dialogue between the fine arts and cinema. This multidisciplinary exhibition offers a new interpretation of the Western film genre by examining its links to visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography) from the mid-nineteenth century to today.

Initiated by the MMFA, the exhibition is co-produced with the Denver Art Museum (DAM). It is part of the official programming of Montreal’s 375th anniversary.

Similarly to movie making, THE WESTERN also comprises three elements: the set, the cast and the action.

• There are great paintings of Western landscapes, popular novels and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, all of which helped drive American Western mythology setting.
• The types of figures that presided over the creation of the Western, including the cowboy, the “Indian,” the trapper, the scout and the pioneer, have much to tell us about the prevailing stereotypes, conveyed by artist-illustrators such as Frederic Remington, harles Schreyvogel and Charles Marion Russell.
• The typologies for action are alsonestablished: attacks on a stagecoach or train, duels, saloon brawls, and cavalry charges.

The exhibition also traces the evolution of the Western, first through photography and then with excerpts from numerous films: from silent shorts (The Great Train Robbery) to the big screen with Raoul Walsh, Howard Hawks, Fred Zinnemann, Robert Aldrich, John Huston, Sam Peckinpah, John Schlesinger and Henry Hathaway, among others. John Ford embodies the culmination of the classic Western, while Sergio Leone, with his iconoclastic detachment, reframes the genre. The overview concludes with the Western revisited, with films by Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, Ang Lee, Joel and Ethan Coen, Tommy Lee Jones and Paul Thomas Anderson.

The exhibition also shows how the genre served as a means of expression for the counter-culture movement during the Vietnam War, with films that reflected the growing concern for safeguarding personal freedom. Visitors will see the original Harley Davidson from the film Easy Rider and major paintings by Andy Warhol and Fritz Scholder that speak to the emergence of the American Indian Movement.

The final part of the exhibition concentrates on a reinterpretation of the Western genre by contemporary artists from the 1980s till today. These works also cover the themes of race, sexuality and gender. Indigenous artists also participate with their own take on the Western.

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For more information about the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts exhibitions and activities, visit the museum's website.

Playing with Fire

Centaur Theatre /49th Season

PLAYING WITH FIRE: THE THEO FLEURY STORY

Persephone Theatre Production

Quebec Premiere

Directed by RON JENKINS

Performed by SHAUN SMYTH

October 3 - 29, 2017

The play is based on the book Playing With Fire by THEO FLEURY & KIRSTIE MCLELLAN DAY.

The play is a remarkable solo, two-hour-long performance by Shaun Smyth who impersonates Theo (Theoren) Freury in his autobiographical onstage narrative. Those who might be seated in the first rows will be especially impressed with the tremendous physical stamina required to play this role. The actor's sweat is as real as his skating skills, and the force he puts into his enactment of Fleury's life is remarkable. You don't have to be a hockey fun or expert to appreciate this play. It speaks directly to the audience, portraying Theo's hockey star career and life turbulences that he so remarkably succeeded to overcome.

Extremely successful on ice, Fleury went through tough knocks in his life: uncaring parents, despicable sexual abuse from the person of trust who was building his future hockey carrier, his later alcoholism, drug abuse, gambling and womanizing. Through all that, playing hockey was central in his life, the anchoring stone of sorts, that brought him through various life perils. He was undeniably a great success on ice, but not in his private life. Nevertheless, he managed to navigated through tough knocks, and later to take them with a grain of salt and even irony as revealed in the play based on his co-authored book.  

Fleury  was one of the smallest professional ice hockey players at his times, only 5' 3" (168 cm) tall, yet he was known for his physical style that often led to altercations. He played for Calgary Flames, Colorado Avalanche, New York Rangers, and Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey league (NHL), Tappara of Finland's SM-liiga, and the Belfast Giants of the UK's Elite Ice Hockey League. He was drafted by the Flames at the 1987 NHL Entry Draft, and played over 1,000 games in the NHL between 1989 and 2003.

The play's set is quite unique - a hockey ring where the actor actually skates. What looks like ice is made of plastic that is refereed to as 'plastic ice'. The skates do not glide as easily on it as on real ice, forcing the actor, Shaun Smyth, to exert an extra effort to make his skating seem effortless. Smyth was not a hockey player and in fact not even an avid scater. All the skating skills and passes one sees on the stage are the result of Theo Fleary's personal coaching. Many gestures and moves are exact copies of Fleury's style.

Although the Persephone Theatre Production had received a number of request to permit other theatre institutions to stage this play, all were refused because it was feared they will not be able to capture the real spirit of the play and portray Theo Fleary and his journey with enough authenticity and or even fineness. 'Finness' might appear as a wrong word since a good number of profanities are used in the play, mirroring the exact manner of Theo's speech, yet the play handles quite delicately the narrative of the sexual abuse that justifies this term.

PRODUCTION TEAM

Set and Lighting Designer - David Fraser

Lighting Director - Dean Cowieson

Projection Video Design - Corwin Ferguson

Sound Designer and Composer - Matthew Skopyk

Costume Designer - Juli Elkiw

Stage Manager - Melanie Rogowski

Assistant Stage Manager - Elyse Quesnel

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For more information, visit the Centaur Theatre website.

Sunday Chat-ups

Sunday Oct. 8 @ 12:30pm

FREE

Join Editor in Chief, Lucinda Chodan, in conversation with Playing With Fire playwright, Kirstie McLellan Day.

Saturday Salons

Saturday Oct. 7 & 14

Following the matinee performance.

FREE

Get to know Centaur’s new Artistic and Executive Director, Eda Holmes, in casual conversation about this production and all things Centaur.

Both Chat-up and Salons are being held in the Ted T. Katz Family Trust Gallery and are open to public. Complimentary refreshments are offered courtesy of Bonaparte Restaurant.

Talk-Backs

Oct. 12 (Eve) & Oct. 15 (Matinée)

Following the performance.

FREE

 Audiences are invited to stay 

after the show for a lively 

Q&A with actor, Shaun Smyth.