First Peoples Festival - Montreal

23rd Edition: Présence autochtone

First Peoples Festival

July 30, 2013 - August 5, 2013

Montreal is once again hosting its annual and very popular First Peoples Festival at the Place de festival at the down-town's heart of the city.

Among the many activities, that would include, for instance the native dances and crafts workshops, the under the sky projection of an excellent selection of films, and others, I would especially like to stress the presence of the first peoples' works of art featured along with street activities. 

There will be an opportunity to discover recent works by Malecite artist Ginette Aubin in an exhibition titled Le chemin des appartenances, at the Canadian Guild of Crafts, from July 17 to August 10, and view an anthology exhibition of prints created by young Mohawk artists from Kahnesatake during CIEM’s creative internship sessions; Là où est notre maison, at Maison de la culture Verdun, from July 24 to September 1^st (a Conseil des arts de Montréal touring activity). 

For more information on the Montreal's First Peoples Festival visit the festival's website

http://presenceautochtone.ca

MMFA: Dale Chihuly Exhibition

Chihuly: Utterly Breathtaking

June 8 - October 30, 2013

"I'm obsessed with colour - never saw one I didn't like." Dale Chihuly

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is presenting a Canadian exclusive exhibition of works of the American artist Dale Chihuly. He is considered as the “Tiffany” of our times, after having revolutionized the Studio Glass movement, elevating glass from the realm of craft to that of fine art. The fine example of this is his sculpture The Sun seen on the photo above. It consists of 1,200 pieces of glass - sun rays and solar explosions.

This exhibition is made to measure for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Chihuly paid a special attention to measuring  all the designated spaces at the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion to create a unique layout. This resulted in eight immersive environments, four of which were designed specifically for MMFA. One of them is the arrangement seen in the image on the upper left. This installation is placed just above the staircase which leads to the Chihuly exhibition. The image on the bottom shows Chihuly's sculpure Turquoise Reeds that greet the visitors at the top of the same staircase. (Click on an image to get an enlarged photo view as well as a photo gallery of all the images in the text.)

Chihuly's artistic imagery comes from natural forms seen in nature. Since childhood, Chihuly had a special affinity to nature and vegetation. He attributes this toe to his mother's profound love for gardens and gardening.  

Chihuly's Persian Ceiling is a powerful work. Though the room itself is empty and the installation proper covers only the entire ceiling, the light play on the walls and throughout the space animates the room.

An entire large room is devoted to huge glass chandeliers. Together, they create a chandelier installation which really resembles an enchanted tree forest.

There is another installation at the exhibition which is called a forest, a Glass Forest, quite different from the forest effect created in the chandeliers room. It is a neon light forest.

Another theme is that of boats and water. Two boats on display are quite spectacular, and there reflection in the black surface creates the illusion of water.

 Dale Chihuly's love of natural forms and vegetation and the way he translates it into his art will delight visitors of all ages: small children as well as grown ups.

Visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts's website for more information

You can purchase a superbly illustrated Chihuly catalogue at the Museum's Boutique and Store.

McCord Museum: Grace Kelly-Beyond the Icon

From Philadelphia to Monaco:
Grace Kelly - Beyond the Icon

June 6 - October 6, 2013

This  exhibition is produced by the Grimaldi Forum Monaco in collaboration with the Montreal's McCord Museum. It is based on an exhibition by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK, a first for North America. The exhibition spotlights Grace Kelly's film career as well as her personality, talent and values.

The very first room in the exhibition is devoted to Grace Kelly's film career. The walls are lined with film posters, there are large screens with the extracts from her films, and in the centre are displayed elegant costumes and dresses she wore during her starlet cinema career (see image above). The rest of the exhibition is devoted to Grace Kelly's Princess of Monaco style. 

There are many magnificent gowns at the exhibitions as well as some family photos, love letters, notes of friendship and other memorabilia. The visit to this exhibition could prove to be quite memorable.

To find more about the exhibit visit the McCord Museum website. In addition you can find more about the cinema part of the exhibition in my blog News Reel.

Geoffrey Smedley at CCA

Geoffrey
Smedley's
Sculpture -
Instalation
at the
Canadian Centre
for Architecture

June 6 - August 11, 2013

Geoffrey Smedley is a Vancouver-based artist whose work takes roots in many disciplines such as mechanics and movement, history of science, geometry, philosophy and architecture. He was born in London, England, and for many years engaged in British abstract and constructivist art.

Smedley’s present exhibition at the Montreal’s Canadian Centre for Architecture consists of four sculptures where all four pieces form a one whole. The main philosophical bases of the installation is the mythic figure of the Descartes' Clown, a neurotic and an insecure robot. This offers a critique of the mechanization of man implicit in Descartes’ unfinished treaties The Description of the Human Body, written in 1647.

In addition, the exhibition features a selection of Smedley’s personal notebooks with notes and drawings from the first sketches and through the subsequent illustrated design development. They reveal his conceptual process and practices and the connection to architectural thinking. 

For more information about the exhibition and other activities, visit the Canadian Centre for Architecture website.

http://www.cca.qc.ca/en

List of images 
(From top down and from left to right)

1. Geoffrey Smedley, Logos: The memory - the organ of remembering and forgetting, 2013, CCA Montreal 2013, Photo N. Slejskova

2. Geoffrey Smedley, Spine: The central nervous system - the organ of extension (Head-Brain), 2013, CCA Montreal 2013, Photo N. Slejskova

3. Geoffrey Smedley, Spine: The central nervous system - the organ of extension (3 spine sections), 2013, CCA Montreal 2013, Photo N. Slejskova

4. Geoffrey Smedley, Escapement: The pulse - the organ of endurance, 2013, CCA Montreal 2013, Photo N. Slejskova

5. Geoffrey Smedley, Roulette: The will - the organ of chance, 2013, CCA Montreal 2013, Photo N. Slejskova

6. Geoffrey Smedley, Notebook, CCA Montreal 2013, Photo N. Slejskova

Claude Cormier in the spotlight at the MMFA

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Sculpture Garden

MMFA: May-October 2013
Field of Poppies - TOM II

Claude Cormier is an internationally renowned Quebec landscape artist, an architect and urban designer. His work, entitled Field of Poppies - TOM II, is installed in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' Sculpture Garden on Du Musée Avenue. Located at the heart of the Museum complex, the Sculpture Garden features twenty-three works by Quebec, Canadian and international artists. It is one of the largest collections of public art in the city. The section of Du Musée Avenue bordering the Sculpture Garden has been transformed into a pedestrian mall until October.

This year, to celebrate this public space created at the heart of the Quartier du Musée, the MMFA and the Ville de Montréal asked Claude Cormier to create another temporary work. Field of Poppies - TOM II is composed of 5,060 red, green and white TOMs. The surprising optical effect, inspired by Claude Monet’s Poppy Field, transforms the avenue into a “field of flowers” where pedestrians are free to roam.

MMFA: May - October 2012
Carpet of Daises - TOM I

Previous year, in 2012, for several months Claude Cormier transformed a section of the asphalt on Du Musée Avenue into a carpet of daisies, as seen in the picture below. The work was called Carpet of Daises - TOM I. It was made of 3,500 temporary overlay markers (TOMs), which are raised markers that delineate temporary lanes on highways.

The markers were laid out as a regular grid, forming pointillist shifts between the yellow and the white. This  work created a strong chromatic link between the Museum’s separate pavilions.

For the subsequent editions of Claude Cormier's TOM installations visit these articles:

• MMFA 2014: Mirage - TOM III  here.
• MMFA 2017: Flower Power - TOM IV  here.

Click on images to enlarge them.

SIDIM 2013: Montreal International Design Show

SIDIM: 25th Edition

May 24-28, 2013

In June 2006 Montreal was officially designated UNESCO City of Design. The city has a long tradition in design excellence, of which it is very proud. Each year, it holds a vast design show at the Place Bonaventure exhibition area which is extremely popular with the Montreal public.

This year, SIDIM, the Montreal International Design Show, celebrates its 25^th edition. Founded in 1989, the DESIGN SHOW is coordinated by PID Agency. In 25 years, it has become the major design event in Canada. Recognized as one of the most elegant and design performer-oriented shows in North America, The DESIGN SHOW is a major forum displaying the best achievements in industrial and interior design. It covers architecture and construction, graphic design and multimedia, as well as fashion design.

 During four days, under one single roof, the Show brings together interior designers, architects, distributors, business people, consumers, and a number of media professionals.

Whether people wish to undertake renovations or construction, to find design elements that will rejuvenate their home or simply add a touch of originality, colour or elegance to their favourite room, more than 20,000 visitors to the DESIGN SHOW will be able to meet industry leaders chosen for the quality of their products and excellence in their respective fields.

For more information about the show visit

http://www.sidim.com

Here are three more photos from the show:

CCA: Archaeology of the Digital

Archaeology of the Digital

7 May–13 October 2013

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) is hosting a new exhibition Archaeologyof the Digital which delves into the beginnings and the establishment of digital tools for design, mainly the  conceptualization, visualization and production at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. This is the first in a series of activities at the CCA that is concerned with the study, preservation, and presentation of the digital in architecture.

The exhibition is curated by an architect Greg Lynn. Both the exhibition and the related publication were chosen to be object-based investigations of four pivotal projects which established distinct directions in the architecture’s use of digital tools:

- Lewis Residence by Frank Gehry (1985–1995)

- Peter Eisenman‘s Frankfurt Biozentrum (1987)

- Chuck Hoberman‘s Expanding Sphere (1992)

- Shoei Yoh‘s roof structures for Odawara Gymnasium (1991) and Galaxy Toyama Gymnasium (1992)

The CCA Director and Chief Cutrator Mirko Zardini stated:

"Archaeology of the Digital also suggests a great sense of loss marked by the fact that most of the digital material produced for these projects is gone. The imminent danger of losing even more records compelled us to take a first step towards collecting, documenting, and making them accessible."

This project represents the first step in the CCA’s strategic objective of creating a collection of digital architecture.

Captions of the photo montage above

From left to right: 

Frank O. Gehry, Lewis Residence, Lyndhurst, Ohio: Study model of the entry hall (detail). 1989 –1995. Image provided by Gehry Partners, LLP 

Peter Eisenman, Eisenman/Robertson Architects, Biozentrum, Biology Center for the J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Schematic representation of a DNA sequence (detail), 1987. Peter Eisenman fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture 

Chuck Hoberman Hoberman Associates, Expanding aluminum sphere, partially deployed (detail), 1991. © Walter Wick 

Shoei Yoh + Architects, Galaxy Toyama, Gymnasium, Imizu, Toyama, Japan: Experiment of photoelasticity for the roof (detail), 1990 –1992 © Shoei Yoh + Architects

McCord Museum: Wearing Our Identity

Wearing Our Identity
The First People Collection

Opens May 2, 2013 

The Montreal's McCord Museum is hosting a new exhibition - Wearing Our Identity. This show will unable the public to explore the complex heritage of the First Peoples of Canada and to understand how their dress helped to define their rich culture and identities.

The dress, beyond its main purpose of protection, tells others about the wearer's age and status, gives information about the nation the person belongs to and his achievements. It also highlights the relationship between people and nature as an inseparable whole.
  

This First People Collection consists of some 100 items dating from the end of the 19th century till today, including works by contemporary Aboriginal artists. Twice per year new works will be selected and added to the exhibition. In addition, about
85% of the exhibited items will be renewed each year. This will provide the public with an opportunity for additional visits to the museum.

Visit the McCord Museum's website for more information about the opening hours and other activities.