MMFA 2023: Wolves-The Art of Dempsey Bob

 

WOLFS

THE ART OF DEMPSEY BOB

May 18 - September 10, 2023

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA)  presents the exhibition Wolves: The Art of Dempsey Bob. This is the first full-career retrospective of Tahltan-Tlingit artist Dempsey Bob. The exhibition brings together some sixty works by this artist who is at the forefront of a centuries-old tradition of wood-carving on Canada's Northwest Coast.

Dempsey Bob was born in Telegraph Creek, British Columbia, He was part of the first generation of Northwest Coast carvers to sell their works at newly developing southern Indigenous art markets at the beginning of the early 1980s. It was then that the established museums were starting to understand Northwest Coast cultures as living, evolving entities, alive in the present.

Bob's carvings blend traditional narratives and iconography with contemporary influences. His exposure to oral histories, songs and dances from his young age has formed his understanding of art and its purpose within the community. At once traditionalist and avant-garde, Bob acknowledges the lineage to which he is indebted. What stands out is the quality of is carvings, the remarkable smoothness and the sensuousness of their surfaces unequalled in the world of Northwest Coast carving today.

With personal daring, Bob reinterprets the traditional characters and iconography from the age-old stories of his people by occasionally inflecting these traditional tales with influences drawn from European art. During a residency in New Zealand, he was asked to carve a head from a square block of wood. Moving the central feature of the nose to the corner position instead of a frontal one, he discovered an off-kilter way of presenting a face that was more sculpture than mask. That shift led to the experimental works featured at the exhibition, in which conventional mask-making gives way to contemporary experimentation in form and storytelling, as the subjects seems to be caught in mid-transformation.

About Dempsey Bob

At the forefront of a centuries-old tradition of wood-carving on the Canada's Northwest Coast, the Tahltan-Tlingit artist Dempsey Bob (born in 1948) has played a key role in the revitalization of British Columbian culture, both as an artist and a teacher. During his days in Prince Rupert where he lived as a young man, Bob studied with the legendary Haida artist Freda Diesing (1925-2002), one of the few women to carve totem poles. Over the years, he developed his artistry through constant reference to tradition and through his intense investigation of the Northwest Coast historic art objects at Canadian and international collections, and also studying the European sculpture and the South Pacific art.

 Raised in the vibrant cannery milieu of the Skeena River valley and trained in the mainland Indigenous practices of mask and pole carving, Bob has developed his own sense of line that imbues his works with vitality. In his later creations, he has shifted away from the frontal composition, exploring sculptural forms that break free from the past.

Dempsey Bob is one of the important teachers of his generation. He is a founding member of the Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art in Terrace, British Columbia, where he lives and teaches today. For his contributions to the field of art, he was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2013 and recently received the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for his Artistic Achievement (2021).

Bob's book, In His Own Voice, edited by Sarah Milroy in collaboration with the McMichael Canadian Art Collection and the Audain Art Museum, is a 2023 BC and Yukon Book Prizes finalist and made the BC Bestseller List of 2022.

Alongside the wood carvings, the exhibition showcases objects created by Dempsey Bob and his sister, Linda Bob – a heavy robe, a blanket and a chief's robe – illustrating their collaboration, a union of their respective, complementary practices.

Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion – Level 3

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

Click on images to enlarge them.

All photos @ Nadia Slejskova

For this article's dedicated internet address, click on the title above the very first photo.

Centaur Theatre 55th Season

Centaur Theatre 55th Season

CENTAUR THEATRE ANNOUNCES ITS 2023/24 SEASON:

BUILDING THE FUTURE @ CENTAUR

BREAKING NEW GROUND IN OLD MONTREAL IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE

April 20, 2023

PRESENTING:

alterNatives

October 17 – November 5, 2023

The English-language production of Menuentakuan’s alterNatives

Written by Drew Hayden Taylor / Directed by Xavier Huard

With Charles Bender, Natalie Tannous, Étienne Thibeault, Lesly Velazquez, Nadia Verrucci, and Xavier Watso

Moose roast, meatless lasagna, and biting social commentary are on the menu in this irreverent comedy of manners from one of the leading Indigenous playwrights in Canada.

GUILT (a love story)

March 12 – 30, 2024

The Tarragon Theatre production of GUILT (a love story)

Written and Performed by Diane Flacks / Directed by Alisa Palmer

A sharply perceptive and painfully funny one-woman show confronting the unshakable monster that is guilt.

Thy Woman’s Weeds

April 23 – May 12, 2024

In partnership with Repercussion and Tableau D’Hôte 

Written by Erin Shields / Directed by Amanda Kellock

With Deena Aziz, Leni Parker, Joy Ross-Jones, Espoir Segbeaya, Warona Setshwaelo, Felicia Shulman, and Julie Tamiko Manning

Seven of Montreal’s finest actresses pull back the curtain on the Bard in this bold behind-the-scenes look at what it means to be a woman working with Shakespeare today.

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For more information on the present and future programs and activities, visit the Centaur Theatre website.

McCord Stewart Museum 2023 : Hochelaga

Hochelaga - Evolving Montreal

by Joannie Lafrenière

Showcasing the neighbourhood’s wonderful people

March 31 - September 10, 2023

This exhibition represents the second part of the Evolving Montreal photographic commission. Joannie Lafrenière, a photographer and filmmaker, offers an intimate dive into the Hochelaga neighbourhood. The exhibition brings together different encounters, videos, photographs and poetry and is an invitation to explore the artist’s view of what constitutes the essence of Hochelaga today.

Located in the south-east of the city, Hochelaga is steeped in a working-class and Frenchspeaking past. Its population has played a major role in the city’s industrial development. Like other Montreal neighbourhoods, Hochelaga has rapidly transformed over the past few years. The vision of a popular Hochelaga is slowly fading away under the social and economic pressures of gentrification.

Lafrenière has a deep affection for the streets and alleys, but especially for the people of this neighbourhood where she has lived for 18 years. The close relationships she establishes with the subjects of her photographs and films are at the heart of the stories she tells. The exhibition introduces the public to individuals who have crossed the artist’s path and who to her personify the heart of Hochelaga.

Lafrenière states:

“Through this intimate portrait of my neighbourhood, I want to give a dignified voice to forgotten and marginalized people as well as to important individuals who have crossed my path during the last two decades spent in Hochelaga. My intention is to highlight their beauty and colour, without masking the harshness of the experience imprinted in their features, bodies and hearts, to highlight both what is left of this working-class neighbourhood and what is being transformed as it is gentrified.”

A poetic journey

Visitors will notice Benoit Bordeleau’s poetry on the walls of the exhibition. Composed for the exhibition or excerpts from his collection Orange Pekoe (2021), the poet’s verses and stanzas dot the gallery with reflections on life in the neighbourhood and tributes to the resilience of his community, in dialogue with the images encountered in the exhibition.

Hochelaga, an evolving neighbourhood

Launched by the McCord Stewart Museum in 2019, the Evolving Montreal photographic commission program supports documentary projects that testify to the transformations of Montreal neighbourhoods through unique points of view. “The idea behind Evolving Montreal was born from the conviction that the Museum should play a more active role, both in supporting the local photographic community and in building its own photography collection. The remarkable creativity and documentary value of the projects produced so far in the series are eloquent proof that encouraging contemporary photographers to capture the continuous transformation of the city is a fruitful undertaking,” explains Zoë Tousignant, Curator, Photography.

Click on Images to enlarge them

All photos @ Nadia Slejskova

For more information about current exhibitions and activities, visit the McCord Museum website.

MMFA 2023: Nalini Malani

NALINI MALANI

CROSSING BOUNDARIES

March 23 – August 20, 2023

Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion – Level S2

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) presents works of Nalini Malani, one of India’s most important contemporary artists. This is her the first-ever Canadian solo exhibition. It showcases her powerfully engaged works that address social inequalities and violence, the subject matter she has dealt with for more than 50 years. Through her art, she gives voice to the subjugated, marginalized, and oppressed, especially women.

Malani has developed a unique multi-media practice that encompasses video, film, animation, painting, drawing and immersive installations.

The exhibition consists of Malani's three works:

Can You Hear Me? (2018-2020).

An acclaimed video installation, an immersive nine-channel animation chamber consisting of eighty-eight animations hand-drawn with the artist’s index finger on an iPad. Marking her first use of digital technology to make drawings, this work is described by Malani as the human mind full of turmoil, fantasies and ideas. Literary characters and mythological figures, accompanied by curious sounds, overlap with allusions to political events, personal thoughts and fragments of text by leading writers from diverse cultural backgrounds that together address global issues of social injustice, including gender inequality, civil conflict and cultural hegemony.

The installation Can You Hear Me? by Nalini Malani at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Sarralves, Porto, 2020. Nine-Channel animation chamber. © Nalini Malani. Photo Filipe Braga

City of Desires—Crossing Boundaries (1992-2023)

It is a new and latest situ iteration of the artist’s ongoing Wall Drawing/Erasure Performance series, which uses drawing and erasure to explore the politics and poetics of memory. Materializing processes of remembrance and forgetting, this performative drawing prompts powerful reflection on the fragility of our shared traditions and experiences. Anchoring the project in the Montreal community, Malani has selected two Montreal-based artists, Iuliana Irimia and Cassandra Dickie, to collaborate on the drawing of the mural. The artwork will be on view at a busy junction in the Museum located close to the Contemporary Art Square. When the exhibition closes, the drawings will be erased in a performance directed by Malani. 

Notice further personages-faces in this mural that are not immediately noticeable. Search for more...

Ballad of a Woman (2023)

It is a major work created specially for the exhibition. It will be projected on the facade of the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion, as part of the MMFA’s Digital Canvas project. The projection starts each day at sunset and ends at 23:00.

This hand-drawn animation tells the story of a woman who is murdered and, in her afterlife, cleans up the traces of her death, protecting her killer. For Malani, this act after death symbolizes the undue burden of self-sacrifice borne by women since time immemorial. In this major new work, the bold colours, dramatic movement and dynamic lines of the film camouflage its darker message, like so many of life’s distractions that make suffering harder to discern. 

Nalini Malani

Recognized as the pioneer of video art in India, Nalini Malani (born in 1946) has been working in a variety of artistic media since the 1960s. Her practice integrates animation, theatre arts, photography, reverse painting on glass, performance art, cinema and video. Winner of the 2019 Joan-Miró Prize, she has notably presented her work in thirty solo museum exhibitions worldwide, including most recently at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Whitechapel Gallery, London, M+, Hong Kong and the National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, and the National Gallery, London.

https://www.instagram.com/nalinimalani/

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

Click on images to enlarge them.

All photos of City of Desires—Crossing Boundaries mural © Nadia Slejskova

MMFA 2023: History of Women in Design

PARALL(ELLES)

A History of Women in Design

February 18 – May 28, 2023

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is presenting Parall(elles): A History of Women in Design in collaboration with the Stewart Program for Modern Design. This major exhibition celebrates the key role women played in the world of design through a rich selection of art works and objects dating from the mid-19th century onwards. Parall(elles) highlights the remarkable work and contributions of those who worked outside of mainstream industrial design that historically has been inaccessible to the majority of women, as well as those who made contributions but received little credit until recently. It also examines the reasons why women were underrepresented in the field of design throughout the history, and delves on the expanded understanding of what constitutes design.

The term “design,” as it is most commonly used today, refers more specifically to industrial design – to the mass-produced, professionally designed object – thus excluding the work of the majority of women designers throughout history. For this reason, Parall(elles) presents viewers with a wide-ranging definition of “design” that extends from artisanal craftwork to industrial design and includes ceramics, glass, metalwork, jewellery, textiles, furniture, consumer products, graphics, fashion and interior design. The exhibition aims to present viewers with an alternative reading of design history – a parallel history – that serves to impress the exceptional influence of women designers on mainstream consciousness.

Parall(elles): A History of Women in Design highlights the breadth and complexity of these works by situating them against the backdrop of social, political and personal issues that shaped their experiences across time. The exhibition traces the development of educational and professional opportunities available to women, the evolution of the status of crafts and the impact that women’s rights movements had on their practices. It also considers the intersectionality of gender, identity, race, culture and class to provide a deeper understanding of the varied roles and achievements of women.

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

Click on images to enlarge them.

All Photos © Nadia Slejskova

Blue Metropolis 2023

BLUE METROPOLIS 2023

INTERNATIONAL LITERARY FESTIVAL
25th EDITION

PROGRAM UNVEILING

March 16, 2023

Online from April 12

Special event with Margaret Atwood on April 17

The future of the planet, of democracy and identities, of languages and people, and of our imaginations: this is the theme of the 2023 edition of the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, gearing up to celebrate 25 years. It all kicks off online starting April 12, and culminates in a massive in-person program from April 27 to 30 in Montreal, at beautiful Hotel 10. What will the decades to come hold for our communities, our literature, our freedoms and aspirations? Festivalgoers will have a chance to look ahead with a staggering range of author events and performances in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and other languages such as Welsh, Ojibway, ancient Greek, and Innu-Aimun, and featuring over 200 Quebec, Canadian, and international writers, thinkers, and artists converging on Montreal. Not to miss is a pre-Festival live event with Margaret Atwood on April 17.

"We are thrilled and honoured to offer such important authors and thought-provoking events for this special 25th anniversary edition of the Festival. We now reach beyond Montreal with our extensive online programming, and eagerly anticipate the buzz of in person gatherings and lively discussions. This year, our illustrious invited writers look to the future, I can't wait to join them and share their gaze."– Marie-Andrée Lamontagne, Director General, Programming and Communications, Blue Metropolis

Leading voices from here and abroad

This anniversary edition shines a bright light on Montreal’s thriving literary communities, and features local writers alongside nationally and internationally acclaimed authors.

As a very special pre-festival event, on April 17 at St. James United Church, Margaret Atwood is in conversation onstage talking about Old Babes in the Woods, her latest collection of short stories. The Festival’s illustrious April 27-30 program includes a packed lineup of storied writers—Duncan Mercredi, the 2023 laureate of the Blue Metropolis First Peoples Prize; 2023 Azul Prize laureate Lina Meruane; British author Philippe Sands; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Paul Harding; American-Canadian novelist Rivka Galchen; Israeli writer Yaël Neeman; French travel writer Sylvain Tesson; and 2022 Governor General-winning Anishinaabe author Eli Baxter, among many more. Michael Ondaatje, internationally acclaimed author of Warlight and The English Patient, will be recognized for his body of work with the 2023 Blue Metropolis International Grand Prize.

Not to be missed is a conversation on Leonard Cohen at the Congregation Shaar Hashomayim with writer and international law expert Philippe Sands, along with cantor Gideon Zelermyer; and a sci-fi retelling of the Haudenosaunee confederation story from Mohawk multimedia artist Skawennati, among other Indigenous events and many highlights. The Festival also presents a special evening with Blue Metropolis founder Linda Leith, a big night for the Atwater Poetry Project, local favourites Dimitri Nasrallah, Christopher DiRaddo, and Daniel Allen Cox on how Montreal is evolving, and an intimate conversation with most recent Blue Metropolis/Conseil des arts de Montréal New Horizons Prize laureates Tawhida Tanya Evanson (2022) and the 2023 winner, whose name will be unveiled on April 29^th during the Grand Prix award ceremony. 

Major event series

Blue Met is back with its always special series programming.

The regularly sold-out Jerusalem of the Mind event returns featuring Israel author Maya Savir and Palestinian filmmaker Rami Younis, with Montrealers Carlos Fraenkel and Ehab Lotayef. This year’s panel sparks questions like: What is an activist’s role? A writer’s? How does the current political situation affect literature in Palestine and Israel? Expect another packed Almemar series.

Meanwhile, the Book under Pressure series addresses current issues in the literary world and the book industry, while the popular Azul series features acclaimed authors Jorge Carríon, Cristina Morales and Carol Bensimon. Worth noting is the LGBTQ+ series, featuring a special Violet Hour reading event and numerous queer and trans authors, including Su J. Sokol, Festival spokesperson Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, Laura Doyle Péan, Jen Currin, and 2023 Blue Metropolis Violet Prize laureate, playwright  Michel Marc Bouchard. The Festival’s series on sci-fi and fantasy draws readers into lesser-known, strange, and stimulating worlds-- queer speculative fiction, hope punk, Afrofantasy and graphic video books. The NEXT series is the most ambitious emerging artist programming yet. It focuses on English-language talent from underrepresented communities, offering workshops, carte blanche events, and podcasts featuring community leaders.

Get Your Festival Pass and rebates

The Festival Pass is back with a twist. For $25, festivalgoers have access to the Festival’s bountiful program, along with a special $25 rebate on books at Paragraphe Bookstore, the Festival’s official bookseller, which will be setting up shop at Hotel 10 from April 27 to 30 inclusively.

The future is online too

The Festival’s virtual program is really hitting its stride, with three events starting April 12: a tribute to Innu poet Josephine Bacon, winner of the First Peoples Prize; a conversation between Gioconda Belli and Claudia Piñeiro; and a discussion on capitalism and literature. The online programming kicked off in late February with the Tio’tia:ke/Montréal literary walking tour, a Strides podcast series that takes a decolonial look at Montreal. Tune in as well for a literary look at green Montreal with the Montréal vert walking-tour podcast series on April 23, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Plenty for kids and families

Presented in over 50 libraries, schools, Greater Montreal bookstores, and about 40 daycare centres across Quebec, the TD–Blue Metropolis Children’s Festival is an every-green, year-round affair. This spring’s activities will take place between April 21 and 30, with a full slate of events for the whole family on both weekends, and events exclusively for school groups during the week.

BLUE Metropolis AT A GLANCE

The Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival is one of the largest multilingual literary events in North America. For several days each year, writers from Quebec, Canada, and around the world converge on Montreal. Attendees are treated to live interviews, round-table discussions, public readings, debates, masterclasses, readings, and writing workshops. Every year, the Festival is built around several strong themes that bear witness to a keen social awareness and a passion for literature in all its richness.

Established in 1997, the Blue Metropolis Foundation is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to bring together people from different cultures to share the pleasures of reading and writing and encourage creativity and cross-cultural understanding. The Foundation presents the annual Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival and offers a wide range of educational and social programs year-round in classrooms, libraries, and online, using writing and reading as therapeutic tools, to encourage students to stay in school, and to combat poverty and exclusion.

Printable program available.

For more information, visit the festival's website