It’s Thursday so you know what that means….
There are like 400 openings in Montreal tonight, and I am going to attempt to make it to all of them. Here, in no particular order (or maybe, in order of geography, really, that geography being based on things closest to and then furthest away from my home, which of course, is how everything should be done):
La Rentreé chez Clark - Centre d’art et de diffusion CLARK, 5455 de Gaspé, local 114 8pm-11:55pm
The first exhibition of the season from Centre Clark, it seems as if this exhibition is one of those 2-in-1 jobs. I think. Hard to say, a wee confusing. I am a confused person, generally. But there is definitely going to be one exhibition here entitled Le Son a des Jambes, curated by Eric Mattson featuring exploratory reflections about sound as material seen (or heard, or otherwise) through the eyes and hands of Jérôme Fortin, Jean-Pierre Gauthier, and Minibloc. The title playfully extrapolates ideas that John Cage was digging around when he coined the phrase « Sound has no legs to stand on ».
The other part of the evening and of the Clark gallery might be a salon from 1000 years ago. Yeah. I don’t know. I will change this blog-post once I have been and so you won’t even remember that this sentence was fraught with such muddled uncertainty.
At any and all rates, it’s always a fun time going to the first show of the season, and it’s always fun at Clark, so no chance of screwing this one up, friends.
The Story of Flying Robert - Red Bird Gallery and Studios, 135 Van Horne, 7pm-midnight
The Story of Flying Robert is the third collaborative showing by Rebecca Rosen and Naomi Cook, who are also the co-directors of the Red Bird. For the exhibition, Cook and Rosen illustrate in large-scale narrative format Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann’s morality folktale about a boy and his umbrella. The drawing here is one of the examples of Naomi’s work.
Thesis Show, Margaret’s Mountain - MFA Gallery, Concordia Fine Arts Building, 1395 René-Lévesque Blvd
Elisabeth Belliveau has been doing animation for some time now, but just the still images alone from this 13-minute short are making me excited about going down to check out the film in full. A rare chance to see the work with the artist in attendance, and to get a chance to go to the best building at Concordia, the old fine arts building, which is personally my favourite of the lot.
Stick-in-the-mud & Équations et Idylles Identitaires - Galerie [sas] , Belgo Building, 372 Ste Catherine ouest, Space 416, 5:00-8:00pm
This one is definitely a triple exposition, no question, 3 shows from 3 local artists: Équations et Idylles Identitaires (2Fik) Bataille (Denise Santillan) and Stick-in-the mud (Marilyne Blais).
I have appreciated 2Fik’s work for quite some time now and am looking forward to seeing it in the flesh, as it were. His photography straddles lines of gender, sexuality, cultural understanding and race in very funny, very daring and very heartening ways. Seriously. I mean that. And I know that thousands of academic papers across North America have used the sentence I just did, but unlike said papers, 2Fik’s work itself blasts through my potential clichés and turns them into something of more substance. I promise.
Marilyne Blais and Denise Santillan are both illustrators. Denise Santillan uses her pen feathers to explore a the subject of hair. In contrast to her large-scale works, Blais’ miniratures create strange and ambivalent worlds derived more from dreams than from reality. One gets the impression of characters from a remote or perhaps even forgotten region where no civil code exists. Yeah, sounds like my kind of place.
I am sorry. Sincerely, Frankenstein‘ - The Emporium Gallery, 3035 St. Antoine Ouest, 7pm-11pm
I am sorry. Sincerely, Frankenstein’ is a new collection of photographs by Montreal-based photographer, Gordon Ball. Depicting self-destruction in relation to the social order, in both a fantastical and journalistic capacity, ‘I am sorry. Sincerely, Frankenstein’ is Ball’s first solo exhibition in Montreal in over 2 years. Which means it better be really, really good. Ha ha. Ahhh……
Finally, after all of that moving around on bus and bike or gasp….CAB….go to Darling Thursdays at the Darling Foundry (745 rue Ottawa, google map it folks!) and shake all the bits that weren’t moving during the rest of the evening. It’s from 5-10pm so you’re going to have to make yourself a little schedule. Do that this morning, and then lamenate it. Plastic makes everything just that much nicer.
Filed under art shows, local | Tags: 2Fik, Centre Clark, Darling Foundry, Denise Santillan, Elisabeth Belliveau, Emporium Gallery, Eric Mattson, Gordon Ball, Jean-Pierre Gauthier, Jerome Fortin, Marilyne Blais, Minibloc, Naomi Cook, Rebecca Rosen, Red Bird | Comment (0)Seripop in the UK and Gordon Ball this Thursday
Remember Seripop’s No Henge installation at the Emporium Gallery?
The creative duo exhibited it again last month, at the Baltic Center for Contemporary Arts (UK), to show it off with The Trail, from 2008. They’re sharing pics of the installation process on their blog, you have to click here and see them.
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Speaking of the Emporium Gallery, Gordon Ball’s I am sorry. Sincerely, Frankenstein exhibition opens this Thursday, August 27th from 7pm-11pm (3035 St. Antoine Ouest, #74). It’s Ball’s first solo exhibition in Montreal in over 2 years so come out and support this local photographer.
I’m told this show is full of nudity.
Subterreanean Megazit @ Cheap Thrills
Subterreanean Megazit, Dead Wife’s first official release, is out now on Campaign for Infinity Records, and it’s available at Cheap Thrills (2044 Metcalf).
With recordings straight from the basement as well as a special track recorded by legendary Graham Van Pelt, this $5 deluxe pink cassette comes with artwork from the whole DW crew and the 5 following tracks:
- D.W.S.Y.<3.F. (dowhatsetsyourheartfree)
- TXT ME
- NO SECRETS IN THA H4C
- GENTLEMAN RAPIST
- CHOKE
Dead Wife is experimental#punk by Ashly [bass] Lisa [guitar] Rebecca [vocals] and Walter [drums]. The next Dead Wife shows in Montreal are:
August 25 w/ The Wicked Awesomes, Futensil, Double Dip
at Squalor House
August 29 w/ Career Suicide
at the Friendship Cove
Let’s build a giant room-sized theremin with 16 antennas!
We would like to invite the tag-team of artist/engineers David Beaulieu and Christian Pelletier to this year’s Pop Montreal International Music Festival (September 30 - October 4) and see them build a Theremin room in our special Art Pop and POP Symposium headquarters.
The duo was last seen breaking musical boundaries with their loud-speaker suits worn by Patrick Watson and his musicians at this year’s Festival de Jazz de Montréal.
The installation of massive proportions we want them to build will invite festival-goers to participate (alone, or in groups!) in the creation of on-site, mind-blowing, improvised music as they interact in a room with 16 antennas suspended above and around them. As they are activated, the antennas trigger psychedelic sounds that are bound to excite and solicit interest from all sorts of human beings
It’s gonna be spontaneous, it’s gonna be an immediate and visceral experience, it’s gonna be communally created art instantly diffused, IT’S GONNA BE SO COOL! We’re asking all lovers of theremins, lovers of art, lovers of interactive experiences, lovers of electricity, lovers of music and lovers of the world everywhere to help us make this project happen. Your money will be used to pay for David & Christian’s hard work and the equipment they will need to make this happen.
Check out our kickstarter page, where you’ll see all the amazing REWARDS we’re offering to people that back this project. Among those, you’ll find:
- a limited edition DVD of animations made by local animators
- a DIY theremin kit
- a hand silk-screened limited edition t-shirt with a theremin on it
- an mp3 of an exclusive track from Gentleman Reg or Dishwasher
- a FULL PAGE photo of you in the Pop Montreal segment program
- a VIP Festival Pass to the Pop Montreal International Music Festival
- a personal festival friend and a cozy bed to sleep in
- a musical about you and 3 of your friends, written and performed by us. we will tape it in Montreal in front of a live audience, and send it to you.
- a custom-made Loudspeaker Suit built by Beaulieu and Pelletier
Donate to Art Pop, Receive a Drawing, Win Life
So let’s talk about this visual arts festival. It’s Art Pop, and it’s a segment of the amazing international Music Festival, Pop Montreal. Although it is affiliated to Pop Montreal, they are a non-profit organization, and as such, segments are basically responsible for their own individual funding.
So here’s the deal: sweet drawings like the ones seen in this post (but on paper), will be sent to Frozen Mammoth readers by mail, for donations of $10 CAD and more. The drawings can be mailed either to you or to anyone of your choice. Drawings will be shipped anywhere in the world, with normal shipping, without any extra cost to you.
Thank you so much for your love and support, and for contributing to a young and relevant free arts festival!
Filed under events, illustration, local | Tags: art pop, Donation, Drawing, Julien Ceccaldi | Comment (0)Dusty Peas, blowing your mind from deep in Ontario
The drawing-printmaking-rabble-rousing duo Jamie Q and James Kirkpatrick have been jammin’ on collaborative works together for some time now, but not forever. From the bowels of London, Ontario, their minds seem to mesh in the most cohesive ways, explaining how they are able to present such a playful and consistent body of work as a duo so early on in their practice together.
They recently completed an artist residency and will be unfurling and folding the fruits of their labour at the Drawn & Quarterly Bookstore tonight at 7 p.m., right here in Montreal, 211 Rue Bernard…
It looks like pretty mind-blowing work. They’ve even silkscreened a spaceship folks can assemble themselves. I am a little too excited to get down to the Bookstore tonight and see their finished product in all its glory…
I sat down with them over space, time & the internet recently to ask some questions about their artistic process and to find out, for once and for all, what is the what. The answers are pretty friggin’ illuminating, so I hope you enjoy their notions and all as much as I have.
1. could you describe for all the folks out there who’s in your collective and what your deal is? ie if you have a mandate, if you even consider yourselves a collective…just some basics.
Dusty Peas is James Kirkpatrick and Jamie Q.. we think of ourselves as a collaborative art team more than a collective. But we also feel like we are part of a larger community of people doing creative stuff, one without a name or mandate. We don’t have a mandate as Dusty Peas either… we’d rather not be tied down to a formal set of rules. Maybe that is a sort of mandate… that whatever we make will be pretty unconstrained and open to possibility.
2. does “dusty peas” come from a specific idea or theme? where did you come up with it?
When we make stuff it always ends up being something that neither one of us would have made individually, so in a way we see Dusty as a third person who is creating this work. But also it is a nonsensical name that doesn’t mean anything.. words we would always say to each other as a silly thing that was totally removed from any original meaning.
3. when did the collaborative thing start and how?
We met through Peter Thompson last summer and started doing collab drawings in November to make zines for Expozine. We felt that it worked well and was fun so we kept doing it.
4. is this something you’re both familiar with, drawing ensemble, or is it a totally new way of doing illustrative work?
JK – Being involved in graffiti at an early stage of making art I got used to the idea of having things I created being painted over and marked on by others. Also seeing the work of Marc Bell and Peter Thompson at a younger age sort of showed me how two people could really melt their minds together to create one final piece of art. When I look back on it I realize I have been making collaborative art for years without even thinking of it as that.
JQ – I come from more of a sculpture background, so doing collaborative drawings is a pretty new thing for me. I did that guest artist project with you, Kit, at silence is not (always) a good medicine, and I’ve done drawings with other people where it’s more like a game in which everyone passes drawings around. But this is the first time I’ve been making drawings collaboratively as a regular part of what I do.
5. what are some of the main differences for you between drawing with someone and drawing alone?
When working with someone you have to be ok with letting things happen that you have no control over. You have to be able to work without having a preconceived idea of what the art is going to look like in the end because of that. In that sense it has more freedom to develop spontaneously, but on the other hand it also gives you the structure of the other person’s marks to work from, rather than facing a blank page with total individual freedom.
6. how has this pushed or challenged your individual practices, if it has at all?
We’ve been really focused on the Journey Through Time & Shapes project for quite awhile now, so seeing this new book and sculpture finally finished we’re really excited about how it turned out, and we’re both feeling like this collaborative work is better than our individual work at this point. But also our solo work is really important to us, so the collab stuff just motivates us to push our own work further.
7. do you think this could expand to go beyond drawing? if so, how?
Actually, we started doing sculpture together back in February, and have since also started doing stop-motion animation and all kinds of other stuff. The silkscreened prints in the Journey Through Time & Shapes book are all based on paper collages and paintings, and the project also includes a print that can be cut out and assembled into a sculpture.
8. is this very similar or very different than the stuff you do as solo-flyers?
The way of working is similar since both of us make stuff in all sorts of media. We’ve both done work with installation, found objects, sculpture, graffiti, painting, drawing, self-published zines, sound, film, animation… But the art itself looks pretty distinct from our solo work. People often can’t tell what we added to the work as individuals. That’s a good combination.. to have a similarly versatile way of working while doing something different than we would by ourselves.
Now go check it out for yourself. It’s going to be a very special show made by two very special people.
