In secret places the art lies.

October 6th, 2009

In the Notman House, an historically significant and pretty amazing space (architecturally as well as culturally) lots of things don’t happen. It is for the most part, unloved, neglected and unused. It is also for sale, and I am terrified of the people I don’t know yet who might buy it, demolish it, or change its inherent character and energy. For despite all of its loneliness and peeling walls, it is perhaps one of my favourite buildings in Montreal, if not of all time.

Which is why it is so amazing to see art in all of its rooms and secret places during the Pop Montreal Festival for the Art POP segment. I will go into each project here in more detail, but these are some of the fabulous artists and their works that graced the spaces the Notman House offers to us all.

There is something that I used to never understand about site specific work (years ago, when I was much, much younger and things were firmly in place on many levels) as I was a pencil-and-paper kind, and could do so anywhere. So for me the idea of people creating work in relation seemed odd somehow. Now, years and years later, with lots firmly not-in-place, I feel that even paper and pencil respond to their environments and that site specific work is inevitable in some ways, so to be conscious of it and consider its meanings is the least one can do.

The Notman House is a gorgeous example of how the smell + feeling + peeling + stains + stories + damp all change and amplify whatever it is that you do there, and most definitely the art that was growing from its walls the past week.

Here’s to the folks who did the work that carefully and thoughtfully contemplated their processes in relation to the house. That some of what they did will stay for the next folks to feel through the paint.

Below find some amazing photos of 2 of the artworks that inhabited Notman for Pop Montreal this year…more to follow…