Get Your Art Souterrain On

For the next few weeks, there’s an amazing conference going on that anyone interested in local art organizations, artists and practices should try to get to when they can. Started yesterday and ends the 13th of March.

It’s Art Souterrain, and it seems like a giant extension of Nuit Blanche insanity.

The website is here: while I don’t have tons of time right now to go over the roster of who’s speaking when and where and how and why, I do have the time to suggest you look over the schedule.

Some of my local favourites who’ll be yakking and performing include En Masse, Celine B. La Terreur, Alana Riley, 2Fik and Eric Bolduc. But go see folks you don’t know and be amazed by their prowess, skill and hotness. And send me pictures.

More about the event when I am not rushing out the door madly in search of cheeseburgers.

En Masse @ Art POP

One of the co-presentations of Art POP this year is a collaboration with En Masse, a pretty amazing troupe of over 40 artists that get together from time to time to do inspiring and fairly mind-blowing murals, collaboratively. For the entire month of October, they are going to be at the Red Bird Studio gallery for their latest project which combines 6 of their artists with a whole whackload of awesome artistic teenagers from various schools in the English Montreal School Board network. Together, they will create a mural the likes of which you’ve never seen, guaranteed.

The vernissage is this coming Sunday (the 4th) at 5pm, going until 9pm or even later, pretty crazy for a Sunday me thinks!! The gallery is at 135 rue Van Horne, and it’s going to be awesome. If you don’t get a chance to make it out, then swing by the studio every day from 12-6pm on weekdays to see what the gaggle of creative folks are doing there and watch their project develop.

One of the masterminds of the whole scenario and one of the Frozen Mammoth’s favourite people-of-this-fine-city, Jason Botkin, recently let us in on some of the deep dark secrets of his group. We can’t wait to see how this whole thing develops, and we’ll let you in on it all as it goes along….

1. Where did En Masse emerge? What was the impetus? If you could give a bit of background info on its initial coming together, that would be great.

En Masse was conceived one glorious evening in December of 2008, the ‘love-child’ of Tim Barnard and myself.

At the time, I was exhibiting a solo show at Galerie Pangee. As luck would have it, the gallery had an opening in their post-Christmas schedule, a little window that Tim and I eagerly imposed upon. Originally, our design was to ‘curate’ an enormous group show, packed mad salon style with everyone we knew and wanted to know. Seconds later, the idea was dashed upon the rocks, as we landed upon the En Masse concept, or specifically, the idea of gathering together those same cats to do a gigantic collaborative drawing of some sort. For both Tim and I, collaborative drawing/art making parties have been an important part of our practice, so the idea stuck!

En Masse was thus born in February of this year (2009), at the Galerie Pangee, with 28 artists engaged in 28 days of ecstatic mark making. We timed the ‘finissage’ to coincide with Montreal’s all-night Nuit Blanche festivities, thus inviting all to join us in celebration of one of the very biggest, most incredible drawing experiments most of us had ever seen in our tender young lives!

(Jason and Mural at Oshega Festival, Photo courtesy of Fred Caron’s awesome hands)

2. Has it changed much since you guys first began doing it? If so, how?

Tim, hot n’ heavy off on other projects, has been replaced by Rupert Bottenberg. Rupert brings an amazing skill set to the table, having established the Montreal Comix Jams, while juggling duties as the music editor at the Montreal Mirror newsweekly.

While the approach to the drawing itself is always the same at core—black and white, big, and involving as many artists as logistically possible (the more the merrier), our biggest step forward has been the creation of an ‘educational’ element to our project, through the introduction of a mentorship project involving local high school kids.

3. What is the creative process like in terms of choosing people to be involved? I know there are 28 members now, so are you guys officially a “team” or is the roster more fluid than that?

At this point, we’ve worked with nearly 40 artists on various projects, so in that sense, “Team EM” is better looked upon as a flexible and ever-changing ‘collective’ of emerging artists, whose work has been categorically defined as ‘underground’ and/or ‘lowbrow” art.

Refreshing and expanding the ranks is a key factor in breathing new and constant life into the project. Choosing the artists…that’s a tough question…SO MUCH amazing talent out there, so little time!

4. Many of the artists in En Masse work in somewhat alternative mediums (street art, grafitti). Was this a conscious decision, or organic? What does this type of background bring to the project?

This was a very conscious decision on our part. We wanted to include a wide range of artistic practices/pedigrees, especially exploring these cats whose voice has been largely excluded from the mainstream galleries and museums, institutions that seem to be somewhat unsure of the relationship between the fine and lowbrow arts.

We want a real grab-bag of styles, all flowing into one enormous web of ideas, thoughts, jokes, and general fun, one in which we can all freely participate in the chance to expand our potential as creators, while developing collective social and professional networks with each other.

5. How has doing this kind of massive collaborative work affected your own personal practice, if at all?

Collaborating with these incredible artists leaves me very inspired, and challenged to free up my own approach towards art making. Ego melts away during these events. So, my time in the studio, or at the sketchbook (when it comes), is now much more spontaneous, improvisational, playful. I like this.

6. Can you tell me a bit about why you guys have decided to do an educational thing? Is there a decisive angle to creating En Masse in a plethora of arenas, or does it happen more naturally than that?

The educational thing came as the natural ‘next’ step. I would have killed for a project like this as a kid, so now, with two wee ones of my own, and in working with Rupert who has produced many educationally directed events in the past, the mentoring program for kids came about very organically through personal interest.

This is a way for us to contribute socially, in a direction we feel good about. Artistic kids rarely get the chance to explore and express themselves within the school systems, as they exist, so if we can lend this hand to the schools, their teachers, and the teens, everybody gets happy. And perhaps the doors to heaven open a little wider.

7. What are some of the thrills and challenges with working with such a big group?

Cover your ears kids; this could get a little gory! I’ll spare the details, but suffice to say, it’s a bit of an administrative roller coaster at times…

With practice, the organizational drama gets a little more predictable, and easier to manage when it rears its ugly head. A steady diet of emails, ear often glued to phone, and a whole lotta labour of love keeps me going. Fortunately, I get more sleep in the weeks leading up to an event these days.

8. What most excites you about the project En Masse will be doing with ESBM, Redbird & art POP?

So many things excite me about this project! This particular avenue of the En Masse project has huge potential! I can’t wait to see what kind of work comes out of this thing, as we get this chance to collaborate directly with artists who are young in years and practice, but demonstrating real passion and huge talent in the crafting of their voice. What a mutual privilege and pleasure for us all!

For the kids, this is a great chance to gain practical tips about how to work in the mediums they are interested in, improve upon their own sense of self-worth as artists, and potentially form long-lasting creative partnerships they wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise.

9. What can you see in store for En Masse? If this goes really well, would you guys be into doing more educational/mentoring stuff?

Without question! We’re very excited with the educational stuff, and have received enormously positive response from everyone who has come into contact with the project. This event could be considered to be the pilot for many great things to come, especially as we gear into provincial, national, and international En Masse expansion in the coming year!

Viva Viva!

So last night I THINK I maybe saw the best piece of art I will potentially see all year. Or at least, the best performance. But maybe art. But maybe performance….oh dear me. You see, the person responsible for the piece actually blew up my mind, so thinking has been a wee difficult since.

Picture it - Viva! Art Action’s second installation (installation being second time the festival’s been crafted together) and we’re all at Bain Saint Michel (5300 St Dominique) where the majority of the festival is going on. People are waiting for the first performance, from Belgium’s Gwendoline Robin, and I am thinking again about how much I dislike performance art in general.

Which is funny, because almost all of the papers I have ever written have been about performance, just by chance, and I find myself here at a performance festival, just by chance, and maybe I was on one of the selection committees, just by chance. But performance art is soooo annoying, and boring, and self-indulgent.

It also really isn’t. It also has this uber-potential, of the sort that Katamari has when it has gathered many objects, to reconfigure my sense of self or at least self-in-relation (which is likely what self is to a large degree) and make me stop breathing and change the ways in which or add to those that I spend time thinking of this and and and.

That said, a medium with such gobs of powerful responsibility and consideration is often one that suffers from too many people engaging with it, and engaging with it in shallow or less-than-thoughtful ways. I gotta say it, I think it’s true. And I think that, as an audience member, my role is one of active participant in a way that truly goes beyond what that mundane majority do when encountering art, which more-than-often includes myself. This requires a certain attentiveness that is at the best of times pretty draining and hard to find within oneself. Especially in my look-there-no-here-bam-bam-change-the-flickr-time-to-go-elsewhere culture.

But the stuff of the likes that Robin creates, executes, exhudes, helps surpass all of my issues of presence and of pretention or thinking-while-I-watch. She cuts through that dissonance like a knife, like the shards she broke off her rod of glass that she started her piece with. And let me say here and now that while I will describe her actions, that’s nothing in comparison to her actions themselves. Not one bit, not a whit, barely similar, almost opposite.

Imagine trying to describe a performance by your favourite musician. They played a bunch and they didn’t play a bunch. If you only use actions, you’re really not getting to the heart of the matter. Which you can’t really do, not just in words. Or else Gwendoline (I suppose) would have just written a little essay about her work and stayed in.

Basically, long and short, she came, she lit paper on fire, in her hands, and then a helmet, BOOM, on her head, after putting on coats and taping her neck (balaclava eyes staring out) and the coil on the helmet looking like a stove, spiralling round and round who would have thought that upon impact, the fuse wouldn’t just slowy weave its way to the centre of her skull no it didn’t there was nothing slow about it, she offered us no time to watch or ponder or panic she just

blew off her head.

And in doing so, she blew everyone’s head off as well. Trust me on this. I can attest, I have a mirror, what more can I say.

Gwendoline Robin knows about phrasing, and pace. The rhythm in her performance was of the kind that allows for momentum, breath, and a dissolving of outside concerns. One thing that makes much durational work seem overly this-or-that I think might be a lack of attention to phrasing. In this way, the body in performance, like the body in so much (music, physical comedy, dance) responds to space as much as it responds to mass.

There were 2 other performances that night, and you can read about some of it on the Viva! Blog, but to be honest, I needed to go home straight away after she had blown our collective minds. I would explain, but I doubt I need to. What else could you do? So much power, adrenaline and intention would have been enough in and of itself, but then I had to tend to my physical meltdown as well. Anything else would have been rash and impudent.

Of special note, Viva! has a 6:30 pm supper call every day during the fest, and last night it was beef stew (vegetarian options) and it looked seriously really good. Only $5, and a great way to hang out with folks/support the festival. Go go go! I will eat the stuff off your plate you don’t want.

Montreal Biennale Still Kickin’ It with Roadsworth Doc…

                                 .

So yes, yes, I’ve been *somewhat* of an absent brat about the Biennale, as I was away in Toronto and beyond for a bit, but now I have returned, safe and sound, just in time to announce some of the goodies still on display and displock for us all to enjoy at this Biennale. 

Not to miss is this Friday’s screening of Crossing the Line, from 3 to 5pm at L’Ecole Bourget. Directed by Allan Kohl,  it’s going to be an intimate journey through the wonderful, wild and controversial land of artist and visionary Roadsworth. I, for one, can’t wait to see it. 

More to come, kiddies more to come.

Of the feelings of Sam, or feelings in general….Part II - Feelings

The Greasy Goose Salon is now an important Montreal institution. Can you be an institution if your claim to fame is a salon-type informal/formal/entre-les-deux gathering of minds around specific topics in various cafes and spaces? I believe you can indeed. Institution is what we define it to be, and currently that includes for me the Greasy Goose Salon AND backribs. Man, how I want to eat a good institutional rack of ribs RIGHT NOW. Anyone know of any good rib joint in town that’s NOT the Bar-B-Barn?

Anyhow, I am a blab-meister. The next Salon is ALSO THIS THURSDAY. Here’s the details:

Topic: FEELING

Thursday, April 16th, 7:30pm.
Cagibi, 5490 St. Laurent, at St. Viateur (Montreal)

Featuring presentations by:
*Sofia Gassieva — How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Civet
*Coral Short – Performing Intimacy
*Raji Sohal — “Feeling: More than a Thought?” Sound and Theory in Janet Cardiff’s Audio Walks
*Julia Thomas — Draw Your Doubt, accompanied by Laura Horn, Madeleine Tait, Lilian Belknap and Fjola Evans

Followed by the Cagibi 2nd anniversary party! DJ Mitz and enormous nacho platters for all!

Dudes, go to this to find out what a Civet is if you don’t know already. Refuse the temptation to google it. Just leave it as a mystery for a few more days. Think of how you’ll FEEL about it when you finally figure it out. It’ll be wonderful. 

This would likely ALSO cost $38 to get to from the airport.

Of my mind being blown with no bile in my mouth.

It is Sunday, and possibly lazy, for some. In the spirit of said around-the-house-offerings, I propose you look at this very interesting blog about contemporary still life art.

My friend Lenny Piroth-Robert, himself a ridiculously talented contemporary artist and music-maker, (literally, he runs Daddy Mojo studio, creating beautiful guitars out of cigar boxes and the like) pointed this site out to me and I was pretty blown away. As the title of this little paragraph suggests.

Jeff Hayes is the man behind this pretty thorough resource, and the image I have added here is from his latest interview with artist Pierre Raby, whose work is responsible for the images in this post. Pretty unbelievable stuff. Ok, maybe there IS a bit of bile in my mouth. Or is it salivia? Am I salivating over this stuff like a dog does a turkey dinner? Perhaps, perhaps……

GIVEAWAY!!!

FREE STUFF! YOU LOVE FREE STUFF!!
Okay folks here it is the first ever official giveaway on The Frozen Mammoth. You can’t say we’re cheap, maybe lazy but not cheap.

I was reading lately about the amazing Museum of Contemporary Craft (another reason Portland is a superior city to most) and saw that they were showing a collection of illustrations by Kate Bingaman-Burt who illustrated the Handmade Nation book, the companion to the documentary.

I remember seeing her work before in the form of an amazing set of zines she made documenting her purchases for 3 years called What Did You Buy Today?.

What I want from you is to tell us what you bought today and how much it costs. If you are creative I would love for you to attach a visual representation of your purchases (just cause it’s fun, and if you’re an awesome artist, who knows, maybe we’ll blog about you in the future). One winner will be chosen randomly on Friday April 17th and that person will win 4 of Kate’s zines. Fun!
Make sure to include your email in the comments section.

Kenneth Anger

Spring’s here, so let me tell you about Kenneth Anger, because he really gets me going, if you know what I mean. I just realized his P.S.1 exhibition opened a while ago in New York City -and thankfully the show’s up until September 14, so it’s an extra-fitting time to write about him. According to its press release, this exhibition is “the first major survey of the filmmaker’s body of work at a U.S. museum in over a decade.” Emergency to go to NYC, much?

Anger has been producing dazzlingly seductive and abstruse films since the forties. His aesthetic of extravagant glamour and grandiose occult is remarkable, as is his ability to gracefully walk the fine line between camp and decadent romanticism. I have especially fond feelings for Scorpio Rising, which I find exemplifies best Anger’s talent at translating pop culture into mythology (and vice versa).  Revolving around desirable and untameable Gods of Death (Dean, Brando and sexy queer bikers) and their evocative Thing that Goes (sparkly glammed-up motorcycles), Anger’s mythopoeic narrative challenges notions of sin and desire with its rebellious heroes that piss on Adolf Hitler and fuck Jesus Christ to the sound of catchy 50’s songs.

In Lucifer Rising or Rabbit’s Moon for example, Anger shows his more spiritualistic tendencies with fantasy-based universes where rituals are more “magic” and less metaphorical. The inspiring and elaborate mise en scène featured in these films serves dramatic and subversive otherworldly subject matters. Fun fact of the day, the soundtrack of Lucifer Rising by Bobby Beausoleil is the only movie soundtrack in history recorded inside a prison. (Thanks wikipedia).

Kenneth Anger’s persona and personal history, as well as his two best-selling Hollywood Babylon books (look for the gorgeous hard-copy edition at the Webster Library), all rely on alluring mythicalness rooted in decadence, drama and insurgence. His fascination with the flipside of the glamour coin, where the glorious falls deep down into the morbid pits of excess and perversion, definitely plays out in his films. Saturated by the turmoil of life, sex and death, his art is striking and outlandish, a histrionic and occult fantasy fuelled by rumours and rituals. Anger’s body and richness of work is larger than life, which is why I urge you to head to the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center before the exhibition is over. And make sure you don’t forget to take a look at the other artists showcased in the building, as there is nothing but quality art in there.

Anger’s iconic work is also available on dvd, thanks to Fantoma Films who recently commercially released two compilations of HD transfered Anger films, complete with bonuses, audio commentaries and lovely booklets. As Mondo Digital puts it after an insightful review: “easily one of the most essential DVD releases of this or any other year.” Hopefully, newer films like Mouse Heaven (2005), Elliott’s Suicide (2007), Ich Will! (2008), I’ll Be Watching You (2007) or Foreplay (2008) will soon be released in a third volume.

Cloaca machines

I’m utterly tickled by Wim Delvoye’s CLOACA project, which has him building machines that literally create shit. Series of glass jars, tubes and chemical processes transform food into stuff that smells like, looks like, and is - poo. It’s dressed up in the guise of a faux company, with customer testimonials, early sketches and even the (now sold-out) option to buy your own Cloaca shit.

Because of its whimsical dressings, Delvoye’s conceptual art because instantly accessible and way more thought-provoking than it would be with some dense artists’ statement. All by myself, without any direct prompting, I get to thinking about the nature of humanity, and life, and technology - in a deep, rewarding way. It’s more than just a gimmick.

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Joshua Allen Harris

Maybe you’ve seen Joshua Allen Harris’ inflatable street art before, but if not it’s worth seeing. I saw a video of his first piece, a bear made of shopping bags, last summer but never heard anything else about the artist. I recently found some more videos of his pieces in action and though I would share them with you. Joshua makes sculptures out of shopping and garbage bags and attaches them to subway air vents. When the subway passes underneath the wooshing air turns what looks like a pile of garbage into an animated creature and as the subway leaves it deflates and blends into its surroundings again. To see more visit his youtube channel.