It’s not even Thursday…

But here, despite all odds, are two art openings happening back-to-back tonight that you should go to. The first, a group show at the Maison de la Culture Plateau-Mont Royal. It’s called The Tarot of Montreal, and features 22-ish works on paper dedicated to that special pack of cards with the same name.

Or are they really a pack? Are they a fledgling? Or a pod? I am not sure if you call Tarot groups something different than other card groups, similar to owls and ferrets…..oh the mystery!

It’s going to be an interesting exhibition. The curator, Marie-Claude Bouthiller, invited 22 local artists to create works specific to one tarot card each. Max Wyse will be presenting his take on Le Diable while Sophie Jodoin worked with Justice. There’s work by Yann Pocreau and Andrea Szilasi and Mathieu Beausejour oh my! I am truly looking forward to seeing what everyone’s created, and what the exhibition as a whole feels like in terms of potential cohesions.

It’s going to be an earlier opening, perhaps, so go to this one first. 5pm starting time, at 465 Mont-Royal east. The show runs until the beginning of May.

Next, head to articule for the opening of You, Me and You, a week-long video installation by Annie Gautier and Milutin Gubash. I have been looking forward to this show for a long, long time. The video is a real-time encounter with the lives of this artist-couple. Taken over the course of roughly 9 days, You, Me and You,  is an intimate portrait of their everyday comings and goings. Some of the stuff that makes up their days will surely be of the sort I cringe engaging with (i.e. having to do the dishes, opening mail, etc). But when set against a backdrop of deeper encounters and exchanges, I think the whole of the piece is going to be achingly sweet and true to the strange arch known as making do and getting by.

What I find most compelling conceptually about the piece is that the video is really and truly in real time. No looping here. Unlike almost all video works seen in galleries, you cannot sit and wait for the events to unfold again if you’ve come in to the show late, or weren’t paying attention. The video will play through the night and into the day, and like our lives, be representative of so much in every moment, and then disappear, leaving the traces of perhaps some type of subconsciously-felt patterns, but no more.

So if you go tonight you can go tomorrow and then the next day and still never really get to see it in its’ entirety. A way of reinforcing its strange accessibility as it echos the lives each of us lead that no one else can see in full and we can surely never re-live.

Unless you have a time machine. And if you do, please, please get in touch.

creature of the day breaks down creatures in the night

The creature of the day being myself, as it IS 3pm-ish, and so I wouldn’t be considered a creature in the night currently. Rational aside, I still managed to go to the second half of the animation festival Creatures in the Night last night, which was the open call-for-submissions part of the evening.

I have to admit that I was pretty blown away especially because I honestly find animation a medium with SUCH potential that it often has folks doing pretty annoying stuff. Like performance art, minus the potential. No, no, I’m kidding, I actually think they have a lot in common. Ha ha. Yeah…

One of the night’s crowd pleasures as far as I could tell was this animation from Christophe Jordache entitled, Enola Gay: (Sorry about the shoddy and short quality of this little morcel)

I have been forced, at various times or others, to use toilet paper to draw on in lieu of having anything else that will remotely function as paper, and the results have often been interesting, but it’s a hard medium to tackle. That Jordache drew on it for this entire animation (it was 2 minutes long in duration in total) is pretty amazing, and that his movements are as interesting and convincing as they are is quite unbelievable.

There were other works of greatness as well: Rickie Lea Owens had several very short, irreverant and fun pieces. Joshua Bonnetta’s Parting was an absolutely gorgeous 2 minutes of what seemed like rotoscoped dancers with a haunting soundtrack. Pretty hard to describe unless you see it, which I did, but I was mesmerized in a way that made trying to document it all at the same time quite difficult.

Finally, Karl Lemieux ended the night with an 8 minute 16mm film entitled, Moveuvement de Lumiere/Motion of Light. It looked to me like what might happen if Vic Muniz did a stop motion animation with his chocolate sauce instead of painting the Mona Lisa. Lemieux, who co-founded the film collective Double Negative, is clearly in his element with this intensely meditative and process-based work that is rooted in the experimental.

The funny thing is, I usually hate long animations (and 8 minutes is long for this kind of a thing) and I don’t often like experiemental filmmaking. I was absolutely BLOWN away by this piece however. You should truly try to get your hands on a copy of the film. I kindof couldn’t believe it. My jaw was hanging. I was aghast. For a moment, I was nothing more than a little beastie, scouraging for food and water. I was a Creature In the Night.

Thanks to Elizabeth Belliveau and articule for putting on such an amazing event.

Creatures in the Night - Update

Attention everyone, the Creatures in the Night screening of animation films (the one I mentionned previously, i.e. the one happening tonight) will take place at Blue Sky Doors at 9pm, at 5403B St. Laurent. Enter the parking lot and find the door with blue lights. The entrance is free.

And just to make this post worthier, here’s Walk for Walk by Amy Lockhart, who will be screening some work tonight (not necessarily/probably not this one). If you’re into her work as much as I am, make sure you don’t miss her talk tomorrow (Sunday, 3pm at articule, 262 Fairmount O). And go to her show, before it ends tomorrow night too.

The Mirror’s Hot Summer Guide - Visual Arts

Stacey Dewolfe over at the Montreal Mirror just wrote an excellent guide to art-related things happening in Montreal this summer (from June 18th to September 7th). Check it out, she even mentions Mammoth-favorites Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo (Gallery Push, June 18th), articule and the Emporium Gallery. Speaking of the Emporium Gallery, pictured above is Okay Archie, Now We Get It by Dave Arnorld, from his Teenage Nudes show to open there on August 13.

And, speaking of the Montreal Mirror, I encourage you to follow the Arts section’s twitter account, it’s updated frequently enough, and its background image features a sea of beautiful celosias.

Lalie Douglas is going to take your fears away….

In time for the season of spring-cleaning type activities comes a spring-cleaning-of-the-mind based in performative and interactive art, in the form of an articule Special Project run by local artist Lalie Douglas. Take your fears away  is a project that, similar to a side-of-the-road gas station that simply declares, “PETROL”, fulfills exactly what it suggests it will. Nothing coquettish here, folks, just plain and simple fear-ridding-techniques.

The basics: you email Lalie (takeyourfearsaway@gmail.com) with whatever fears you might wish to be no longer, and Douglas will then go to Calgary with those fears to, “be transformed into site specific installations, performances and other interventions designed to symbolically overcome, diminish and otherwise seek to remove the power these fears may hold over you.”

How cool does that sound? How appropriate that Montrealers and Calgarians (Is that right? are you people Calgarians? It’s not like you’re called Rodeogonians or something….?) SWAP fears? Douglas is almost re-enacting what happens on a psychic level daily.

Our Quebec-infused versions of psychoses and terrors will be collected in the month of April and May, and then Douglas will travel with them to Calgary, to return to us in June to present, expel, and rid Rodeogonians of their fears here. I expect to see clear suitcases of grade A beef strewn across St.Laurent with a few papier-mache oil rigs here and there…but just as one’s treasurer is another’s junk, so too is one’s nightmare another’s dream. I guess we’ll find out.

Updatan’ You Alls.

1) Don’t forget the deadline for applying to Art Pop 2009 is March 5th at midnight, please pass the word and this link around: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/4140023/ArtPOP-Call-for-Submissions

2) This Thursday (the 26th), make sure you make sure you show up at the Art Matters Opening Party! The Art Pop squadron is curating part of the exhibition, but that’s not all: the venue (bain mathieu .ca) is crazy, you’ll be dancing all night in an empty pool and the bands/djs are insanely radical. + there will be surprises and props of the kind you’ll want to photograph all night long so you never forget. check the facebook event page for more info: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=52365303557

3) Coming up on the 26th of March - An awesome art education project in collaboration with DHC/ART, articule and Art Pop, more details coming up soon!
Participants will be given a blank white album cover containing a record that has been removed from its original cover. They will be asked to listen to their album and create an album cover for the record they received. This project challenges participants to reflect on the visual representation of sound and music and find inspiration in a randomly selected record.

Terreur on St Valentine’s

I am not, nor have I ever been, a huge fan of February 14th, in the ways of the chocolates and cards and etceteras. When I was a kid, it was all a tormenting reminder of how alone each and every one of us is in the world, (yeah…no surprises there, I was a rather intense child….)

Now it isn’t even so much that I dislike the day of red roses and cherry-filled angels hitting each other with minty arrows, it’s that I never seem to even notice that today is actually Valentine’s Day. Years have gone by without so much as it blipping on my blip calendar.

Which is why I am both anxious and excited about Céline B. La Terreur’s performance today at articule. Represented by one of my absolute (if not all-time) favourite commerical galleries in Montréal, the Joyce Yahouda, La Terreur is at once a diva dying, a notion of who-gets-to-leave-this-world-how, and just a downright charismatically alluring and bizarre individual who I can’t stop staring at.

She’s a bona fide local artist who will be presenting (I believe) for the first time in an Artist Run Centre environment, with a month-long exhibition and the performance today at 3 p.m. as well as one on the 8th of March for those who are too busy swooning over some swan-boat down by the river, hands mashed into the hands of another, SHARING MICROCOSMIC GERMS only the angels of love surrounding you can see, etc. etc. 

And to be honest, while I don’t know much about her work, (other than the fact that this piece in particular is called The Antechamber of Death and it focuses on what happens when an imaginary diva dies, and the fact that she’s obsessed with Maria Callas) I somehow feel a bizarre trust with where she’s going, or wants to take me, in a way that I rarely do. Not even trust, exactly - an excitement. A willingness. And so forth…

I am assuming you want to come to see her perform as I think it would be best to see her installation with her in it, as it’s the persona of the artist that leaves one feeling haunted in this case. So do it. Make the call you’ve been meaning to make these past weeks but haven’t had the nerve, in the end, to do. Tell him it’s over, that you’re bored and just need some space. Or that St Valentine’s day made you realize that you never loved her like you thought you did. And then get your ass down to articule and we’ll have a Terreur-filled day and we can get drunk and barf your ex’s name out in the snow, together.

Of things just around the corner…

And in this case, I mean JUST around the corner, at Fairmount and Parc, aka where that fancy lady always waits for the 80, everyday, with the fur and the pearls and the dog(s) and the coke-induced glares.

On her way to her stop, she passes Articule, one of Montreal’s beloved local Artist Run Centres, currently hosting ARTARTAR it’s first ever Members’ Exhibition in its new space, a giant cacophony of art meets food meets fancy lady barfing up her dinner on her dog as she gets on the bus.

There are 2 events coming up for it over the next few weekends, a film screening to do with gastronomical-esque themes on the 24th of January at 7pm (which also includes a bowl of soup oh yeah, did someone say free hot dogs?) and InTerreArt, in collaboration with articule Special Projects, a performance event curated by Nicole Fournier (happening on the 1st of February at 3pm).

The members exhibition includes works from over 22 Montreal artists, and the events happening over the weekend(s) will present works by Nicole Fournier, Eric Letourneau and Tagny Duff, along with other performers including dogs, (did someone say free hot dogs?) plant food, micro-organisms and other interconnected matter. And yeah yeah, I’m in it too, so this is clearly a cheap plug, which is what 98% of my life consists of anyhow, so no surprise there.

And on a completely (un)related note, I know the image here is kindof small and maybe a bit thematically awkward but it was the first image I found googling, “fancy coke lady”, so it’s staying.

Expozine 2008 - good times

 I’m really into all things pertaining to printed matter, so y’all can imagine how glad I was to attend this year’s much anticipated edition of “one of North America’s largest small press fairs.” Like always, I thought the experience was definitely inspiring and invigorating and I left the Saint-Enfant Jésus Church with burning feelings of satisfaction, envy and determination, which was great. Here are 7 things I hate about you I found and loved at Expozine, in no particular order:

1) STOLEN.BIKE.MTL, an intriguing zine by Sheena Hoszko which compiles her online correspondence with strangers who engaged with her last intervention. Let me quote an articule email that explains the artist’s project probably better than I ever could:

In the summer of 2008, Sheena Hoszko placed paper tags on stranger’s bicycles which read, “Last summer my bike was stolen, now I’m looking for a bike to steal”. These tags also included an email address. The artist privately corresponded with people who contacted her regarding their thoughts, anger, and questions about the tags found on their bicycles. These email conversations have been archived within a limited edition zine. STOLEN.BIKE.MTL aims to initiate a dialog surrounding loss, ownership, and potential.

2) Jason Hsu’s Holy Shmoly 2, printed at Space 1026 (in Philadelphia) and sold to me by Space 1026 founding member Maximilian Lawrence. This is a gorgeously screen-printed colorful pamphlet full of psychedelic visuals, cool-looking characters and references to late 80’s/early 90’s cartoons.

3) Walter Scott’s newest zine. This one features great collages/drawings/photos that all demonstrate the density and the awesomeness of Walter’s mind. I’ve been keeping an eye on his art for more or less a year now and it’s been so nice to see it more and more all over the city. But allow me to tell you more about Walter in an upcoming (and way longer) blog post, as he totes deserves it!

4) Lisa Czech’s Lazy Eye #2 is a collection of collages and drawings that was sold at the table Lisa, Walter and their friend Rick Trembles were sharing. This one contains lots of ice cream and female gymnasts with awkward facial expressions, which I always appreciate.

5) Elif Saydam’s Things I Have Loved & Lost: 1989-2009 is my friend and co-worker’s adorably honest, funny and sweet reflection on - you guessed it, the things she lost since 1989. Her writing warms the heart, and it’s a pleasure to relate to her charming and personal stories that make you go ‘I feel you, man’ at every single chapter.

6) Photographs by Erik Osberg, who just got mentionned in Amy’s post. I was sold at the first page, with a shot that got me lingering on the decaying beauty of all-night diner / Montreal hot spot Nouveau Palais (281 Bernard W). Things only got better with pictures of corporations oddly surrounded by trees, or a shot of Bobo the cat sleeping under the protection its plush-cat-mom. The zine ends with super insightful words from Erik regarding both photography in general and his own practive of it. Oh yeah.

7) The great folks over at Art Matters put together this collection of drawings and collages made by fellow Concordia University students the night of a drawing party over at Korova on November 12th. Under its lovely (and oh so shiny) cover, you’ll find two pages dedicated to my new nineties-inspired cartoon rubber-furries. You get a preview of that if you click on the image below, although I guess it’s not really a preview if I give you 1,5 pages out of 2. Oh well.