Art in Montreal

Volupté , the new group show at Blouin|Division , features the work of 8 artists: Amanda Ba, Geneviève Cadieux, Shona McAndrew, GaHee Park, Elena Redmond, Hiba Schahbaz, Corri-Lynn Tetz, and Chloe Wise. It joins a set of erotic art shows that have been seen in the city over the past year (such as Mia Sandhu , Hannaleah Ledwell , Kara Eckler and Caroline Schub ), although it is notable for being the least ambitious or thoughtful of them, as well as the most uneven in quality. According to its press materials, in [b]ringing together a group of female-identifying artists from various backgrounds, Volupté aims to draw an alternative portrait of pleasure, one that dispels masked fears about the emancipation of female pleasure outside of patriarchal control. [p] The artists brought together in this project are exploring desire in its various expressions, whether it is psychological, physical, sensory, or erotic. Pleasure is represented as complex and multifarious and often posited at a wi

It is the nineteenth iteration of Art Mûr's annual survey of art being produced in graduate programs across the country. 13 institutes are taking part this time, and the work of 33 students pursuing their MFAs is showcased across two floors of the gallery. As usual, there are paintings and sculptures as well as textiles with painting dominating.  One of the more interesting things about this annual event has been the extent to which it tends to deprive artists of the various crutches they rely upon to maintain the "communicative" aspect of their work, namely supplementary text. They are in a certain sense denuded and left more vulnerable, set in potentially strange relations in this space alien from the studios of the artists or their intended fate as the aspect of an exhibition. Unlike most survey exhibitions, there is no justification offered for any of the selections and no clear unifying factor, which can make it all feel rather random. This contextualizatio

In a 1968 summary on the Montréal art scene by Yves Robillard, he suggested that the avant-garde may no longer exist: “In our century of communications, the isolated artist is a myth to be overcome, the refuge of a certain old-fashioned conception of humanism, one that makes the artist the salvation against technology.” [Yves Robillard, “Les beaux-arts” in Le Canada français d’aujourd’hui , ed. Léopold Lamontagne (University of Toronto Press; University of Laval Press, 1970), 97.] For half a century, he would make variations of this argument, finally given its most thorough formulation in the book, Vous êtes tous des créateurs, ou, Le mythe de l’art (1998). For Robillard, the theme park model of creativity that he believed would displace art was valuable as a kind of lab, a means to stimulate participation. Individualism is what we have in abundance and which proliferates. [135] Contrasting the peasant/tribal song as a happy game against the morose world of post-industrialism, he ca

Molinari: Les années 70 is a follow-up to an exhibition from last year which dealt with the painter’s work in the 1960s. Spread over two floors, the exhibition includes several large-scale paintings, a few medium ones, a print, a couple of posters, and several sketches. The latter are either placed in a vitrine or set in neutral frames beside the large paintings that were worked up from them. Aside from the title on the wall, there is only one piece of text in the entire show, a quote from Molinari on the syntax of his work.