Art in Montreal

Common Absurd is an exhibition of work by Adam Basanta at Oboro in the Salle Daniel-Dion et Su Schnee. The supplemental text by Neal Thomas frames it as a re-examination of the optimistic spin on the possibilities once posed by new technologies and networks. For the techno-optimists of the late 1960s, this burgeoning situation seemed to be paving a way to escaping from old dichotomies between users and use. As Neal relays it, “The user emerged as a catch-all referent for this new subjectivity, mixing consumer, creator, technician, actor, and audience member into a composite heroic position that anyone might plausibly occupy.” Yet, after more than half a century of this heroic posturing, the “‘creative user’ feels so much more like a mandated norm than an emancipatory possibility.” There are (at least) two different thematic directions from which you could approach the exhibition. One: as dealing with general concepts about the function of the user in the post-industrial era, how...

  What follows is a review of three different exhibitions. They are presented here because they have significant thematic/conceptual overlap and demonstrate different strategies of approach in a wide variety of media. Although the first and second approach the spectre of colonialism loosely, the last exploits it as its central feature. Mathieu Gotti’s La grande Liquidation tout doit disparaître at Art Mûr This is a repackaging of much the same work by Mathieu Gotti that was shown at the Centre d’art Jacques et Michel Auger in Victoriaville in 2021, although the scaling here is more confined. It involves a set of painted wood carvings, primarily of animals, but also of weaponry, gas cans etc. Carving marks are prominent and the paint application is crude if never garish. In general, they have the sense of inflated toys. Spread around the front of the gallery, they also give the impression of being more accumulated like a snow drift than thoughtfully placed. If they are toyis...