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

Chloe Wise , In Loveliness of Perfect Deeds at Blouin|Division Subjecting whatever Wise’s work supposedly means to criticism is on the same level as making jokes about Boris Johnson. It’s taking the bait of the media image that has been constructed around her (as well as presumably by her) and which allows her to sit comfortably in air-headed profiles for Elle Canada and Interview . However, there is something tantalizing about that, even if it makes you a fool for engaging at all. Instead, it is better to simply look at the work in situ, an object to be stumbled into at the end of the long corridor in the unfortunately designed space of Blouin|Division. If there could be such a thing as twee nostalgia for a past generation of hipster cliche, it would exist here, less in the overt sense of its content, than in the manner in which it is arranged. It’s the arrangement that lingers because the rest is fairly forgettable, presumably a deliberate effect as one scrolls through the pro