Art in Montreal

This year marked the first instance of Plural, the city's Contemporary Art fair. It is not wholly new, but the successor to Papier, which ran for 15 years. Involving 45 Canadian contemporary art galleries, Plural occurred at the Grand Quay in Montréal’s Old Port (April 21-23, 2023). Launched in Westmount in 2007 and initially involving significantly fewer galleries, Papier gradually moved downtown, occupying a tent for several iterations before moving indoors, spending several years at Arsenal and other venues before moving to the Quay. For the past several years (barring the pandemic virtual year), it has taken in around 11,000 attendees and $1-1.5 million in sales on average. This year it was possible for the public to view artworks for free through the virtual fair that ran from April 21 to May 7, 2023. The event was organized by The Contemporary Art Galleries Association ( AGAC ) “a non-profit organization that actively contributes to the dissemination and promotion of Canadi

  Erin Shirreff, Midday dilemma at Bradley Ertaskiran from June 8 to July 16, 2022 “The works on view in the exhibition are each grounded in the visual archive of 20th-century Western art history, a source Shirreff has used either directly or indirectly in sculpture, video, and photography for several years. Shirreff uses this material—images of objects meant for contemplation—not for critique or homage, but to explore our experience of looking and the peculiar expressiveness of objects rendered in two dimensions.” Marco Brambilla, Heaven’s Gate at Centre Phi from June 30 to October 24, 2022 “Heaven's Gate is a monumental new work by videographer Marco Brambilla. Seen as a grandiose, satirical and dizzying meditation on Hollywood's dream factory, Heaven's Gate is a psychedelic digital tableau inspired by the Seven Levels of Purgatory that employs the same state-of-the-art digital composition technology as the films it references.” Baruch Gottlieb, Feedback #6: Mar