Art in Montreal

If you have the misfortune of reading these posts regularly, you may have noticed the frequency with which I refer to propism , a term I do not think I have ever defined. The following is a deliberately crude and short essay that sets out to do so. As the “prop” in the term would indicate, this revolves around notions borrowed from the logic of the theatrical medium. Anthropomorphism Probably the most canonical discussion of theatricality in visual art comes from Michael Fried. 1967’s still highly controversial “Art and Objecthood” sought to delineate what he took to be two warring sensibilities, one that he associated with Modernist painting and sculpture and the other with the grey area between art and non-art that he associated with literalist (or more commonly termed Minimalist) art. He took literalism as defining itself as a position taken against Modernism. At bottom, this was a war of sensibilities and experience more than one of any deep ideological convictions. It was an op...

The Rustlings of the Group Are Invented as They Slip Away is an exhibition by UQAM graduate student Marie-Pier Vanchestein at Elektra. According to the accompanying text : This installation features robotic benches that move together in space, following rules inspired by swarm algorithms. Through their movements, both programmed and unpredictable, the benches seek, through a common movement, to escape the gallery. The hum of their motors accompanies this attempt at emancipation, creating a collective murmur. [p] By playing with diversion and the principle of emergence, the exhibition questions our relationship with the structures that surround us. Can these benches truly break free from the framework that defines them? Through this poetic staging, the artist invites us to rethink the connections that unite a collective and the spaces it inhabits. As is my habit, I did not read the accompanying text until I had spent some time in the exhibition. I assumed it was some kind of joki...

  Heart On is a retrospective of the work of Toronto artist Joyce Wieland. It was co-produced by Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal and the Art Gallery of Ontario and is the first retrospective of the artist’s work in several decades. The last, nearly 40 years ago, contained much of the same work. The museum’s ad text (most of which is duplicated at the entrance to the exhibit) informs us that: This ambitious career retrospective … is also the most comprehensive, and positions Wieland as a critical international figure of 20th-century art and film. […] Spotlighting the concerns that informed Wieland’s creative output, namely her engagement with feminism, social justice and ecology, this exhibition explores her unique approach to art-making and the enduring relevance of her oeuvre to contemporary issues. The current retrospective cleverly opens with Wieland’s oil painting Time Machine Series (1961), which, typical for that period of her work, combines abstract imagery with vibr...

Occupying the central space of Galerie Nicolas Robert, Kelly Jazvac ’s exhibition Le désir et le matriarcat has silver-toned lightboxes set around average eye level, cords running out of them and down along the floor. The boxes contain backlit transparencies of cropped and collaged body parts and blank fabric from magazine ads to suggest landscapes. Spanning a curve with various tangents are a series of carved display plinths, which are mostly open and have a sort of rib structure. Sculptural objects — hybridized from photos that have been woven combined with found waste objects and other scavenged materials — are alternately placed in or on top of them. The surfaces of the plinths are smoothed down to the point that they look more like veneer and are blankly stained for a “naturalistic” (in the sense of cosmetic foundation) look. The sculptural objects are vaguely reminiscent of various banal items (purses, burgers, computer gadgets, etc.). By the entrance is a stack of “bricks” wit...