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I travel and review art exhibits in a manner that you don`t need a phd to grasp. I am attracted by clarity and dialogue rather than the usual artcentrism of specialized readings. I witness as many art shows as any official journalist, but keep in mind that I`m NOT a "writer", merely a purveyor of sentiments and impressions. Because I am based in Montreal this diary will mostly focus on its scene, but I`ll be voicing opinions on major, worldwide issues.
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Montreal En Lumiere Light Fest
Ok...went to Nuit Blanche last week-end and frankly, regardless of city costs,
had much fun wandering in museums in the middle of the night. I know... they are already too many fests in this town (Montreal) but this one holds a good premiss: one full white night of partying each year, in any entertainment category (not just clubs), and many of them gratuitous: now that is an event I`m lighting up my candle to.
I`m glad that many visual art institutions participated. I thought "Montreal En Lumières" had sabotaged themselves since they stopped showing art (first couple years) and totally reduced their festivities to lazy-minded "light" (the other sense) entertainment. Well, actually they did, but this time around
I won`t complain too much because they opened me the doors to a couple huge exhibits I will be reviewing later on (Dominique Blain at MACM, Global Village at MBAM, and a couple others).
But this time I`m writting about the event itself, which is the most confusing of Montreal events, with its multiple sections (expensive dinners, relatively affordable spectacles (any types, but usually big, classic names), and free outdoor overtly spotlightted activities (amongst other fireworks): Ridicule, like ambition, doesn`t kill... The settings for the "light fest" at Place Des Arts tend to reduce in scale each year. This year it stops right at the Esplanade pool, and it seems all their budget went into the construction of that giant "monster sculpture" called "La Montagne" by Francois Bérubé (which of course I had never heard from), since all the other props (the ice slide, the dj cube, the heating dome, the photo booths, the fireplaces) were simply recycled from previous years.
"yes, but...is it art?". I tend to be generally generous with artists when they play with inhabitable structures, altering the spaces they occupy, working out the limits between art and architecture, because frankly, this is where I believe art is leading. But "La Montagne" doesn`t sound like it will be reminded as the most profound research on such matters. Nevertheless, let`s face it, this was the closer to expo 67 Montreal is ever going to get in years!! This giant cut-in-half mountain made of steel ramps, spotlights and square screens, actually served one purpose: it was the surface on which that kiddie short film "Tom`s Adventures" was screened..something a little ridicule involving a mountain that made me wonder what came first (did they plan to show that film or build that structure first?...duh?...). Sadly I missed the vj projections (cos the "dj" selection sucked for the most part), but I did manage to wait in line and climb the nearly 80 stairs that brought you at the top......................
While Climbing, I noticed the dramatic audient shadow-effect on the walls that was the main trick of one of the light installations at the first edition of Montreal En Lumiere (excellent, "socially constructive" piece by Alain Lortie at Parc Lahaie). Since then I could count various works I`ve seen using this idea, including a recent prefab house proposal in New York. It`s a low cost, sharp, functioning design solution if we forget for an instant that it`s getting a little common. "Oh cute... see the little people are climbing up... but where ?" The billboards along our path speak about conquerents of the everest, which I thought was a disneyesque unneccessity, and a little too literal if that was meant to be an element of artistic suspension within the "work". I wonder what Dominique Blain who exhibits right across at Musée D`art contemporain would have said about this, because she often use similar methods of conveying her statements in a variety of her works. You see Dom ? How you have been recycled by popular culture ? At any rates...coming near the top I was scaring myself that the whole thing would just tumble, that this was the end of my life right there, within a stupid festival catastrophy. Youth crowds were strolling and jumping in gangs and I could really feel the structure shaking under my feeth. Or perhaps that was just the wind blowing on it ? The kids were going down and now I felt a total lunatic being left alone up there.
Yes there I was alone, finally on top of Constructivist Joke 2004. A small 6 by 4 foot cubicle with two free longview apparels and intermittent electronic information panels giving us clues about height, speed of wind, pressure, and temperature. The view, which I realize was the "art statement", gave primarely on the "other" city`s mountain (Mont-Royal), and on Place-Des-Arts Esplanade with all the buildings surrounding it up until lord mother Ville-Marie. I could hear people laughing that they`ve "gee...waited for this", but obviously those wouldn`t understand the art of such artists as Gerwald Rockenshaub. The mere possibility of being brought temporarely
at different latitudes within a space should consist a pertinent artistic expression or exploration on its own, without any other extraneous information (well...we were at Place-Des-Arts which semantically should entitle anything being built on it to be called art). But alas...we must admit the "emballage", context, and atmosphere of the general High Light Fest event made it hard for us to infer any seriosity in the project and it is sad because we come out of "La Montagne" with the framed impression that it doesn`t reach any higher than being vainly ambitious. I felt more like "trying to find the art within the entertainment" than being presented with something with strong focus and intention. But that doesn`t say the work didn`t have potential. One day I could be nostalgic about this, you know ?Oh, That year I could see the Mont-Royal from that "other" mountain ? Well...It WAS a little bit more spectacular than the kids will let it sound to be.
Ok....apart fom the usual sparse but socially inducing Braseros fireplaces, Hydro-Québec Dome (always the best place to watch the fireworks), and street performers, there was another "art-related" event presented on site.
"En Coulisse/Backstage" presented the work of 5 journalist photographers documenting various people in "public hidden", backstage activities, meant in the broadest sense possible.
You can see those here:
http://www.montrealenlumiere.com/francais/lumiere/expo-photos-2004.php
Comments per photograph:
Nicolas Ruel: a lot of people picked on him for having shot what could become two future classic poses of legendary Mado Lamotte preparing herself in her club`s cabin. These 4 shots taken at Mado`s Cabaret are amongst the most expressive of the whole lot. No one will ever be provocked by Mado ever again after being able to witness the cute amount of toys in her backdrobe. What ? No Dildos ?... Then of course the Amelia black and white repetition shots of La La La Human Steps are lavish, if more austere, and taken from a documentary point of view the Cheerleader shots are simply mesmerizing (he should have left out the "bellying-duo", but the groups portraits sports a Gus Van Santesque feel, to say the least).
Jean-Francois Leblanc: Hmm....the shots are either a little cold and distant, or I feel like I`m not "shown" enough, like with the Club 281 dancers (ahem...), there`s no way you can tell those are nude dancers (!) and where you`re at except for one of the shots. They are 4 good photos in the lot: The "group" club 281 shot with the guy lifting push-ups his legs across a chair, the Santa Claus interview in a car (because it`s a total mythological breakdown), and two shots that really communicated artist`s stress: the Mari-Jo Thériault and the Stefie Shock facials (though taking shots of musical and theatre backstages was a little easy an answer for this proposal).
Liam Malloney: An accentuation on details with these shots, getting intimate within the intimate. Letting the environment and props speak when we don`t see much of the protagonists. My favorite theatre shot (they are many) is the one under the stage during Tristan And Isolde. All the dog contest shots are magnificents, amongst the best in the whole show, gloomed in a low dark hospital green background (many of the shots are nearly mono-chromatic when not in black and white). Has he ever even heard of modern gothic with all these ackward moods he`s capturing. Some of these "journalists" can be true artists. The photograph of the blind actor on stage is also worth a glance. And what was he doing in the Sacristy waiting for the priest to enter ? What does the Hot Hot Heat "onstage" photo taken "from backstage" tell us ?
Phil Carpenter: They`re all black and white, mostly all showbiz related, with many good close-ups: the expression of comedian Angela Galuppo, the face of Helen Evans secretly scrutinizing Dave Bronstetter (that shot is perhaps his best here, fully engaging the thematic), the smile of a drag queen, the best restaurant shot of this show (cos it`s really close to the subject, full climax at that), the magnificent shot of the pipe-organ soldiers (we`re past shoulder shots but the subject is so preeminent within these clothes). Two other mentions: that freezing fashion model in her bathe suit and that gender tricking enigma in the Cleopatre bathroom. Genuine to note that radio broadcast photographs are "always backstage". I felt so dumb realizing that.
Samuel Gervais: Hmm....I didn`t like his. Most of them were dramatic color shots (you know...color spots, out of focus, blur, dark backgrounds and shadows, etc) of one or two people at work within the fields of dance, theatre, and television, and I feel like I`ve seen too many of these types of shots, the types that any theatre house shows up on a wall during a play for people to admire during the pause how hard they had been working. My faves are two rare shots without any people in the show (perhaps the only ones): the austere museum archive shot, which is both brilliant and absurd, and the film prop cave that felt very kitschy, as if any cineast would need any of these plastic animals and old timer`s "racquettes" (I want to see that film!!). The woman painting over a sarcophage was also kind of ackward. 3 nice shots over a bunch of magazine promo-features shots.
The "productions de l`Oeil" who organizes this show (and I hear by now have started organizing a few shows of their own intermittently) will probably publish a book of those within the year. For some reasons they always limit their selection to journalist and reporter photographs, but that may be what their mandate is about. It`s not like their themes ever approached the sophisticatedness of a Mois De La Photo main hall exhibit, but as such simple social lectures, their shows often bemused me, especially that classic White Night exhibit from a few years ago that promoted that idea of a nocturnal living city, the one that permuated in the very event Nuit Blanche from which I was able to visit this show.
Cheers,
Ced
Comments-[ comments.]
had much fun wandering in museums in the middle of the night. I know... they are already too many fests in this town (Montreal) but this one holds a good premiss: one full white night of partying each year, in any entertainment category (not just clubs), and many of them gratuitous: now that is an event I`m lighting up my candle to.
I`m glad that many visual art institutions participated. I thought "Montreal En Lumières" had sabotaged themselves since they stopped showing art (first couple years) and totally reduced their festivities to lazy-minded "light" (the other sense) entertainment. Well, actually they did, but this time around
I won`t complain too much because they opened me the doors to a couple huge exhibits I will be reviewing later on (Dominique Blain at MACM, Global Village at MBAM, and a couple others).
But this time I`m writting about the event itself, which is the most confusing of Montreal events, with its multiple sections (expensive dinners, relatively affordable spectacles (any types, but usually big, classic names), and free outdoor overtly spotlightted activities (amongst other fireworks): Ridicule, like ambition, doesn`t kill... The settings for the "light fest" at Place Des Arts tend to reduce in scale each year. This year it stops right at the Esplanade pool, and it seems all their budget went into the construction of that giant "monster sculpture" called "La Montagne" by Francois Bérubé (which of course I had never heard from), since all the other props (the ice slide, the dj cube, the heating dome, the photo booths, the fireplaces) were simply recycled from previous years.
"yes, but...is it art?". I tend to be generally generous with artists when they play with inhabitable structures, altering the spaces they occupy, working out the limits between art and architecture, because frankly, this is where I believe art is leading. But "La Montagne" doesn`t sound like it will be reminded as the most profound research on such matters. Nevertheless, let`s face it, this was the closer to expo 67 Montreal is ever going to get in years!! This giant cut-in-half mountain made of steel ramps, spotlights and square screens, actually served one purpose: it was the surface on which that kiddie short film "Tom`s Adventures" was screened..something a little ridicule involving a mountain that made me wonder what came first (did they plan to show that film or build that structure first?...duh?...). Sadly I missed the vj projections (cos the "dj" selection sucked for the most part), but I did manage to wait in line and climb the nearly 80 stairs that brought you at the top......................
While Climbing, I noticed the dramatic audient shadow-effect on the walls that was the main trick of one of the light installations at the first edition of Montreal En Lumiere (excellent, "socially constructive" piece by Alain Lortie at Parc Lahaie). Since then I could count various works I`ve seen using this idea, including a recent prefab house proposal in New York. It`s a low cost, sharp, functioning design solution if we forget for an instant that it`s getting a little common. "Oh cute... see the little people are climbing up... but where ?" The billboards along our path speak about conquerents of the everest, which I thought was a disneyesque unneccessity, and a little too literal if that was meant to be an element of artistic suspension within the "work". I wonder what Dominique Blain who exhibits right across at Musée D`art contemporain would have said about this, because she often use similar methods of conveying her statements in a variety of her works. You see Dom ? How you have been recycled by popular culture ? At any rates...coming near the top I was scaring myself that the whole thing would just tumble, that this was the end of my life right there, within a stupid festival catastrophy. Youth crowds were strolling and jumping in gangs and I could really feel the structure shaking under my feeth. Or perhaps that was just the wind blowing on it ? The kids were going down and now I felt a total lunatic being left alone up there.
Yes there I was alone, finally on top of Constructivist Joke 2004. A small 6 by 4 foot cubicle with two free longview apparels and intermittent electronic information panels giving us clues about height, speed of wind, pressure, and temperature. The view, which I realize was the "art statement", gave primarely on the "other" city`s mountain (Mont-Royal), and on Place-Des-Arts Esplanade with all the buildings surrounding it up until lord mother Ville-Marie. I could hear people laughing that they`ve "gee...waited for this", but obviously those wouldn`t understand the art of such artists as Gerwald Rockenshaub. The mere possibility of being brought temporarely
at different latitudes within a space should consist a pertinent artistic expression or exploration on its own, without any other extraneous information (well...we were at Place-Des-Arts which semantically should entitle anything being built on it to be called art). But alas...we must admit the "emballage", context, and atmosphere of the general High Light Fest event made it hard for us to infer any seriosity in the project and it is sad because we come out of "La Montagne" with the framed impression that it doesn`t reach any higher than being vainly ambitious. I felt more like "trying to find the art within the entertainment" than being presented with something with strong focus and intention. But that doesn`t say the work didn`t have potential. One day I could be nostalgic about this, you know ?Oh, That year I could see the Mont-Royal from that "other" mountain ? Well...It WAS a little bit more spectacular than the kids will let it sound to be.
Ok....apart fom the usual sparse but socially inducing Braseros fireplaces, Hydro-Québec Dome (always the best place to watch the fireworks), and street performers, there was another "art-related" event presented on site.
"En Coulisse/Backstage" presented the work of 5 journalist photographers documenting various people in "public hidden", backstage activities, meant in the broadest sense possible.
You can see those here:
http://www.montrealenlumiere.com/francais/lumiere/expo-photos-2004.php
Comments per photograph:
Nicolas Ruel: a lot of people picked on him for having shot what could become two future classic poses of legendary Mado Lamotte preparing herself in her club`s cabin. These 4 shots taken at Mado`s Cabaret are amongst the most expressive of the whole lot. No one will ever be provocked by Mado ever again after being able to witness the cute amount of toys in her backdrobe. What ? No Dildos ?... Then of course the Amelia black and white repetition shots of La La La Human Steps are lavish, if more austere, and taken from a documentary point of view the Cheerleader shots are simply mesmerizing (he should have left out the "bellying-duo", but the groups portraits sports a Gus Van Santesque feel, to say the least).
Jean-Francois Leblanc: Hmm....the shots are either a little cold and distant, or I feel like I`m not "shown" enough, like with the Club 281 dancers (ahem...), there`s no way you can tell those are nude dancers (!) and where you`re at except for one of the shots. They are 4 good photos in the lot: The "group" club 281 shot with the guy lifting push-ups his legs across a chair, the Santa Claus interview in a car (because it`s a total mythological breakdown), and two shots that really communicated artist`s stress: the Mari-Jo Thériault and the Stefie Shock facials (though taking shots of musical and theatre backstages was a little easy an answer for this proposal).
Liam Malloney: An accentuation on details with these shots, getting intimate within the intimate. Letting the environment and props speak when we don`t see much of the protagonists. My favorite theatre shot (they are many) is the one under the stage during Tristan And Isolde. All the dog contest shots are magnificents, amongst the best in the whole show, gloomed in a low dark hospital green background (many of the shots are nearly mono-chromatic when not in black and white). Has he ever even heard of modern gothic with all these ackward moods he`s capturing. Some of these "journalists" can be true artists. The photograph of the blind actor on stage is also worth a glance. And what was he doing in the Sacristy waiting for the priest to enter ? What does the Hot Hot Heat "onstage" photo taken "from backstage" tell us ?
Phil Carpenter: They`re all black and white, mostly all showbiz related, with many good close-ups: the expression of comedian Angela Galuppo, the face of Helen Evans secretly scrutinizing Dave Bronstetter (that shot is perhaps his best here, fully engaging the thematic), the smile of a drag queen, the best restaurant shot of this show (cos it`s really close to the subject, full climax at that), the magnificent shot of the pipe-organ soldiers (we`re past shoulder shots but the subject is so preeminent within these clothes). Two other mentions: that freezing fashion model in her bathe suit and that gender tricking enigma in the Cleopatre bathroom. Genuine to note that radio broadcast photographs are "always backstage". I felt so dumb realizing that.
Samuel Gervais: Hmm....I didn`t like his. Most of them were dramatic color shots (you know...color spots, out of focus, blur, dark backgrounds and shadows, etc) of one or two people at work within the fields of dance, theatre, and television, and I feel like I`ve seen too many of these types of shots, the types that any theatre house shows up on a wall during a play for people to admire during the pause how hard they had been working. My faves are two rare shots without any people in the show (perhaps the only ones): the austere museum archive shot, which is both brilliant and absurd, and the film prop cave that felt very kitschy, as if any cineast would need any of these plastic animals and old timer`s "racquettes" (I want to see that film!!). The woman painting over a sarcophage was also kind of ackward. 3 nice shots over a bunch of magazine promo-features shots.
The "productions de l`Oeil" who organizes this show (and I hear by now have started organizing a few shows of their own intermittently) will probably publish a book of those within the year. For some reasons they always limit their selection to journalist and reporter photographs, but that may be what their mandate is about. It`s not like their themes ever approached the sophisticatedness of a Mois De La Photo main hall exhibit, but as such simple social lectures, their shows often bemused me, especially that classic White Night exhibit from a few years ago that promoted that idea of a nocturnal living city, the one that permuated in the very event Nuit Blanche from which I was able to visit this show.
Cheers,
Ced
