The MAC and MOMENTA | Biennale de l’image unite to present Children’s Games by Francis Alÿs. World-renowned for his body of work at the crossroads of the political and poetic, Belgian artist Francis Alÿs is interested in everyday gestures and the political and symbolic potential that they contain. Comprising nearly twenty videos, this project shows how children turn simple, ordinary things – coins, stones, plastic bottles and so on – into the raw material for unlikely and fantastical universes. Through the sparkling imagination of children, Alÿs presents an intimate yet political view of the universal and unifying nature of games. From September 4, 2019 to January 5, 2020.
Painting takes centre stage at the MAC this fall with a major survey of the last decade of work by Montréal painter Janet Werner. Visitors will have an opportunity to gauge the scope of Werner’s practice; since the 1990’s she has developed a unique genre of fictional portraits featuring invented subjects. References to pop culture, humour, and the carnivalesque mingle with an aura of strangeness in Werner’s works as she explores different portrait styles. A major figure in Canadian painting who has played a prominent role in updating the portrait genre, Werner blurs the lines between abstraction and realism, between real and imaginary, to the spectator’s delight. From October 31, 2019 to January 5, 2020.
Revisiting the MAC Rotunda in an original and disruptive way in a new series of inkjet prints, Gisele Amantea combines photographic documentation of this iconic space of the Museum with drawings inspired by Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s mid-eighteenth-century etchings. Her stated intent is a personal critique of the museum and a musing both on its power dynamics and on the position she has in relation to it as an artist. Exhibiting these prints in the Rotunda, the MAC playfully participates in a critique of its own institution at a moment of anticipation before the transformation project begins, in which the Rotunda is slated to disappear. From October 9, 2019 to January 15, 2020.
Also at the MAC, in Je vois ce que tu regardes, works by artists Luis Jacob (Toronto) and Serge Tousignant (Montréal) are brought together in an unprecedented pairing that shows how a field of artistic research – in this case, the spectator’s experience – can be conveyed in different ways. Jacob offers visitors a series of images, his Album X, in which the heterogeneity of subjects and absence of descriptive legends creates a context in which spectators are free to reconstruct linkages and unusual relationships. The effect of Tousignant’s polychrome sculptures formed of colourful shapes is to engage in a more direct relationship with spectators by acting directly on their experience of the space. From October 31, 2019 to January 5, 2020.
Alain Paiement : Bleu de bleu – The result of research developed over a four-year period, Bleu de bleu frames a small concrete-and-asphalt stretch along Highway 20, between Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport and downtown Montréal. In this exhibition, the MAC presents the work as it has been integrated into the Musée collection: an installation made up of thirty-two videographic, photographic and sculptural elements, whose conceptual nature is intrinsically linked to its monumental, eponymous in situ placement. The work at the museum remains an experience of time and space, but one revealed through layers of data: it comprises a near-inextricable labyrinthine series of documents and images, of plans, drawings, surveys and projections. From October 31, 2019 to January 5, 2020.
Organized by guest curator Mehdi Brit and MAC curator Mark Lanctôt, EMERGE is an event dedicated to contemporary performance that brings together ten of the most important Canadian and European artists in the discipline. The most complete gathering of performance art ever mounted at the MAC, EMERGE will offer a stimulating encounter among theatre, visual arts, and body art, highlighting the pluridisciplinary nature of the most tantalizing current practices. A series of panels and lectures will accompany the event to complement the program of works presented. From November 19 to 24, 2019.
Fashion is featured at the McCord Museum with the Jean-Claude Poitras: Fashion and Inspiration exhibition which explores the sources of inspiration and the creative work of Montreal designer Jean-Claude Poitras, who left his mark on prêt-à-porter in Montréal, Québec and the rest of Canada over the course of a prolific career. The exhibition sheds light on the creative world of the designer and his sources of inspiration via archival material, multimedia displays and objects, as well as pieces of clothing that have marked and still mark local fashion. From his youth, the Montréal designer has been fascinated with textures, the movement of fabrics, their nature and their colour. This tactile and visual attraction for materials will become the main thread of his professional life. The Jean-Claude Poitras – Mode et inspirations exhibition reveals the designer’s personality via his three major sources of inspiration: family and religion, muses and film, and travel. From October 24, 2019, to April 26, 2020.
The Incas, Treasures of Peru at Pointe-à-Callière – In order to penetrate the secrets of the Inca civilization, its origins and its heritage, and highlight the great refinement of its artistic creations, this Pointe-à-Callière exhibition invites you to explore the captivating world of the Incas and Andean culture – mainly that of Peru – from prehistory to the contemporary era, and discover the splendors of the Incas who were at once the heirs and bequeathers of some of the most fertile customs and exquisite craftsmanship in the world. Trek through the Andean mountains and valleys and admire the remarkable flora and fauna of this exceptional place. Learn about the rites and many skills in agriculture, ceramics, metallurgy, sculpture and weaving of different pre-Inca civilizations that all had a major influence on Inca culture. Then, at the heart of the exhibition, discover the splendour of the Incas, their social organization, and their incredible artistic achievements. From November 27, 2019 to April 13, 2020.
The Viatour-Berthiaume exhibition Sculpter les mots : une rétrospective will be presented at the “Union des écrivaines et écrivains du Québec” and will also be part of the “Festival international de la littérature” from September 19 to December 5, 2019. Between 2008 and 2018, Marie-Annick Viatour and Gaétan Berthiaume successively immerse themselves into the worlds of Michel Tremblay, Fred Pellerin, Kim Thúy and Boucar Diouf and create four corpuses of unique polychrome wood works, resulting in exhibitions that will tour Québec. The UNEQ and FIL invite you to discover the works of Viatour-Berthiaume that blend beauty, ingenuity and playfulness, selected from the 60 unique creations that were inspired by Québécois authors. The short films entitled Sous l’écorce des mots featuring Kim Thúy and Quand Boucar Diouf s’intègre au bois… (FIFA 2019) will be shown throughout the exhibition’s duration. At Maison des écrivains, 3492 Laval Avenue, Montréal, 514 849-8540. From September 19 to December 5, 2019.
Fall 2019
