Montreal Collects!

Montreal is a city alive with art and artists. Montreal sustains a culture that embraces art in many forms. Entering into the art world of Montreal, one will uncover Canadian artists from all over who have relocated for education, opportunity, and the supportive community present there.

I have been lucky enough to visit several times over the past 12 months and am always thrilled to see what is going on in Montreal’s institutions, galleries and artist run centres as well as the private foundations working to build a thriving contemporary discussion in the visual arts.

I have visited the Musee de Beaux Artes on two occasions this year. The first visit was to see the fantastic Rouge Cabaret The Terrifying and Beautiful World of Otto Dix exhibition, drawing from the Musee’s own collection, the Neue Gallery in New York, and private European and American collections. A couple of years ago the same institution hosted a survey exhibition of Kees Van Dongen which similarly shed new light on an artist sometimes dismissed as trite and of little relevance. Both these shows were remarkable to me for their potent and wrenching discussion of ongoing issues of social responsibility, government censorship of artistic expression in times of conflict, relationships between the patron class and artists, and the importance of unrestricted support in the production of the most powerful work. Both exhibitions allowed for a view of the progression of the artists skills and career through world events and life stages - a great learning experience.

While visiting the Beaux Artes I stumbled upon a fabulous exhibition of recently acquired and borrowed works put together by Stephane Aquin and his curatorial team. “The Earth is Blue Like an Orange” is an examination of the importance of the imagination and the surreal in contemporary art practice. Aquin has been able to bring together work by young Quebecois, Canadian, and International artists in a tour de force of charming and arresting, even disturbing pieces that have held my imagination for many hours after each visit. Many of the works involve the anthropomorphization of animal forms as witnessed in the darkly humorous work of Karen Gibolous who fashions condensed tableaux harshly mimicking our own consumerist society and commenting on the ethics of food production, overpopulation, gluttony and ethnocentricism. Martin Beauregard's “Wake up Teddy” is a cuddly and disturbing “life-size” teddy bear made from – a life size bear – and is a piece I could look at over and over forever even while it gives me a feeling of deep sadness. Simen Johan, a photo-based artist based in New York produces twisted and confusing images of the museum dioramas that those of us of a certain age were bombarded with on numerous trips to the museums of our youth. The familiar animals and surroundings are muddled with features incongruous to natural worlds but familiar to dreams and perhaps the altered environments of our future. Recent Sobey Award finalists Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby are included with a taxidermied installation and hallucinogenic video inducing laughter and squirming discomfort in equal measure. The brilliant Valerie Blass (more of her work later) is represented by the glamorous and ominous She Was a Big Success (2009), a presciently wise acquisition by an institution with eyes fixed on past present and future.

On going through the feature shows, the recent contemporary acquisitions and the historical exhibitions it is amazing to me the activity that must go on within the committees and curatorial departments of the Musee des Beaux Artes. The inventory numbers readable on each label tell a story of acquisition either through purchase or donation of vast numbers of important works of today and yesterday. The support given by this institution, the Musee Art Contemporain, the National Museum of Quebec in Quebec City, and Canada’s National Gallery to the artists in all parts of Canada and especially in Quebec is exemplary. Are western institutions able to illustrate this kind of support for our Canadian and western contemporary artists? Is there a track record of RECENT acquisition, by any means, of important work going on in our relatively well-off province? Are our artists being held up as important cogs within our society on a national and international stage? Are the patrons of our province stepping up in support of artists and creation as suggested in the review of MAC’s recent gala ball by Mr. Alexandre Taillefer who was both host of that ball and lender of several important pieces to the “Blue as an Orange” exhibition?

    "Encouraging the MAC means supporting a place where today's artists can share the fruits of their artistic labours. Thanks to the acquisitions the Musee makes every year, this support also provides them with precious revenue that will allow them to grow, nurture their vision and push back the boundaries of their art further still.
     The Musee is a place where visitors can be enriched by artists' vision and life experience - be shocked, bowled over or carried away, and nurtured by that very vision.
     It isn't always easy to champion arts related causes at times like the one we are going through. But it is my deep conviction that art is just as important as education and health - that it nurtures the soul!
     More than all those artists who have passed on and left us an enduring legacy with their works, the artists who are our contemporaries need our encouragement. Your support this evening is a sterling example.
     Like many of you, Debbie and I are passionate about contemporary art and collect work that moves us. Think about visiting your local galleries, keeping in mind that every acquisition helps build an even stronger Quebec visual arts scene."     Alexandre Taillefer

The amount of haggling and horse trading, pleading, and begging that must go on in these institutions to amass the collections of work shown and stored is astounding. Arguments about budgets and time are likely even more valid in Quebec and yet the Beaux Artes is able to boast new entries in 2008 of at least 100 pieces of art. The MAC has recently acquired a major piece by Valerie Blass as has the National Museum of Canada and Quebec City’s National Museum. Can our local temples of culture come close to this level of advocacy? Are our community leaders and economic giants able to see the benefit to our world of a thriving artistic scene and step up in a fashion deserved by our artists and cultural creators? Or perhaps, as has been the norm, shall we see the ongoing exodus of the best of our musicians, painters, writers, sculptors, dancers, performers, and filmmakers. These integral members of our world are moving to a climate that recognizes a thriving arts community as a reflection of a healthy and balanced society comfortable with discussions of importance beyond the price of oil and the rise or fall of the real estate market? They move to Montreal.

An Artjunkie’s Views

Hiya!

Being a man of a certain middle age, and a luddite by nature, I am a very late arrival in the land of blog. In general I haven't felt like I had much of value to inflict on you. In all likelihood, I still don't but I do have increasingly strong opinions about the state of contemporary art, and it's importance, in my world.

I had little to no exposure to visual art in my education and growing up. I was, and still am, avidly connected to music in many forms. I played in concert band, sang in church choir and yelled in a band covering post-punk and new wave tunes.

As I went through school and university, studying science and then medicine, there was little time nor room in my brain for anything more. After writing my last exams in medical school I went on a trip to Mexico - to an area off radar for most - to the southern state of Oaxaca. The state capital, Oaxaca City,  has long been a centre of art production in Mexico and has a number of influential schools for training artists along with a strong network of galleries. I visited the museum of pre-columbian art and artifacts left by Rufino Tamayo, saw murals created by the great muralists of early 20th century Mexico including Tamayo, David Siqueros, Jose Clemente Orozco, and Diego Rivera. I spent a day in Mexico City and visited the amazing collection of the Rufino Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art and saw, for the first time, the wonders of some of the mid-century greats - european, american and latin. These were formative exposures. I had a brain open to new information and a heart desperate for new experience; it was an epiphany.

While visiting a few of Oaxaca's small galleries I was stunned to see so many different ways of representing thought, idea, and emotion. I bought my first two pieces of original work (or convinced my parents that it would be a great graduation present) in Oaxaca, and have continued to collect work that made me feel and think and sometimes to hurt. I have managed to become steward for works by Edmonton, Canadian and international artists and learned of the great privilege that comes with patronage. I now know that by committing my resources to acquiring original art I am able to support artists to continue the important work they do. The works I get to live with could become the cultural treasures of the future, or perhaps they are the means that allow that artist to create the next watershed cultural work that can change our world.

I volunteer at a local non-profit gallery and support the major collecting institution in Edmonton. I attend as many events as I can in my area to support local artists at all stages, and I have worked with local artists to produce major works that have shown locally and are slated to travel internationally. I travel several times a year to major art centres and events including art fairs in New York, London, Miami, and I look at a vast array of art. I read art journals, blogs and critical writing. I visit museums and galleries frequently. I have very strong opinions about the important role artists play in our communities and the need for their work to be supported, shown, collected and documented by collectors and institutions.

In this blog I will be commenting on work I see, on developments in the international art world, on art that inflames me, and on the practices of artists I love. I hope to infect others with the collecting bug, and to inspire a culture of patronage in readers as well as dialogue and learning about art theory and practice. Posts will happen when I have something new to talk about. Conversations are encouraged.