This year eight Brooklyn art organizations have teamed up with eight from Montreal to produce a series of collaborations, first here then in Brooklyn. The Detours of the Possible, from A.I.R. Gallery and Les Territoires, features eight women artists: Aimée Burg, Julie Côté, Véronique Ducharme, Bang-Geul Han, Kathleen Schneider, Barbara Siegel, Catherine Tremblay and Minna Pöllänen. Pöllänen’s piece, Transformable Platform for Detailed Landscape, is on view at the corner of De Maisonneuve and St. Urbain, and the others are at Les Territoires.

Les Territoires is presenting this show as narrative. The introductory paragraph invites the viewer to participate in the tales that the artists have offered, and each work evokes a sense of participation, be it a game, video, photograph, sculpture or installation. We search for the story and are drawn in.

One work that I found particularly striking was Catherine Tremblay’s Une foule d’autres / A Host of Others, an ink jet print with polyester film, almost life size at 51” x 66″. One sees a muted landscape of red rock and sand on a grey day overlaid with transparent images of people. These figures are shadowy and it is hard to tell where one ends and another begins. The viewer’s own reflection is clearer than the people who stare back. The work demands that you wonder who they are and what story you are being shown. Standing there I attempted to decipher the image and its narrative. This was the case with the show in general. Each work has a story, but because of their ambiguous nature it is hard to make out what stories are being told.

Montreal Brooklyn is a great project. It creates partnerships between the two cities. On top of that the shows provide a new way to explore art in the city and introduce us to new artists. I urge you to visit all eight spaces and see what’s in store.

Les Territoires, space 527
Montreal-Brooklyn
The Detours from the Possible
October 20 – November 17, 2012
http://lesterritoires.org