« Je me demande comment honorer le travail à lâ€atelier à une époque dâ€hyper-connectivité et de vitesse. Lâ€atelier nâ€est pas un espace acquis, trop souvent il persiste à nâ€Ãªtre quâ€un lieu précaire… Le travail est plus mobile, par les résidences de création, plus fluide, par les réalisations in situ. Pourtant la pratique dâ€atelier idéale demeure encore pour moi un espace sacré de concentration, un lieu de silence, voire dâ€extraction du monde autant quâ€un espace de rituels. Jâ€ai ce désir de mettre à nu ces idées, comprenant les failles potentielles du processus, les moments dâ€hésitations… par lâ€incarnation du travail dans le corps et lâ€espace réel, imaginaire et symbolique ».

— Barbara Claus

Dans son plus récent projet in situ, Petites incarnations (suite), actuellement présenté au Centre des arts actuels Skol depuis le 6 mars, lâ€artiste montréalaise, Barbara Claus, travaille à même lâ€espace.

Au moyen dâ€une dimension performative indirecte et dâ€une instigation du lieu dâ€exposition, son processus demeure éminemment intime, voire réservé et privé. Lorsquâ€aucun visiteur nâ€est dans la salle, elle intervient et quand un visiteur arrive, elle sâ€arrête et lâ€invite à enlever ses chaussures afin de le laisser entrer dans son « atelier ». Dâ€un voyage au Japon, Claus rapporte des coutumes culturelles et des influences diversifiées. La tradition japonaise veut que lâ€on se déchausse lorsque lâ€on entre dans un domicile, que ce soit chez soi ou chez quelquâ€un dâ€autre. Cette coutume ne se borne dâ€ailleurs pas quâ€aux maisons et aux appartements, mais également à certains endroits publics, tels les musées et les galeries. En ce sens, deux possibilités sâ€offrent au visiteur : il peut soit retirer ses chaussures et entrer à lâ€intérieur de lâ€atelier immersif, soit sâ€assoir sur un banc afin de contempler le tout de lâ€extérieur. Une division brute et non terminée délimite lâ€espace sacré de concentration, ce lieu de « rituels ».

Lâ€espace devient monographique. Lâ€artiste lâ€habite, se lâ€approprie et le transfigure par des codes symboliques. Dans celui-ci, elle travaille le rôle de la lenteur dans un monde où tout semble accélérer. Barbara Claus aborde maints thèmes, tels que la mémoire, lâ€Ã©phémérité et la mort. Sâ€inscrivant dans un processus imbu dâ€hésitations, entre construction et destruction, les traces apparaissent au moyen de détournements comme lâ€accumulation et le retrait de matières dissemblables. Le résultat est précaire puisque rien nâ€est permanent ; tout est momentané et spontané. Lâ€artiste va à lâ€encontre de la pérennité et de la durabilité en travaillant à lâ€aboutissement de lâ€inabouti.

Dans la salle de Skol, quatre cloisons en perpétuelle évolution sâ€enchainent. Le mur initial — Monument I — est tapissé de minces feuilles dâ€aluminium superposées. Le mot « MORTE » y est creusé et parsemé de coruscations ; de distinctes réverbérations. La surface métallique reflète le mur parallèle — Monument II — qui est entièrement recouvert de cire dâ€abeille. Une succession de fines couches donne à la matière une couleur jaune saturé. Lâ€odeur de miel est omniprésente.

À lâ€opposé, par des Lignes de feu, Claus tente dâ€imiter la technique utilisée dans ses livres dâ€artiste : le découpage dâ€entailles délicates, ensuite brulées. Alors que chaque imperfection fait intégralement partie du processus, des lignes horizontales évident le plâtre de la cloison. Sur la paroi adjacente — La ruine —, lâ€artiste perfore dâ€innombrables petits trous et recouvre lâ€entièreté de la surface de graphite. Le mot « RUINE » sâ€y immisce, peint dâ€un ton spéculaire. Ainsi, la multitude des textures, par différentes étapes, contribue à lâ€Ã©tat transitoire que Claus offre au visiteur.

Le 22 avril prochain, dernier jour du projet, un finissage et un démantèlement collectif sont prévus. Chaque passant partira avec un élément de ce cadre dâ€extraction.

Lâ€Ã©volution du travail de lâ€artiste est disponible sur son site web.

Semblerais-t-il que pour le moment, les artistes sâ€intéressent à la première Sainte du Nouveau Monde Rose de Lima, dont la rue adjacente aux ateliers Jean Brillant porte le nom. Histoires, recherches et reliques sâ€accumulent déjà à Skol…à suivre.

Ce qui en résultera de cette résidence sera présenté à VIVA! Art Action.

Jacqueline van de Geer expérimente le clown, le jeu, le butoh, pour créer des performances loufoques et décalées qui impliquent souvent la participation du public.

En tant que performeur et flâneur, Jean-Philippe Luckhurst-Cartier sâ€infiltre dans le quotidien par le biais de manÅ“uvres immersives et contextuelles, pour provoquer subtilement lâ€empathie et lâ€altérité.
Chaque artiste présente une nouvelle performance, élaborée durant une résidence dâ€Ã©té à Skol.

Crédits photo: Kimura Byol (gauche) et Fanny Latreille (droite)

Texte : Centre Skol
Plus d’infos : http://skol.ca

What role are we playing in these exchanges? Why do many encounters remain static, identical, leaving no space for thought or connection? Days can play out like a formula repeatedly entered into a spreadsheet – CTRL+C, CTRL+V, CTRL+C, CTRL+V.

Les Territories, is currently presenting the work of two emerging artists, Maria Meinild and Émilie Franceschin, who both explore life and societal norms as purely a performance. By examining the daily behavioral patterns that are embedded in our notion of normalcy, the artists allow the questioning of these ideas.

Maria Meinildâ€s video, Curtain, explores life as a staged presentation of our expectations and preconceived ideas of what life is, and what it should be. Incorporating elements from both theatre and film, and expressed as a dialogue with slight variations and repetitions, she forces the viewer to question the theatrics of daily life, and how necessary the performance is to maintain oneâ€s identity.

Mariaâ€s short video features two main characters, at times reading from a script and at times speaking naturally. The female character repeats the phrase, “It takes solid preparation to provide spontaneity,” at different speeds and intonations – like sheâ€s practising a line. Someone is introduced into the video as a “stranger” in the same way characters can be announced in theatre. The woman repeatedly corrects herself like sheâ€s made a mistake on a line and is restarting the scene. Artificial visual creations scatter the set; there are oranges, skewered with cocktail umbrellas and arranged on a table. At Les Territories the video is projected onto a round surface that feels almost like youâ€re looking through a telescope or a pair of binoculars.

Émilie Franceschinâ€s series, Secrets, is presented in an adjacent room to Mariaâ€s work, and is more tactile and tangible in its exhibition. It includes an assortment of objects, images and a video, which all culminated in a performance on Saturday June 20. The act called, Iâ€ll Be Back Soon, saw the artist invite attendees to step into her journeys to understand her repeated struggles, real and imagined.

The objects created in advance of the performance are on display at Les Territoires for the duration of the exhibition. Her photographs, drawings and artifacts interact to reveal the work behind her performance, during the conception and before the execution. These objects offered audience members a new way of approaching the performance, which ultimately must be experienced. Viewers entered the act having seen these tangible materials and with a deeper understanding of the history and motivations that have driven the artistâ€s work. Émilie explores the body, its visceral quality, and intimate relationships with its surroundings. The performance, like a secret, is something that canâ€t be spoken – it must be experienced for it to become real and tangible.

The interactions between these two artists in the Les Territoires space is a fascinating one in that both approach this idea of life as performance in particularly unique, and moving, ways. Émilieâ€s idea draws its power from her very personal selection of artifacts, and her moving live performance. Mariaâ€s approach is impactful by forcing a sense of detachment and unreality between the characters in her video. Additionally, her piece is scripted and produced in a way that presents many layers for audience interpretation.

Both exhibits are on display at Les Territoires in the Belgo Building until July 4, 2015.

Maria Meinild

Maria completed an MFA from the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen; she has also studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Working primarily in video, but also extending to photo, collage, and installation, she has exhibited at New Jörg and Kunstverein Das Weisse Haus in Vienna, at Fauna in Copenhagen, and at ReMap4 in Athens. She was born in Karlshamn, Sweden, and lives and works between Copenhagen and Vienna.

Émilie Franceschin

Émilie is a graduate of the Toulouse School of Fine Arts, and has presented at performance festivals in France, Italy, England, Belgium and Germany. She has also participated in residencies at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, and in Dusseldorf. Recently she participated in the European Museums Night at the Calbet Museum in France. She lives and works in Toulouse.

Chloe Lum & Yannick Desranleau (SÉRIPOP)
The Face Stayed East The Mouth Went West (elements) // performanceChorégraphiée par Sarah Wendt
avec Sarah Wendt, Katie Ewald + performeurs invités
Vendredi le 29 mai à 17h30

Chloe Lum et Yannick Desranleau présentent à la Galerie Hugues Charbonneau une performance chorégraphiée en collaboration avec Sarah Wendt. À travers les actions de danseurs qui manipulent et s’affublent des objets difformes de l’installation de Lum et Desranleau, un nouveau chapitre s’inscrit à l’index performatif de l’oeuvre The Face Stayed East The Mouth Went West (elements). Lâ€intervention cherche à sonder la dynamique dâ€imbrication des statuts de lâ€Å“uvre à travers ses transformations, ses réinterprétations, et ses translations dâ€un médium à un autre. Cette hybridation entre sculpture, photographie et performance marque une nouvelle direction dans le travail de Lum et Desranleau.

CURTAIN
Maria Meinild

In Maria Meinildâ€s practice the staging of life, behavioral patterns and the scripts that seem imbedded in our notion of normality are combined with a strong interest in theatre and film methodologies. Through a continous loop of repetitions and variations, Curtain investigates the constant restaging and confirming of certain gestures we perform to maintain a notion of who we are. A broad fabric of film and theatre reference form a unique tapestry as the work enters a dialogue with its own conditions and simltaneously explores which relations are produced in and outside this controlled framework.

Les Territoires is proud to announce two special exhibitions of emerging artists. The Swedish artist Maria Meinild will present a video installation in conjunction with the Celeste Prize, an international contemporary art prize awarded by Celeste, a networking platform for arts professionals. In addition, the French artist Émilie Franceschin will offer a view into the mechanics of her performance work by exhibiting a selection of photographs, drawings and artifacts, followed by a performance.

SECRETS
Émilie Franceschin

The SKINNY
Something of a performance art process between two duos will be shared in Montreal on Saturday May 23 and Toronto on Saturday May 30th, times to be announce for both.

THOUGHTFUL DETAILS
FADO is pleased to be facilitating the Canadian edition of LIVE ART EXCHANGE, entitled CHARCO EXCHANGE. Presented in partnership with DARE-DARE, LINK & PIN, and Rats9 in Montréal, and VideoFag in Toronto, CHARCO EXCHANGE will be carried out between May 11-30, 2015.

The first phase takes place in Montréal from May 11-23, and will culminate in a public sharing on Saturday May 23 (from 4pm-6pm) at Rats9 Gallerie (Belgo Building, suite #530), where works in progress/creation will be shared. The duos working together (who have already started the process before meeting in person through email, writing, Skype etc.) are Sofia and Ana; and Isabel and Olivier.

In the last week of the project, the four artists move to Toronto where they continue their research, with a final sharing of the work produced will take place on Saturday May 30 at VideoFag (187 Augusta Ave, time TBA) in an event that will include live specimens, lectures and exhibition of the process carried out.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Ana Matey (Spain)
Isabel León (Spain)
Serge Olivier Fokoua (Cameroon/Canada)
Soufïa Bensaïd (Tunisia/Canada)

LIVE ART EXCHANGE is a process-based research and creation project initiated by Ana Matey and Isabel Leon in 2012, and has realized projects with dozens of artists in Spain, Finland and Norway.

LIVE ART EXCHANGE is an on-going research and production on communication and interpretation of messages between individuals, using performance and action art as the basis for this research. LIVE ART EXCHANAGE is interested in collective creation and believes that artistic creation is a live act, without boundaries or limits. The project manifests in a variety of proposals including meetings, residencies, workshops, talks and other outcomes including photography, video, and performance working with artists and creative people from different disciplines, backgrounds and origins. LIVE ART EXCHANGE proposes focusing on artistic process and the artists themselves, rather than the outcome or production of specific works. In this project, the research around ideas of communication-interpretation and the process of creation itself goes beyond the outcome of the play itself.

May 16, 2015
Curated by Mirna Boyadjian
in collaboration with ELEKTRA 16: POST-AUDIO, and the 1st edition of the International Sound Art Biennial.

Journée Paroles et Manoeuvres

In the spirit of exchange and reflection, Skol invites the public to participate in Journées Paroles et Manœuvres. A cross-disciplinary meeting of interventions, conferences, performances and discussions, this event aims to inverse roles, to encourage collaboration between different types of expertise and to support hybrid forms of communication. Journées Paroles et Manœuvres is an opportunity to take time, together, through various forms and ideas.

Program: Sound Art, War and the Arab World

– 2pm: Sound piece by Mazen Kerbaj, Starry Night, 2006.

A 40-minute improvisation recorded by Mazen Kerbaj in Beirut on the night of 16th/17th July 2006, in which Kerbajâ€s trumpet ‘duets†with the sound of Israeli bombs.

(The piece is presented in the gallery with earphones).

 - 2:30pm: Performance by Mirna Boyadjian and Raïa Haïdar, Une nuit, 2015. 

A visual and sound performance that speaks of war through the narration, both recorded and live, of the experience of a night during the Libanese civil war.

- 3pm: Conferences and discussions

Samir Saul – The Arab World in Turmoil: Points of Reference
Monia Abdallah – The War Regime in the Silence of Peace. Reflections on a Selection of Contemporary Artworks.
Serge Cardinal – Stereophony of the Syrian Conflict

 - 5pm: Short films by Abounaddara collective.

Emergency cinema that gives a voice to Syrian citizens.

- 5:30: Live music by “Jerusalem In My Heart”.

An experimental approach to Arabic music.

Fortner Anderson / Victoria Stanton

Fortner Anderson: Points of Departure
Saturday, May 2, 2015
10am — 10pm
Bar as of 6pm

Victoria Stanton: MTL sessions d’écoute #3
Sunday, May 3, 2015
7:30pm

Fortner Anderson: Points of Departure
Each day for a period of one-year, from February 11th 2010 to February 10th 2011, poet and performance artist Fortner Anderson composed a poem for the project Points of Departure. Over that period, 256 poems were completed.

This performance presents the results of this yearlong project in a single uninterrupted reading of a duration of 12 hours and 10 minutes. Every two minutes, in chronological order, the poet will present the poem composed for the corresponding day. For those days for which there was no completed text, he will remain silent for two minutes.
Facebook Event | More info >

Victoria Stanton: MTL Listening Sessions #3
The Listening Sessions are an occasion to get together and share the joy of listening to music.
Participants are invited to bring a song of their choice, which will be played off mp3 players in a round-robin DJ session. If they choose to, they can say something about the song theyâ€ve selected, which turns into a second stage of presentation: performances of memory through spontaneous storytelling.

The artist would like to thank Adriana Disman / LINK & PIN performance art series, RATS 9, Skol and all the participants who have already contributed to making such amazing playlists.
Facebook Event | More info >
(text: Skol)
More info: www.skol.ca

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Galerie Donald Browne
Solstice bazar
Vernissage from 5:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
www.galeriedonaldbrowne.com

Friday, December 5, 2014

Arprim
Vente du feu
Special 35th anniversary edition
Vernissage ay 6:30 p.m.
www.arprim.org

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Visual Voice Gallery
Bill Finger, David A. Hardy, William K. Hartmann
Nostalgia for the Future
Vernissage from 3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
www.visualvoicegallery.com

Galerie POPOP
Oli Sorenson
La Société de la Place des Spectacles
Performance at 4:00 p.m.
Vernissage from 2:00 p.m – 5:00 p.m.

SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art
CRUM
119 m Above Sea Level
Participatory Performance of Texting for Telepathy from 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
www.sbcgallery.ca

Music has always been a mystery to me. Its not like I haven’t tried, a year of music class and clarinet got me right back at square one: no musical capacity whatsoever. So when we start talking experimental music and improvisation, I am quite out of my comfort zone. However, the work by Mario Côte at the Galerie Trois Point is most interesting and caught my full attention. Mario Côté is a professor at l’Université du Québec à Montréal and the exhibition Table d’écoute is curated by his colleague Patrice Loubier Art History Professor also at UQAM.

The exhibition focuses on Côté’s work with music, more specifically Morton Feldman composition Crippled Symmetry  (1983). The large canvases we see upon entering the exhibition each represent a measure of Crippled Symmetry, itself composed of 1252 measures (approximating a total of 40 canvases). The artworks are abstract dominated by geometric forms; in this sense they are indeed representative of Feldman’s music. To be able to relate to these paintings I have sat through a youtube version of Crippled Symmetry. Although listening to the hour long composition did not rock my boat it certainly shed a light on Côte’s work (and annoyed my cat!). The repetition and the slow pace for example can be recognized in the visual interpretation of the pieces created by the artist, even for the musical illiterate that I am.

Through an idea that came from “number painting” and his interest music, Côté has developed a chart to transcribe music onto canvas (these charts are also in the show). Number painting is a popular amateur painting process where the canvas is already divided into numbered zones that will form the final image and a palette of numbered colors corresponding to the numbered zones. The creative process has already been done, the amateur painter only needs to fill in the color in the corresponding spot. Côté has experimented with these number paintings by changing the color codes resulting in the abstraction of the pre-determined image. The abstraction goes further when the canvas in turned over to the side, this can be observed in Planche d’abstraction no.1 and Planche d’abstraction no.4 (2013).

I would argue that the art piece is not only the final canvas, but the creation process as a whole. The exhibition layout seems to incarnate this idea as drafts, charts, research and influences are also present thus contextualizing the Crippled Symmetry (CS) pieces. In addition a reading of Crippled Symmetry will take place on November 9th to complete the artwork. As mentioned before, influences are also exhibited such as the piece Etat d’un tableau (2000-2001) or the Mur d’atelier series that show a deep connection to Abstract Expressionism (1940s) which influenced the New York School (end 1960s) and itself including avant-guard musicians like John Cage (to name the most famous one) as well as Morton Feldman. What interested these musicians was primarily the tendency towards the unpredictable, improvisation and the movement required from the body during the creation process.

When visiting Table d’écoute we are made aware that every aspect of the art from inspiration to the canvas is actually part of the final piece. Don’t miss the performance on November 9th (3pm at the gallery) to experience the art piece in its whole!

Galerie Trois Point
Mario Côté
Tables d’écoute
October 12 – November 16, 2013
http://galerietroispoints.com