Big Brother art in the park

While there’s plenty to be said for getting art out of the gallery and reconnecting it to everyday people and life, the outside world isn’t always so welcoming. Florian Wüst and Felix S. Huber, two German artists-in-residence at Oboro, found this out when they installed their re:site project in Carré St-Louis this past month. It involves broadcasting live video streams from the park onto two on-site monitors as well as over the Internet (www.oboro.tv/resitemontreal).

Though the live footage isn’t recorded, there’s nothing that makes this fact immediately apparent to park patrons, many of whom felt like they were under surveillance, and, for whatever reasons, weren’t into being watched. As soon as the piece went up, the vandalism started. Paint was sprayed over the monitors, the power source was cut and comments such as “artist-police” and “my life is not a show” covered the structure. This resulted in an ongoing back-and-forth between the artists and the public, turning the work itself into a kind of message board. That, in turn, started local politicians complaining, demanding the graffiti be covered over with paint to make the installation more aesthetically pleasing. The battle rages on.

If it survives, re:site will run until June 25, info: 844-3250. » Christine Redfern

Pig-up-the-ass tales

Concerning the social significance of his latest opus, The Unexpurgated Tale of Lordie Jones, comic artist Marc Ngui can’t be pinned down. “It started out more from the image, actually,” Ngui explains. “Just a boy with a live pig up his ass. The story came out of trying to explain how this could possibly happen.”

The mysteries of childhood fears—fear of dying of cancer, of public humiliation, of not fitting in with schoolmates—all come pouring out this Tuesday at Pharmacie Esperanza (5490 St-Laurent), when Ngui presents the “dub trance operetta” version of his new book. “It’s a glorified PowerPoint multimedia presentation with sound effects,” he explains. “The character voices are all performed by me. I had ambitions to try to sing it, but it would probably be a bit too difficult, both for the audience and myself.”

Golda Fried also launches her novel, Nellcott Is My Darling Tuesday, June 21, 7 p.m., free! » Vincent Tinguely

Shades of the past

Don’t miss the informatively titled exhibition 3 PAINTINGS. 1 SCULPTURE. 3 SPACES. CLAUDE TOUSIGNANT. BLACK GREY WHITE, now on view at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (1400 de Maisonneuve W, LB-165). Curator Michèle Thériault has brought together recent works by Claude Tousignant to reflect upon the relationship between his large-scale formal abstractions and the “exhibiting” spaces of the gallery. A concurrent exhibition highlights six paintings from the Les Danses carrées series done by Yves Gaucher in 1964-65. To top it all off, pick up your free copy of writer and editor Scott McFarlane’s text, concerning two paintings from the 1960s by multi-disciplinary artist Roy Kiyooka. Runs until July 9, info: 848-2424 ext. 4750. » Christine Redfern

Computer choreography

One day while meandering through her neighbourhood, choreographer-dancer Line Nault imagined herself, with each step, slowly metamorphosing into someone else. It’s a flight of fancy that evolved into her performance-installation piece L’Espace des autres, an intimate work that speaks of paths in space and time, and, appropriately enough, takes place in Nault’s backyard shed.

The project also works with Nault’s desire to use technology to shape her movements. Back in April, she invited 30 participants to each walk along four different pathways engraved in the floor while she recorded their trajectories. Collaborator Alexandre Burton then used a computer program to chop up the footage and randomly reassemble and reduce the material to one-minute segments that revisit each route. Following that, Nault learned these machine-generated sequences, which she performs alongside the clips, with three shows nightly until June 19: 7, 8 and 9 p.m. Call 393-3771 for directions to the offbeat dance space in Rosemont. » Marites Carino

Is it Art?

GET IT OUT: One of the best ways to ease the burden of a heavy secret is to be privy to the secrets of others, and they make it real fun and easy for you at Post Secret (http://postsecret.blogspot.com/). The project (not so much a blog, don’t worry) is an ongoing compilation of anonymous, mailed-in confessional postcards prettied up with thematic drawings or collages. Subjects range from the lighthearted I-pee-in-the-pool variety to darker affairs, with plenty of childhood humiliation, religious guilt, relationship disclosures and sex. A couple for the road: “Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ. I am a Southern Baptist pastor’s wife. No one knows I do not believe in God.” Or “I hate it when my lady plays with my man boobs during sex, but she seems to be the only one who’ll have sex with the boobed man.” Enjoy.

ArtsHole

HIT THE ROAD FOR JACK: Prolific indie show poster producer, co-owner of music venue the Electric Tractor and man behind the Park Towers zine, Jack Dylan’s pop-art exhibition formerly known as Jack Dylan’s Parlour Portraits is up at Pharmacie Esperanza (5490 St-Laurent). Figures depicted range from friends to a cat to former (future?) Starship Enterprise Captain Jean-Luc Picard. • ELECTRIC EMPIRE: Multimedia and architecture org Champ Libre’s Nomad’s Land, currently set up in Chinatown’s Sat-Yen Square (corner Clark and de la Gauchetière), mixes electronic art with the site’s much older architecture, which was imported to Montreal from China. It continues until June 19.

ARTISTAT: Number of local handcrafters selling their wares—clothing, jewellery, ceramics, handbags and way more—just around the corner from the St-Laurent street-sale madness at Mange Mes Pieds’s 3-D Sale, taking place at their studio (10 des Pins W., 2nd floor), June 18–19, 11 a.m.–9 p.m.: 30

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