Bringing back the dead

In a darkened space, photographs of ghosts, the dead and the unborn hang at the MAI (3680 Jeanne-Mance). Part of group exhibition Les Revenants, Roberto Stephenson’s “Haitian Portraits” are haunting and believable, yet the people pictured don’t exist; the portraits are composites, combining features from many individuals into one face.

Ted Hiebert’s “Chimeras” series conjures up mythical creatures, monsters that look part human, part animal, part insect, but in reality are self-portraits of the artist covered with glow-in-the-dark body paint and leaping around in front of an opened lens.

Martha Langford writes in the accompanying text about Barbara Astman’s series “Dancing with Che” of “the famous face returned to life by the artist’s movements.” I personally lacked the imagination required to bring Che back to life by looking at slightly blurred images of the artist dancing in a T-shirt with Che Guevara’s face printed on it.

The highlight of this show is a series of pictures presented by Martyn Jolly of the “spirit photography” of Ada Deane from the 1920s. Taken in the aftermath of World War I and the Spanish Influenza, these photographs show a time when people actually believed that the deceased could come back to the living on a photographic plate. Runs until Nov. 5, info: 982-1812. » Christine Redfern

Life and luck

Get used to it, right now almost every art exhibition in Montreal is part of the city-wide Mois de la Photo, even when they contain no photographs. Such is the case with Marc Audette and Barbara Steinman’s installations currently on view at Pierre-François Ouellette Art Contemporain (372 Ste-Catherine W, #216).

Audette’s video Cran consists of two projections on opposite sides of a suspended screen. The subject at first seems abstract and unreadable, but it is actually the negative of an image that becomes clear when the viewer moves around to the other side of the work. Steinman’s Roulette consists of a crystal-clear recording of a metal ball spinning around a roulette wheel. The accompanying circular installation has positive and negative words etched in glass effectively highlighting the role of chance in the wheel of life. Steinman also presents two other interesting glass pieces that represent the sound waves of the words “breath” and “souffle.” Runs until Oct. 8, info: 395-6032. » Christine Redfern

Toys with ’tude

Julie Doucet is known primarily for her anti-politically-correct comics—the ongoing, brash dream-diary digest Dirty Plotte, her New York Diaries graphic novel and many other works stand out, as widely celebrated as they are controversial. Last week, Doucet kicked off a show of her lesser known but equally lewd and lascivious figurines. À l’école de l’amour is part of Gallery Clark’s (5455 de Gaspé, #114) “99% bon” series, which, last fall, gave its washroom to Mario Duchesneau to create an evolving work over the course of its 2004–05 season. Doucet’s little friends greet visitors in the gallery entrance until April 22. » Matthew Woodley

Masters and their universe

Inspired by last spring’s student strike, a group of activist McGill University grad students have formed GrADE. “Grad student life becomes isolated, so you end up writing about things that you’re not in contact with,” GrADE member Julie Pattee explains. “People wanted to get together to discuss issues like the accessibility of higher education.”

GrADE has organized RadGrad, politicized orientation events for new and returning graduate students. It includes panel discussions, workshops and a couple of shows. On Sept. 8, expect performances from Norman Nawrocki, Jordi Rosen and friends, My Arabic Story, Scared Space and Petit Théâtre de l’Absolu, $8. On Sept. 9, Kalmunity, Kali and Dub and Tempus Fugit perform, $8. Both shows are at El Salon (4388 St-Laurent), 9 p.m. Info: www.ssmu.mcgill.ca/qpirg/radgrad. » Vincent Tinguely

Is it Art?

LEASHES ON LIFE: Meditation has made big inroads in the West in the past few decades, having moved from odd-mysticism status to being embraced by the scientific community when the Dalai Lama and some of his buddies participated in brain scans at the University of Wisconsin and showed how brightly their happy sectors glowed. Still, James Jacobson, author of How to Meditate With Your Dog, probably has his work cut out for him. Or maybe not, because he’s busy living in the moment with his peaceful lapdog Maui, forging a human-canine spiritual connection that no game of fetch could afford. The book, published by Maui Media, will be available in bookstores this fall.

ArtsHole

EVOLUTION GAP: “We have killed off other species and are in the process of killing off our own,” points out Mark Garland, who with fellow artists Carmen Bouchard, Michael Hunt and Jean-François Lacombe, are reacting to a globe in turmoil with Endangered Species, a dystopian world of 3-D cut-out creatures, toys parodying the American Dream, fashion-parodying photography, quirky wood constructions and more at the Stewart Hall Art Gallery (176 Bord-du-Lac, Pointe-Claire) from Sept. 3–Oct.16. • FRESCOE FRESH: The Giotto in Padua project, a scaled-to-size reproduction of Giotto’s 14th-century frescoes in Padua, Italy’s Scrovegni chapel, is currently in Montreal in the midst of a multi-country tour that has drawn hundreds of thousands of visitors worldwide. It’s at Casa d’Italia (505 Jean-Talon E.) until Sept. 18, free.

ARTISTAT: Number of times, following a lukewarm reception on Dec. 26, 1831, at la Scala, that Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma was performed in 1832, carving the path for an opera classic in the making and leading, in one way or another, to the Opéra de Montréal’s staging of the masterpiece starting Sept. 17 at Place des Arts: 40

>> Arts Listings