Enter the urban jungle

Have you been staring at the asphalt outside your door or that barren rooftop outside your window? Well, listen up. Vancouver-based Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, one of Canada’s most accomplished and celebrated landscape architects, is in town giving a free lecture tonight at 6 p.m. at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (1920 Baile). Oberlander, now in her mid-’80s, is a pioneer in the development of environmentally sustainable designs. Renowned for her green roofs and greening urban areas, her public projects include the creative playground at Expo 67, the Taiga Garden at the National Gallery of Canada (1988) and most recently the roof garden at the Canadian Embassy in Berlin (2005). She was one of the very first women to be admitted to Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 1943 (before which, regardless of ability, women could not attend Harvard). Tonight’s talk coincides with the opening of the exhibition Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: Ecological Landscapes, featuring material from the newly completed Oberlander Archive at the CCA and 34 photographs of Oberlander’s work taken by young German photographer Etta Gerdes. The exhibition runs until July 30, info: 939-7000. —Christine Redfern

Double dance

Back in 2002, when Crystal Pite danced with American choreographer Richard Siegal in his theatrical duet The Bouncy Woman Piece, she knew she wanted to continue working with him. Siegal’s choreography, which uses a large-scale mirror, struck thematic cords in Pite and propelled her to create a companion piece for the two of them.

“I was interested in the mirror as a metaphor for self, as a question of identity, reality and point of view,” says Vancouver-based choreographer Pite. Her shadowy piece, Man Asunder, reflects and responds to Siegal’s original themes of self, memory and time.

Using movement, text and a live soundtrack by Montreal composer-musician Diane Labrosse, the two choreographers tunnel into those notions in Double Story, a co-creation between herself and Siegal that links both pieces. It’s on at the Cinquième Salle at Place des Arts at 8 p.m. nightly until this Saturday, May 13, $22–$26, 842-J2122. —Marites Carino

Prodigal portable

Andy Brown is celebrating 10 hectic years as a publisher with The Portable Conundrum, an anthology collecting 34 scribes and visual artists of all stripes—actually, everyone he’s ever published. “It’s all new works, mostly,” Brown says. “It’s exciting to see where the people are at now.” The launch promises to be a barn burner, with screenings of animation and performances by tons of Conundrum alumni like Shary Boyle, Catherine Kidd, Golda Fried, Nathaniel G. Moore, Valerie Joy Kalynchuk (launching her latest book), Victoria Stanton, the American Devices, and Corey Frost. “Making art is about making community,” says Frost. “Conundrum not only introduces new writers to an audience, it introduces them to other writers.” That’s Thursday, May 18 at 8:30 p.m., 3997 St-Laurent, free. —Vincent Tinguely

Hot tips

Ever finish off your poutine and hot dog-à-vapeur and feel the cook deserved more than the $4.50 in loose change you slid across the counter? Well, Montreal artists Kit Malo and Kim Kielhofner decided to show their gratitude through art. For two months they went from diner to diner, giving cooks and waiters drawings done on the paper placemats on which the pair ate their greasy victuals. This Saturday, May 13, the eat-a-thon comes to a head when the diner employees will descend on the Articule gallery (4001 Berri, #105). They’ll bring the illustrated placemats and arrange them on the bare walls before the public during a 5 à 7. The exhibit, Bienvenue-Welcome, will showcase the strange drawn worlds of Malo and Kielhofner until May 28.—Marc Apollonio

Is it Art?

Worth the weight: Winner of the “Best 2006 Sex Toy” award (though it’s not clear exactly who doled out the honours), the Gravitizer promises a sexual epiphany to anyone who dares try it. Or straddle it, as the case may be, as this work of erotic innovation, which promises to “take the gravity out of sex,” resembles nothing more than a stool with a hole in it. Still, the product’s Web site reassures customers skeptical of the Gravitizer’s $99.95 US price point that it “comprises 17 pounds of steel and rubber,” and if that isn’t enough to turn you on, maybe nothing will. Check www.gravitizer.com for details.

ArtsHole

On the bright side: Light and the media is the subject of Still Light, a new exhibit at Dazibao (4001 Berri, #202), put together by Jocelyn Robert as part of their annual artist-curated Carte grise series. The show includes works by Éric Gagnon, Bernard Gigounon, John Oswald, Julia Page and Ben Riesman, and runs through June 3. • Fine print: The Mois de l’art imprimé—May—is a boon for Montreal print-lovers, with tons of shows. At Mdlc Villeray-Saint Michel-Parc-Extension (421 St-Roch) there’s Voir Grand 2006, an exhibit of large-format printwork, through June 18; Galerie Circulaire (5445 de Gaspé #503) has “sans titre,” an exhibit of works by Atelier Circulaire members (through May 27); and Yuka Higashiura’s Ex Libris runs at Librairie Henri-Julien (4800 Henri-Julien) through May 31.

ARTISTAT: Number of evenings a week the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, as of this month, will remain open until 9 p.m.: 3 (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday)

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