VISUAL ART:
Material world

Nike sneakers, skateboards, a bed, treehouses and other ingredients for sizzling art

by CHRISTINE REDFERN

If you only see one show this summer, make it Brian Jungen’s retrospective at the Musée d’art contemporain. Jungen is one of Canada’s top visual artists; I’d even go so far as to say he is the most interesting Canadian artist working today. He burst onto the national scene in 1999–2000 by turning Nike Air Jordans into Haida masks and hasn’t looked back. He has the ability to expose an ancient soul lurking within modern consumer goods: plastic deck chairs, baseball bats and cafeteria trays. If you go, take a side trip to the McCord museum’s two excellent exhibitions: Haida Art: Mapping an Ancient Language and contemporary Haida Gwaii artist Robert Davidson’s exhibition The Abstract Edge.

Also taking up residence at the Musée d’art contemporain for the summer is local Pascal Grandmaison, one of the artists being actively promoted by red-hot gallery owner Réné Blouin. His presentation is slick, but the word that comes up most often when looking at his work is “boring.” There are some nice visual plays in black and white happening in his videos, but overall the work never seems to scratch below the surface into something deeper. Grandmaison is also part of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’s upcoming exhibition, Sound and Vision: Photographic and Video Images in Contemporary Canadian Art (opens June 29). This exhibition showcases a selection of the video and photographic works owned by Canada’s three largest museums. With works by 23 artists including Lynne Cohen, Isabelle Hayeur, AA Bronson and Stan Douglas this looks like it’ll be one hot (and free) ticket this season.

On decks

For more offbeat fare, look no further than the Street Camp exhibition of skateboard art, opening Wednesday, June 14 (6 p.m., $5), at Yves Laroche’s L’Autre Galerie. This show brings together over 50 rocking artists including L.A.-based icon Shepard Fairey (Obey), New York installation artist WK Interact, local comic artist Caro Caron and graffiti artist Doze Green.

Another upcoming must-see is the hilarious double-bill Endless Medication and Cerveau Fêlé 101. If you missed these performances featuring Nathalie Claude (Montreal) and Marijs Boulogne (Brussels) during last March’s Edgy Women Festival, do yourself a favour and be in the audience June 16–18 at Studio 303. Nathalie Claude will also be part of the always-steamy Le Boudoir that runs from June 29–July 2 (www.leboudoir.com).

For an experience off the beaten track, make the pilgrimage to see Karen Trask’s Proust’s bed: Waiting for a kiss. Presented by Dare-dare, this highly textured bed intricately made out of pages from Proust’s À la Recherche du Temps Perdu is installed in a back shed, accessed by the alley between St-Urbain and Waverly (corner of Mozart or Jean-Talon). Opening/performance is tonight, June 8, performance/party June 24 (6 p.m.), details at www.dare-dare.org. Also worth the trek is Résider II, an exhibition spread over three different locations, featuring new work by Karilee Fuglem, Annie Martin, Carmen Ruschiensky and Andrea Szilasi (www.galerieb-312.qc.ca).

Sounding off

Montreal Sound Matter, coordinated by Esther Bourdages, brings together local and international sound artists under the artistic direction of Francisco López (Spain). This collaborative sound project, says López, sees Montreal “as a constantly changing generator of sound matter.” The participating artists are individually manipulating a common pool of recordings that have been captured around the city. The outcome will be a concert on July 27, a CD and a sound installation (July 6–Aug 27) at the Darling Foundry. Anyone who has worked with sound in the foundry’s cavernous industrial space knows this project is in for some interesting aural sensations.

On a greener note, a group show called Verdures opens July 9 at Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain. A new work by Alexandre Castonguay will be one of the highlights. Finally, don’t miss the maquettes, built by architects, landscape architects, artists and designers in the exhibition Treehouse at the Saidye from July 13–Sept. 10.