The tables turn

Oregon resident Kevin Yates didn’t have an easy time setting up his current exhibition at Optica (372 Ste-Catherine W, #508). Last week, he received the bad news that the truck carrying the 1,153 miniature picnic tables he had made for his installation had crashed. He quickly arranged to have other work forwarded from a recent exhibition in Toronto.

Yates’ misfortune, in the end, turned out to be our good luck. The picnic tables were salvaged from the wreckage and now Montrealers get a chance to see both his installation This Room Has No Walls as well as other sculptural pieces he has fabricated from wood, including an extension cord you’d swear was the real thing (the Musée d’art contemporain recently purchased one too).

In Optica’s back gallery is the video program Being Here curated by New Yorker Catherine Ross. Each of the six videos included in the screening was chosen for its ability, says Ross, “to make us feel more comfortable about being in the world.” My favourite piece is Adam Frelin’s “Tape Fountains,” which will vastly expand your repertoire if you’re one of those people who have ever stretched Saran Wrap over a toilet seat. Both exhibitions run until Dec. 9, info: 874-1666. —Christine Redfern

Navas’s anatomy

“I like going to see dance to see dance,” says choreographer José Navas, “It’s like when you go to a steak house, you order a steak.”

The choreographer’s latest, Anatomies, is just that simple, building on the same look and feel of his last group piece Portable Dances, a showcase of movement without frills or fuss. “I’m having so much fun starting from zero where there’s no set, two arms, two legs and just movement,” he says.

For this choreography, though, Navas says he wanted to go deeper than before, beneath the flesh. “Since I’m watching dancers half of the day, I wanted to take the time and learn about anatomy,” he says. Working with others, you have to know the instrument.” So Navas hit the books, hauled volumes into the studio and poured over them with his dancers Mira Peck, David Rancourt, Ami Shulman and Jamie Wright. Together they expanded their knowledge of the skeleton and the muscular system and used it as a base for movement. See the results of their research at Agora de la Danse (840 Cherrier) at 8 p.m. nightly until Nov. 11, $18–$26, info: (514) 790-1245. —Marites Carino

Natural growth

Andy Brown’s new novel, The Mole Chronicles, has followed a path reminiscent of a cunning retrovirus, from its first germination as a potential artist’s book to a non-fiction meditation on 1999’s Ice Storm, and finally morphing into a full-blown plague narrative, complete with ecoterrorists, a bizarre cabal of dermatologists and the kidnapping of the Chinese ambassador in Vancouver.

“You could call it experimental but I see it as very straightforward,” Brown muses. “Global warming is kind of in the background. For instance, the character’s very paranoid about exposing his body to the sun, and there’s these little scenes, sort of his dreams of the future, when all the cities are underwater and the average temperature is a million degrees.”

Brown launches The Mole Chronicles in tandem with graphic novelist Joe Ollman’s newest opus, This Will All End in Tears. Tuesday, Nov. 14, 7 p.m. at Boa Bar (5301 St-Laurent), free. —Vincent Tinguely

No weeds here

It’s not every day you see the world differently after visiting an exhibition, but that is what happened to me when I came across the work of landscape architect Gilles Clément at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (1920 Baile). New work by Clément and Swiss architect Philippe Rahm are featured in Environment: Approaches for Tomorrow, a show that re-examines our relationship with our world. This is a common enough topic in these days of multiple headlines forecasting our doom, but what makes Clément so exciting is his approach requires no work or money, just a different way of looking at our surroundings. Clément focuses on the spaces we often consider useless or not-yet-developed: the fallow fields, abandoned urban lots and empty spaces that line our highways. By the time you leave the museum, these areas are no longer good places to throw your trash, but have become valuable locations that preserve our planet’s biodiversity. Environment runs until April 22, info: (514) 939-7000. —Christine Redfern

Is it Art?

UP, UP AND AWAY—EXPLAINED: Does the Fantastic Four’s Invisible Woman go blind when she becomes transparent, since light passes through her and her invisible eyes? How fast would Flash need to be going to run across a body of water before sinking? All right, cool your jets, nerdlings. Dr. James Kakalios, professor at the school of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Minnesota knows, and he’s coming to Montreal to drop his knowledge at McGill. Apparently, it’s uncanny how often comics get their science right—Kakalios has been using examples from Superman and friends (and enemies) since 2001 to relate physics phenomena to his students, showing how superheroes illustrate principles like the conservation of energy and the three laws of thermodynamics. He’s in the Macdonald-Harrington building (815 Sherbrooke W., room G-10) today, Nov. 9, at 6 p.m., free.

ArtsHole

BABY PRINTS: Concordia undergraduate artists face up to their seniors in the MFA program with First Prints, an exhibition of images by students using printmaking materials for the first time, including intaglio, screen, lithography and new media versions of the same. It’s at Galerie Circulaire (5445 de Gaspé, #503) from Nov. 10–25.

ARTISTAT: Number of artifacts from archaeological sites in Quebec, Ontario and upstate New York shedding new light on the horticulturalists who first brought corn growing to the St-Lawrence Valley—part of the St-Lawrence Iroquoians: Corn People at the Pointe-à-Callière museum until May. 6: 130

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