The MirrorARCHIVES: Sept 13 - Sept 19.2007 Vol. 23 No. 13  



Art of darkness

>> Frozen blood, dirty business and nightmarish sculptures light up the season

NO YOU DIDN’T: Eliza Griffiths’ “Urban Narrative”

by CHRISTINE REDFERN

Not too long ago, the Parisian Laundry (3550 St-Antoine W.) did not exist in Montreal’s cultural landscape. Now, who can imagine our arts scene without it? This fall, another new organization—the DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art—will throw open its doors to the public, and already it is clear that our connection to international contemporary art will never be the same again. Last March, DHC/ART held the Canadian premiere of the film Zidane by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, which is now on view at the National Gallery. Then came the screening of New York-based Matthew Barney’s latest, Drawing Restraint 9.

But these were mere teasers to whet our appetite for the inaugural exhibition featuring British artist Marc Quinn on Oct. 4 in the foundation’s freshly renovated space in Old Montreal (451 St-Jean). Quinn gained notoriety in the early ’90s as one of the Young British Artists with a self-portrait made out of his own frozen blood. The exhibition this fall will present over 40 recent works and is the largest collection of Quinn’s work ever mounted in North America, and his first solo show in Canada (see sidebar). Add to this bounty that there is no charge for admission to screenings or the exhibition space and what else can we say than: DHC/ART, we in the local arts scene salute you!

Close to home

The Daniel Langlois foundation is another institution that cannot be overlooked when discussing who makes things happen in Montreal. This year marks its 10th anniversary, and to celebrate, the exhibition Communicating Vessels: New Technologies and Contemporary Art opens Sept. 20 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. It features 10 local and international artists who have received funding, such as Luc Courchesne, Marie Chouinard and my personal favourite, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. Lozano-Hemmer represented Mexico at the Venice Biennale this summer, but he lives here in Montreal. Now is your chance to see what has been turning heads internationally for years.

Artist-run centre Optica is also celebrating this fall. To mark its 35th anniversary and to raise funds for its recently announced William A. Ewing grant in visual arts, there will be a benefit concert by Pierre Lapointe and an accompanying art exhibition by hot Quebec artists BGL, Gwenaël Bélanger, Michel de Broin, Manon de Pauw, Pascal Grandmaison, Isabelle Hayeur and Emmanuelle Léonard. One night only at the Monument National, Oct. 4 at 8 p.m. Info: (514) 874-1666. In Optica’s gallery (372 Ste-Catherine W., #508), the exhibition A Dirty Business by Léonard is part of the citywide Mois de la Photo curated by Marie Fraser. Decide what you need to see from the 30+ solo shows at www.moisdelaphoto.com.

Apocalypse and oil

One of the upcoming shows I have been looking forward to for months is that of Belgian artist Robbie Cornelissen at Art Mûr (5826 St-Hubert), opening on Sept. 29 at 3 p.m. If you want to have a pre-show glimpse of his astounding drawings and animations, visit www.robbiecornelissen.com.

Upstairs at Art Mûr, the group exhibition Songs of the Apocalypse, curated by former Montréalais David Liss, opens Oct. 6 at 3 p.m. And at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (1920 Baile), there will be a series of Thursday night documentaries starting on Oct. 4, titled Running on Empty, that examine our addiction to oil. These films lead up to the CCA’s major fall exhibition 1973: Sorry, Out of Gas, about the effect of the 1973 oil crisis on architecture.


TIMBERLAND: “Skyflat” by Dil Hildebrand

Hildebrand, Prent & more

New work by Dil Hildebrand, winner of last year’s RBC painting award, is gracing the walls of Pierre-François Ouellette’s space (372 Ste-Catherine W., #216) until Oct. 27. Across town, Some Girls, a painting show of portraits by talented artists Eliza Griffiths, Lorraine Simms, Marion Wagschal and Janet Werner is at Galerie McClure (350 Victoria) until Sept. 29. Meanwhile, at Usine 106U (111 Roy E.), 26 artists, including the wonderfully nightmarish sculptor Mark Prent, come together for Kamikaze, which runs till Sept. 30. And finally, From the Vault and Beyond is at Espace Les Neuf Soeurs, located in the former Bank of Montreal Building (1900 Wellington). See new work by Judith Brisson, Juliana España Keller, Mathieu Lacroix, Mathieu Lefèvre and Mike Patten, with a performance by Keller during the opening tomorrow, Sept. 14, 5–7 p.m.

Birth, sex, death and Kate

>> The eminent Marc Quinn brings his
sometimes icky oeuvre to DHC/ART


PRAY FOR YOUR SINS: Quinn’s “Angel”

by CHRISTINE REDFERN

Even if you know nothing about contemporary art, you’ve probably heard of Marc Quinn or his contemporaries, the YBAs (Young British Artists). The name YBAs was coined by collector Charles Saatchi, who bankrolled the movement and showed their work in exhibitions starting in 1992 at the Saatchi Gallery in London. The most press they received on this side of the Atlantic was most likely in 1999, when the exhibition Sensation toured to the Brooklyn Museum of Art. New York’s mayor at the time, Rudy Giuliani, was seriously offended—especially by Chris Ofili’s painting The Holy Virgin Mary, which incorporated elephant dung—and sued the museum.

Marc Quinn came to prominence with his work Self (1991). This self-portrait of the artist cast out of his own frozen blood, garnered international headlines in 2002. It was reported that builders renovating Saatchi’s kitchen unplugged a freezer where the head was stored and the valuable sculpture melted. Earlier this week, I had a chance to speak with Quinn on the phone from Britain and I asked him about this incident. Though it makes a good story, he laughed and said it was only an urban myth. I wondered how Quinn had originally made the leap to working with blood, if there were other works that led up to Self. He explained that he had used organic materials before when he worked with bread, but that Self was the first time he used blood. “It is contingent, it makes the portrait more alive. Like a person, there is an impermanence about it which I like,” he explained.

I asked Quinn what we would be seeing in his exhibition here, and to my astonishment, he listed works from all of his major series. This includes a refrigerated portrait of one of his sons, made from his liquidized placenta; sculptures of individuals who have lost or were born without limbs; DNA portraits where bacteria is grown using the sitter’s DNA; sculptures cast out of wax mixed with the drugs that are keeping the person depicted alive and works from the Kate Moss series—one of which graces this week’s Mirror cover. This work, titled Sphinx, is made out of bronze and painted white. He chose this material to give the work a flat, blank surface. “Kate’s image no longer reflects Kate the person, she is a myth. That is why I made this convoluted portrait, because we collectively twist her image to fit our personal desires.”

When I asked Quinn if he considered himself a portraitist, he responded that he likes to think of himself as an artist. But he continued by remarking that even his work with plants “are actually portraits in a way.” He says that what interests him is “not art about art, but art about life.” “Anything else people in Montreal should know?” I asked. “You could tell them that I like maple syrup.”

Marc Quinn opens at the DHC/ART
foundation Oct. 4–Jan. 6.
Info: www.dhc-art.org
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