WINDOW TO THE PAST: “EveningWind” by Hopper

In the midst of touring the impressive collection at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art (1380 Sherbrooke W.), with its swooning saints and marble sculptures, you could easily miss a small one-room exhibit tucked in the midst of them.

Featuring major names from early 20th-century art, American Prints Between the Wars is a subtle but powerful collection of two dozen black and white historic prints.

With works from George W. Bellows, Edward Hopper and Ansel Adams among others, and a focus on New York City, the exhibit provides a window into the work, recreation and zeitgeist of the age—from swimming in polluted industrial rivers to celebratory cityscapes, to a small crowd gathered around a dying horse.

The fact that the majority of the artists in the show aren’t native to the Big Apple (several, in fact, are from other countries) gives a vivid sense of the era, as populations shifted across continents and from rural to urban, enjoying the heyday of the ’20s and the gloom of the ’30s.

Until September 18.

— LORNE ROBERTS

Panorama in an egg

KING CRAB: Egg by Ingr

Think diorama meets Easter Bunny. Artist/baker (and more often musician) Camilla Ingr puts her culinary knowledge to the test in “the relatively new territory of panorama sugar eggs” in Weird Worlds an exhibit opening tonight, Thursday, Aug. 28 at 7 p.m. at the Ctrl Lab (3634 St-Laurent).

In case your memory doesn’t stretch back that far, a panorama sugar egg is a remnant of Victorian Easter conventions that features ostrich-sized eggs moulded from hardened sugar, hollowed out, then filled with pastoral scenes.

“Someone bought me one at a junk shop in Portland. I thought I’d make them one in return,” says Ingr.

Ingr flips the genre’s conventions, filling the eggs with figurines doing hard labour for a capitalist crab or getting it on in a field surrounded by sheep on rolling hills made of wasabi peas. Ingr is joined by Jaynus O’Donnell, whose collages are only slightly less edible. “I still use kindergarten supplies: blunt scissors and edible white glue,” she says.

O’Donnell’s work begins with tacky lithographs she finds at thrift stores. “I consider them fairly hideous.” To this she adds cut-outs from the Golden Book Encyclopaedia, a collection sold in newspapers and supermarkets from the 1940s to the ’60s, adding bird heads to skeleton men and sea creatures flying through space.

For details see www.ctrllab.com

— MATT JONES

Art of war

In the past few years, narrative films such as Redacted and In the Valley of Elah, to name just two, have endeavoured to portray the complexities of war and its impact with varying degrees of success.

IN THE ARMY NOW: Still from “I, Soldier” by Köken Ergun

The art world hasn’t been immune to this impulse, seeking to investigate the point at which global warfare, international politics and visual culture intersect.

A new exhibition entitled Signals in the Dark: Art in the Shadow of War is a collection of such works by artists from Canada and around the world. Opening tonight, Thursday, August 28, at 5:30 p.m. at Concordia’s Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery (1400 Maisonneuve W.), the interdisciplinary show is characterized by diversity—geographic, cultural, philosophical and artistic—but finds its unity in the fact that all of the pieces “respond to, take as their source or embody elements of war.”

Curated by Séamus Kealy of the University of Toronto’s Blackwood Gallery, the show moves in a variety of directions: questioning the media’s representations of war, the violence and the human cost. In doing so, it reaches towards one central question: how do we bring an end to this perpetual cycle of war? Guided tour at 4:30 p.m. before opening. Until Oct. 11.

— STACEY DEWOLFE

 

Bookstore Baba Yaga

Feisty cultural activist Paula Belina will kick off her cross-Canada Be Thirsty Heart tour, and inaugurate the monthly Moves On Rooftops spoken poetry series this Wednesday, Sept. 3 at Pages books (3255 St-Jacques).

PERMISSION TO GET PISSED: Belina

“No cover, no mic, no stage, open floor—good times!” says Belina. “It coordinates with my style of late: raw, collaborative and open/self-conscious.” The fun starts with a “tea-counsel” session with Belina, Kyra Shaughnessy and Larissa Diakiw in full Baba Yaga costume.

Baba Yaga is a persona Belina’s been exploring lately. “Baba Yaga is a word I’ve known since childhood,” Belina explains. “It’s Polish for, basically, scary-witch-grandma.”

“She gives me permission to feel pissed and unsatisfied and at the same time light the fire of my deepest, most penetrating strength. All the while contrasting with messages that I receive from my society about how a woman should look/act.”

Tea at 7 p.m., sign-up 8 p.m., show 9 p.m. Free.

—VINCENT TINGUELY

Is it art?

BOOTY POPPING: It’s normal to feel unhappy about your body, and that unhappiness is usually combated with exercise or a pint of ice cream, but a new product lets women achieve a near-perfect rear without doing a single squat.

Bubbles Bodywear wants to help you “take your gluteus to the maximus,” so they’ve invented the Double O-Push Up Thong, derriere-enhancing underwear that lifts, separates and supports your lady lumps.

Made of nylon, spandex and latex rubber, the Double-O is a push-up bra for your butt. Acting like a girdle, the underwear holds in the tops of your thighs and your stomach, while your cheeks peek out of two perfect little holes at the back giving the illusion that your new pert behind is all real.

The Double-O isn’t their only solution for a less-than-stellar rear; they also offer specially padded underwear, which to even for the most flat-assed of women seems a little counterintuitive.

www.lovemybubbles.com

Arts hole

SATELLITE RADIO Artist Matthew Biederman is taking up residence in Cabot Square. Between Aug. 29–Sept. 21, he’ll be at the square nightly (except Mondays) between 5–9 p.m., with a high frequency transmitter attempting long distance communication, while at the same time giving public walks, talks and workshops like the FM transmitter workshop happening this Sunday, Aug. 31 at 2 p.m. • ART AND CONFLICT: La maison de la culture du Plateau-Mont-Royal (465 Mont-Royal E.) presents La médiation du conflict/Mediating Conflict with work by Marie-Christiane Mathieu, Caroline Seck Langill et Daniel Garcia Andujar. The vernissage takes place tonight, Thursday, Aug. 28 at 5 p.m.

Artistat

The number of photographs of nature and our natural surroundings on view at Maison de culture Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie (6707 De Lormier) by Chantal Gagné until Sept. 28 as part of her solo exhibit Collections de Couleurs: 23