Four to catch
at the MAC
DEVASTATINGLY BEAUTIFUL:
Señora Faxas Residence #1, Miramar, Havana, CubaOn a hot and humid day, the cool climes of the Musee d’art contemporain (185 Ste-Catherine W.) can be particularly welcoming. Even better is the fact that there is truly something to sate most every hunger in the four exhibitions currently on display.
The east gallery is devoted to the work of multidisciplinary artist Betty Goodwin, a leading figure in the contemporary Canadian art scene who passed away last December at the age of 85. Comprised of paintings, drawings and sculptures from the MAC’s permanent collection, the show functions on two levels: as a retrospective of Goodwin’s career and as an archival document of the museum’s long-term relationship with the artist.
Across the hall, installations by Spring Hurlburt and Christine Davis are soothing, contemplative works, but for my money, the stars of the show are the large-scale architectural “portraits” by photographer Robert Polidori. Compelled by the degraded and devastated cities of Havana, Chernobyl, Beirut and post-Katrina New Orleans, Polidori makes images that compel and provoke without ever feeling exploitive or pedantic. They are also insanely beautiful, rich with saturated colours and expertly composed. Searching for a word to describe his work, I can think of only one: masterful.
by STACEY DEWOLFE
Dressed in Quebec
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Creations by Renée Chaumont
(front) and Colpron D’Anjou (back)
Montreal has long been seen as one, if not the, most stylish city in Canada. But it’s rare that we know the work of some of our most prolific and accomplished designers. Griffé Québec, a new exhibition at the Musée du costume et du textile du Québec (349 Riverside, St-Lambert) and L’Écomusée du fier monde (2050 Amherst), hopes to change all that.
After visiting last year’s Yves Saint Laurent exhibit at the MMFA, curator and director of the MCTQ, Suzanne Chabot, says she was struck by the fact that there’d never been a similar exhibit focusing on Quebec designers. “Fashion is very alive in Quebec,” she says, “but to look at the historical perspective is something new. If you don’t have a sense of history, how can we have a sense of the present?”
Drawing on the museum’s existing collection as well as those from private collectors, the show includes work by milliner Anita Pineault, couturier Jacques de Montjoye, contemporary designer Marie Saint-Pierre and Michel Robichaud.
Though split between two buildings, visitors will find the same exhibit at both locations. A vernissage takes place tonight, Thursday, June 25 at 5 p.m. at the l’Écomusée. It runs until Sept. 20.
by SACHA JACKSON
Guns n’ antlers
Like something out of a surreal dream, the taxidermied deer busts that stare down at you from the bunker walls of the Parisian Laundry (3550 St-Antoine W.) seem utterly normal, until you stop and think about the plethora of antlers extending from their furry heads.
Trophies, the installation by New York-based artists Adam Parker-Smith and  Carolyn Salas, seems oddly suited to the concrete cavern beneath the gallery proper. The deep silence that fills that space and the closeness to the earth adds a degree of gravity to what might otherwise seem an overly whimsical work.
The gallery’s main space is devoted to a solo Parker-Smith installation, Royal Turn. Here, a series of guns, based on existing models rendered in graphic, cartoonish forms, spin on their axes, their sights fixed on any number of possible moving targets as they move around the room.
Inspired by what Parker-Smith calls a “bizarre confluence of real events, daydreams and pre-existing fables,” the work seems designed to provoke, but in the end is somehow too conceptual to be truly affecting.
by STACEY DEWOLFE
Last days of Infringement
As the sixth annual Infringement Festival winds down, artists from the outermost edges of theatre, visual arts, film and video join musicians in events that continue to June 28.
From Indiana, Missa Coffman’s performance piece Love Toast Text Haiku goes like this: “Observers will be invited to write a love haiku and send it to my cell  phone via text message. I will then paint selected haikus onto pieces of bread and toast them. The toast paintings are edible.”
In Ici, Maintenant, French theatre group Open World conducts a street theatre workshop open to all based on three questions: What makes you angry in this world? What gives you the strength to wake up every morning? What do you do (or what have you done) to make this world a better place?
ParkerBoro Lab, also from France, looks at the learning process teenagers go through as they discover new realities, incorporating the words of young boxers interviewed in Marseilles for the video installation Projet VITA. At Maison de l’amitié (120 Duluth E.), details at infringementfestival.com.
by NEIL BOYCE
IS IT ART?
ASHES TO TREES: Montreal designer Christelle Boulé has invented one of the most brilliant (or creepy) funerary accessories since crazy coffins (why be buried in a box when you could be laid to rest in a mini taxi?)—biodegradable urns.
In keeping with tradition, Origen is modelled on classic urn shapes, which Boulé  recreates using specially made paper embedded with seeds. Once filled with the remains (of Bingo or grandma) the urn is buried in the ground, enabling it to biodegrade. Over time, the urn breaks down, releasing the seeds into the earth and eventually, thanks to the nutrients of the ashes, grows into a tree, forever commemorating the dead.
You’re not able to purchase this yet, but the fact that Origen will enable you to sit under the shade of Mr. Cat just about guarantees its success.
christelleboule.ca
Arts hole
FEATHERED FRIENDS: A number of the city’s well-known artists including, Kit Malo, Jack Dylan, Matt Forsythe and Mirror wunderkind Rupert Bottenberg, come together tonight, Thursday, June 25 at 7 p.m. to christen Red Bird studios’ (135 Van Horne W.) new gallery space and launch its first show, The Works on Paper Project. • FUNDRAISER, FUNDRAISER!: Articule (262 Fairmount W.) presents its annual garage sale and fundraiser, Rotation, Rotation! this Saturday, June 27, from 10 a.m.–5 p.m. This year’s events include the launch of the latest t-shirts by David Miles and the unveiling of the summer window project KortuneFookie by François Lacombe.
Artistat
The time and date that poetry-quebec.com, an online magazine dedicated to English language poetry of Quebec, edited by Endre Farkas, Carolyn Marie Souaid and Elias Letelier, went live: 12:01 a.m., 06/24/09
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