Topsy-turvy beauty

On now at the Optica gallery are installations by local artists Alexandre David and David Blatherwick. Alexandre David's large-scale photographs of drawings submerged in water, meant to blur distinctions between artistic media, are worth a look. They are interesting on an aesthetic level, if nothing else.

Optica's main attraction, however, is David Blatherwick's video installation "The Interior of a Minute." It consists of televisions displaying people's heads as they slowly count to 60. Something is not right, however: the faces are distorted--cheeks and hair defy gravity, teeth are garishly prominent. The trick is that the subjects are recorded standing on their heads. In doing so, Blatherwick has made you aware of the strange beauty and vulgarity of otherwise unnoticeable, routine human impulses. He has achieved the right balance between the whimsical and the grotesque so as to make the mundane sublime. At 372 Ste-Catherine W. #508, until May 20. :

-- Sholem Krishtalka

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