Faces in
the crowd

“Downtown drivers, pedestrians and, not least, those stuck in the infamous lineup for the 80 at Place-des-Arts will have some eye candy for the next few weeks. Through the 156 east-facing windows of 18-storey Domtar building (395 de Maisonneuve W.) are portraits of 156 mostly cheerful Montrealers lookin’ right back at ya.

Homage to Anonymity is the result of four professional fashion photographers’ desire to do something different. They made a chart and set out to fill it with a balanced blend of people all ages and cultures. “We wanted the work to be as accessible to as many people as possible—for it to be in a public space and be made up of public people,” says Éloi Beauchamp, one of the people behind the production. The installation tries to capture those fleeting moments when we come across a face in a crowd and make a connection. Homage, he hopes, looks to prolong that link outside of economic, sexual and cultural boundaries. “It’s almost like a mirror. If you’re a Montrealer, when you look up you see Montreal looking back.” The exhibit runs until Oct. 18. :
-Matthew Woodley

Tattoo you

A new exhibit at Café Pi (4127 St-Laurent) features photos of folks who’ve chosen to make a few alterations to the bodies they were born with. Colourful tattoos and sleek piercings abound on the models in Body Art Photos, seven series of shots taken by various artists, including Ollie Smith and Veronique Soucy. Among the standouts are two divergent sets of pics by Mugen (Martin Pes). One features sensationally stylish young ladies in Tokyo—posed shots highlighting brightly dyed hair and funky jewellery. The other set is of tribal women and children in Northwest Thailand, just as colourful and equally modified with flesh tunnels and thick neckbands. The different contexts make for a cool cultural contrast.

The real gem of the exhibit is a series of beautiful black and whites by Jerome Abramovitch. The delicate composition in his large, stark pics accentuates the tattoos, piercings and implants decorating his models, which can be previewed at www.chapter9photography.com. Check out these modified bods until Oct. 19. :
—Claire Philipson:

Something wild

This weekend, choreographers Hinda Essadiqi and Erin Flynn fuse the wired and the wild. The pair, along with fellow dancers Anna Bozzini and Ami Shulman perform Feral, in which the numbing effects of technology and urban life contrast with the “organic and intuitive.” Appropriately, the movements are accompanied by live electronic and acoustic music.

Feral is preceded by Virginia Preston’s Luftbaloons at Studio 303 (372 Ste-Catherine), Saturday, Sept. 28, 8:30 p.m., and Sept. 29, 4 p.m., $10. Following the Sunday show, Lys Stevens launches her book, Taking the Leap, a resource guide to dance production, which will be on sale for $5. :

Hard sell

If anything gets an artist’s hackles up, it’s the words Selling Out, which just happen to be the title for this Saturday’s Group of N show. “It was the most loaded theme we ever tried to work with,” says Flo, who, along with Colin and Mclean, make up the non-profit spoken word troupe. The show asks the question: what if local artists were commissioned to produce works of art incorporating the brands of major multinational corporations? Flo explains: “It’s a quagmire. We don’t care if we get dumb proposals, or serious or unrealistic—it doesn’t matter because it reveals how people play with the idea of selling out.” The Group of N has invented a font software using corporate logos for every letter except N, which guests will be invited to play with on Saturday, Sept. 28, 8 p.m., 10 Ontario W. #802, free.

On Sunday, check out the Rainbow Comedy Night, organized by comedian Kristoff Bonaparte to buck the trend that generally has local ethnic comics making do with Comedy Nest appearances and the occasional opening slot with “stars” from Toronto or the States. Hosted by Freddy James, the line-up includes Bonaparte himself, Daliso, a student and comedian from Malawi, and CBC radio personality Sonali Karnick. Says Bonaparte, “Montreal’s ethnic comics are better, in my opinion, than those in other cities, because we have to be. We have to develop without viable niche markets.”

Sept. 29, Rainbow Ites Showbar, (5345 de Maisonneuve W.) $10 in advance, $15 at the door. :
—Vincent Tinguely

Is it Art?

Sex bomb: “I am a gender terrorist, an intentional mutation and Intersex by design,” writes Del LaGrace Volcano on his Web site, www.disgrace.dircon.co.uk. The artist, formerly lesbian photographer Della Grace, is coming to town to share his past in a lecture entitled “Biology Is obsolete: an alternative tranz-narration.” While Volcano’s images of sexual subcultures are unquestionably artsy, for his subjects and the artist himself, gender-bending is a serious matter. “Gender is the last bastion of civilization as we know it,” Volcano notes, “one of the few Titanics left to us… I’m an iceberg. A bomb in the Boys’ Club. Tick Tock. Tick Tock.” Friday, Sept. 27, 6 p.m., at Concordia’s D.B. Clarke Theatre (1445 de Maisonneuve W.). :

ArtsHole

Intimate and interactive: Viewers are invited to physically interact with Liminal, a multimedia installation that incorporates sound and images, and projects shadows onto paper. You can also meet the artists behind it, Gilles Morisette and Edward Pien, this Saturday, Sept. 28, 3:30 p.m. at MAI (680 Jeanne-Mance, #3), free. * So lonely: Lisa Hecht’s I have been here for one month and nobody has written me yet, where words from her journal written on a window form shadows over her installation, continues at Galerie B-312 (372 Ste-Catherine W.) until Oct. 5. * Printmaking-a-plenty: Chacun son goût, a wide variety of images and techniques from various printmakers will be on display at the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts Printmaking Atelier from Sept. 26–Oct. 31. :

Artistat: Number of digital paintings that David Farsi has created over the past five years and is now selling from the ornate studio/showroom that he’s set up on the Main (4095 St-Laurent): 1,000 :