ARTSWEEK

Les Gros , En Trois Temps, Toronto artist Kelly Mark and the Montreal Zen Poetry Festival

ARTISTAT: The number of times multimedia artist Sheldon Lawlor, whose exhibit Dirty Doilies is at the Dep[art]ment (48 Notre-Dame W., #101) until March 13 and celebrates with a vernissage, Friday, March 11 at 7 p.m., has exhibited in Montreal: 0

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What it is to be fat

When Émilie Poirier and co-choreographer Pascal Desparois set out to map their new work Les Gros, which deals with weight issues, they imagined the piece would be a personal voy­age for both of them.

“Through the creation of the piece,” says Poirer, “we realized that everybody, no matter what their weight, has certain complexes about themselves.”

The work, composed of tableaux, is sometimes comic and sometimes tragic, and features the creators and dancers/collaborators Caroline Charbonneau, Gabriel Doucet, Harmonie Fortin-Léveillé and Georges-Nicolas Tremblay. In the piece, the cast members, both big and small, are confronted by everyday situations and are placed in vulnerable circumstances.

“We wanted to show all the prejudices of what it is to be fat. Like the way fat people eat, that they’re awkward, lazy and funny,” says Poirer. “We wanted to break these stereotypes, make people forget about our weight to see that we can dance.”

The piece is part of Tangente’s (840 Cherrier) Corps Atypik series, which spotlights diverse body forms in motion. It runs March 10–12, 7:30 p.m., and March 13, 4 p.m. Info: tangente.qc.ca.

—MARITES CARINO

 

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Capturing time

Thematically grouped by the concept of time, the aptly named En Trois Temps—which opens with a vernissage tonight, Thursday, March 10 from 5–8 p.m.—features the work of award-winning Canadian photographers Aislinn Leggett, Elena Willis and Davida Kidd. In their work, on display at Galerie d’Este (1329 Greene) until April 3, each artist distinguishes herself with a unique style and message.

Leggett’s work from Lost Faces speaks about the importance of keeping old memories alive. By layering found images, she creates photographs that expose rich personal histories and haunting landscapes. Talking about her series, she says, “The smiles and sorrows are suspended in time, still waiting to be found … they remain in a ghostly state, half here and half there.”

Instead of rewriting the past, Willis focuses on how our decisions impact the future. The exhibit includes works that span the artist’s career and reveal her preoccupation with nature and the role that mankind plays on ecology.

Kidd’s images straddle the past and future by infusing childhood elements into dark adult settings. Former projects include controversial shots like an evil-looking Barbie (“Kathy’s Favorite Clone”) and a gun-wielding teenager (“Sissy”). What makes her photography so alluring is the balance of innocence and guilt.

—ALEXANDRA MURPHY

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Kelly Mark x two

For those who attended Toronto-based artist Kelly Mark’s eight-hour performance at DHC/ART in the fall of ’09, the new works on display in joint shows at the Darling Foundry (875 Ottawa) and Silver Flag Projects (6803 Waverly) may come as a surprise. But look a little closer and you’ll see that despite her use of different mediums, her sense of humour, subversive nature and desire to play with aspects of popular culture and discourse are always present.

On view at Darling Foundry is Public Disturbance: HB series: take 1/take 2/take 3, a video work that reconstructs and deconstructs a domestic argument from a popular film. Shot in multiple takes during a Toronto art-party, the video asks us to think about the way that we watch. It opens with a vernissage tonight, Thursday, March 10 at 5 p.m.

Head uptown to Silver Flag on Saturday, March 12, from 1–5 p.m., where artist David Armstrong Six and gallerist (and Noisemaker) Iliana Antonova open their second season with Mark’s Letraset!@#$’S, a series of Letraset drawings she made specifically for the exhibition. It runs until April 10.

—STACEY DEWOLFE

 

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Zen poetry fest

“In the Zen tradition,” says Zengetsu Myokyo, the founder of the Enpuku-ji Zen Centre and a coordinator of this year’s Montreal Zen Poetry Festival, “sometimes silence speaks louder than words.”

“Oftentimes words miss the mark,” says Myokyo. “A gesture or simple silence in response to a question is what you might say ‘hits the mark,’ rather than actually any number of words.”

The spaces between words—just like the years between the biannual festival—can oftentimes speak louder than their counterparts. Words, then, serve to bring attention to the silence between them.

In addition to free instruction in Zen meditation, this year’s festival, which runs from March 10–13 along St-Laurent, has collaborations with Matrix magazine and Pop Montreal, the latter of which will be putting on a lecture/concert performance entitled Bargainin’ for Salvation: Bob Dylan, a Zen Master? with tunes from Carlo Spidla.

For those with a notable absence in their pockets, free events also include a calligraphy demonstration by Kazuaki Tanahashi and a lecture by Steven Heine on Chinese poetry. For more details, see montrealzenpoetryfestival.ca.

—CHRISTOPHER OLSON

 

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IS IT ART?

BRANDED: The perils of summer clothes—sweat stains, bare legs on sticky vinyl seats—is something we won’t have to worry about for a while, but one company in Auckland, New Zealand has added a new annoyance to summer dressing—inadvertent advertising.

Ad agency DDB altered city benches to press an advertisement onto the bare legs of people who sat on the bench, turning the sitters into walking billboards for a local chain of stores.

Staring at a stranger’s thigh to get a message is inventive, but is it effective? The real question is “What would Don Draper Do?”

ddb.co.nz

ARTSHOLE

● BOOKISH BATTLE: The Summer Literary Seminars and Iambik Audiobooks presents Literary Death Match, which takes place at Club Lambi (4465 St-Laurent) this Sunday, March 13 at 8 p.m. The Match, which is celebrating its fifth anniversary, pits emerging and famous writers against each other in a heated reading judged by an all-star panel. The tour kicks off in Montreal with Melissa Bull, Josip Novakovich and Jon Paul Fiorentino participating. Tickets cost $20 at the door, with a free Death Match t-shirt.

● BIBLICAL PARABLE: Xposed Produc­tions presents The Shape of Things by playwright Neil LaBute, which tells the tale of a nerdy security guard and the naughty student who convinces him to reshape himself. It’s at Espace 4001 (4001 Berri) from March 15–20. Tickets cost $12–$15. ■

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