ARTSWEEK

MFA students show their stuff at Collision 7, things get wild at the Edgy Women Festival, Mid-Life and Reunion launch at D&D

ARTISTAT: The number of artists whose work is on view at Battat Contemporary (7245 Alexandra, #100) as part of the group show Call It a Good Marriage, which runs until April 23: 3

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PERSONALIZED SPACE: Zoe Jaremus’s “Untitled (Birch Trees)”

Best and brightestat Collision 7

Something of an early spring tradition, Parisian Laundry (3550 St-Antoine W.) celebrates the best and brightest of this year’s graduating MFA classes with Collision 7, which has its vernissage tonight, Thursday, March 17, from 6–9 p.m.

Initiated by gallery director Jeanie Riddle—herself, a graduate of Concordia’s MFA program—the annual exhibition, which runs to April 9, provides emerging artists from Concordia and UQÀM with a professional context for showing their thesis projects.

Though the work on view is chosen from submissions, this year’s showcase speaks to a current preoccupation with what Riddle calls a “personalized vision of space; its typography [and] inhabitants.”

For example, Andrée Anne Dupuis Bourret’s massive orgami installation “creeps” into the gallery space and makes a home, while Flower Marie Lunn “contaminates” another area of the gallery using fibres and artificial flowers.

Forces of nature and its relics are also being explored in Chloé Desjardins’s hand-built “broken” objects, in Zoe Jaremus’s photographs and in Marigold Santos’s glow-in-the-dark topo­graphical sculpture.

Rounding out the showcase are paintings by Devon Beggs and Sarah Pupo and sculptural works by Simone Rochon and Macarena Ruiz-Tagle.

—STACEY DEWOLFE

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Edgy Women round-up

The 18th edition of the Edgy Women Festival, presented by Studio 303, gets underway this week, March 19–April 2, at venues across the city. Showcasing innovative, provocative and outrageously awesome works by female artists, the fest has a bunch of intriguing performances.

First up, Karen Sherman’s Slippery (March 19–20) examines how female hockey and roller derby players are viewed as third gender. Janine Eisenäecher, Amalie Atkins, Julianna Barabas and Laura Margita work together in Imagined Spaces, Lost Objects, a piece in which four women chart distinct paths through a veritable no-man’s land.

Later in the week, March 24–27 at Tangante (840 Cherrier), interdisciplinary artist Leslie Baker presents Fuck you, You fucking Perv! —a title everyone can get behind—a raging exploration of sexual predation. Also on the bill is Brooklyn’s Narcissister, whose piece I’m Everywoman is all about removing the tease from the strip, and Japan’s anti-cool, whose Role Model for a Store Clerk looks at the crack between a server’s smile and their true feelings.

Long-time edgy woman Annie Sprinkle returns with Adventures of the Love Art Lab.

The fest closes Saturday, April 2 with a party at the MainLine (3997 St-Laurent) with DJs, projections and a photo booth. See edgywomen.ca for the full schedule and details.

—SACHA JACKSON

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IT JUST GETS BETTER: From Mid-Life

Pages of aging

The two graphic novels being launched by Drawn & Quarterly this week have more in common than simply their release dates, the Montreal postal codes of their authors and a charmingly lo-fi, personal appeal that both invest their black and white artwork with. Doug Wright Award winner Joe Ollmann’s Mid-Life tackles the terrors of the big four-oh with the Wag! creator’s usu­al excruciating honesty and caustic wit. Pascal Girard’s Reunion, meanwhile, uses the lead-up to its protagonist’s 10-year high school reunion to tackle a similar theme, and while his art and story aren’t as raw and sharp as Ollman’s, they’re no less incisive. Join them for a pleasant, lighthearted evening of regret, self-deprecation and resignation in the face of time’s cruel momen­tum at Drawn & Quarterly (211 Bernard W.) on Wednesday, March 23, 7 p.m., free.

—RUPERT BOTTENBERG

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Dance for all seasons

It’s been about a year and a half since choreographer Emmanuel Jouthe came up with the idea for a piece that revolved around the seasons. This week, March 16–18, 8 p.m. and 19, 4 p.m., Jouthe shares Cinq Humeurs, with the hometown crowd at Agora de la Danse (840 Cherrier).

Inspired by Antonnio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, it was reworked musically by composer Laurent Maslé and uses young dancers. From the beginning, Jouthe knew he wanted to work with emerging talent from different regions, so he integrated local dancers with those from his company.

“Working with the graduates is another way of seeing a different culture, and seeing different dance from the different regions,” he says. To date, his company Danse Carpe Diem has toured the piece in Rimouski, Ottawa, Quebec and Lennoxville. For the Montreal edition, Jouthe has been working with students from LADMMI (Les Ateliers de Danse Moderne de Mon­tréal).

After this Friday’s performance, the artists will speak about their travels and more. Tickets and info at agoradanse.com and (514) 525-1500.

—MARITES CARINO

 

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IS IT ART?

TO THE BAT BED: When you think of themed love hotels, you usually think of Japan. But Taiwan is giving its neighbour a run for its money with the Eden Motel’s new Batman room.

Located in Kaohsiung City in the southwest part of the island, the Batroom costs $50/three hours, and features cave-like walls, a 4×4 Batmobile-turned couch and even tiny bats hanging from the ceiling.

If the whole Batman/Robin love-in isn’t your scene, the hotel also offers Manga- and jail-themed rooms, the latter of which comes complete with bars and handcuffs.

eden-motel.com.tw

ARTSHOLE

● WEAR GREEN TILL YOU TURN GREEN: Local comedy troupe Uncalled For celebrates St. Paddy’s the right way with Drunken St. Paddy’s Day Improv Show, happening tomorrow, Fri­day, March 18 at 11 p.m. at the MainLine (3997 St-Laurent). The stars of the night, the Uncalled For cast, will start the night sober and will only start drinking and improv-ing once they hit the stage. Tickets cost $12 with a free shot—18+ only, please.

● FOLD IT, MOLD IT: The Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles (5800 St-Denis, #501) presents fold/unfold, which explores the art of the fold from the seductive to the moving and features the work of Philippa Brock, Tine De Ruysser, Sarah Kelly, Stephanie Lau, Elisabeth Lecourt and Eun-Kyung Suh. The vernissage takes place Wednesday, April 7 from 5–7 p.m. and the exhibit runs until April 29. ■

 

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