The visual arts offering is abundant, as always, this winter. Here are some suggestions that should catch your attention.
The Montreal gallery Pierre-François Ouellette contemporary art presents an exhibition by the poet Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, Nutshimit Tshissitutam. “Painting is a journey through time, where the earth before it was changed by humans simply wishes to return to us to awaken where we come from,” the artist says of his paintings. Her paintings are abstract, but we could recognize something of the territory, exterior or interior, ours or hers, since Natasha Kanapé Fontaine works by intuition, while knowing that the images, even evocative, take root somewhere in nature , our lives, with our ancestors. Definitely worth discovering.
Several interesting exhibitions to see at Phi at the start of the year. First, at the Foundation, the two installations by the Argentinian artist of Thai origin Rirkrit Tiravanija, Jouez/Play, continue until March. In particular, you can enter a rehearsal room where you can listen to recordings or play with the instruments located there. At the Phi Center, we will be able to see Noire, the little-known life of Claudette Colvin, this young black woman from Alabama who, nine months before Rosa Parks, refused to give up her seat to a white man (on a bus) and imprisoned. A virtual reality experience, just like The Horizon of Khufu, which details the funeral rites of the Egyptian pharaoh.
All the reasons are good to go to Saint-Hyacinthe and, if a visit to the Expression exhibition center was not your primary goal, well, that provides you with an additional reason to head to this city where the Contemporary art is often celebrated. While waiting for the next Orange Biennale next summer, we discover Kim Waldron, this Montreal artist who often works from what the news gives her as raw material. For example, the Panama Papers scandal inspired her to open her own business headquartered in Hong Kong. The very promising exhibition presented at Expression details this experience in Kim Waldron ltée: civil society.
Georgia O’Keeffe is one of those artists whose art appeals to a large number of people, particularly her hyper-realistic representations of flowers or her adopted New Mexico. The San Diego Museum of Art, which designed the exhibition dedicated to him at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, has decided to compare his work with that of the British sculptor Henry Moore by announcing surprising similarities between the two . We like the idea, the kind of concept that requires (or not!) more in-depth reflection from the visitor.
The National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec (MNBAQ) had the good idea of exhibiting part of the rich collection of the Sobey family (over three generations). In total, we are talking about 175 works by Canadian artists such as Emily Carr, Peter Doig, David Milne, Mario Doucette and the painters of the Group of Seven, without forgetting the Quebecers Paul-Émile Borduas, Jean Paul Lemieux and Jean Paul. Riopelle, to name just a few. There are also First Nations artists such as Annie Pootoogook, Brenda Draney, Joseph Tisiga and Brian Jungen. The exhibition thus offers an overview of Canadian art of the 19th and 20th centuries.
We are not talking here about social struggle or major protest movements. We’re talking about two characters punching each other in a ring, often with eccentric looks and a very, very dramatic attitude. Is there more to wrestling than that? Certainly, since the Musée de la civilization wants to bring together fans and skeptics around an exhibition on the history of wrestling in Quebec. It is a co-production with the company Ex Machina, which makes the proposition even more intriguing. Here we go, but we don’t promise to watch all the videos…