In recent years, Arsenal has drawn crowds with its immersive exhibition-projections of great European painters. Hopefully some of that audience will give a vote of confidence to the exhibition Edward Burtynsky – The Abstract Landscape, which opens next week. Because the proposal of the Canadian photographer is also unifying, from another point of view. Burtynsky looks down on the world. The photographer captures landscapes, often industrial, and offers us dramatically beautiful, disturbing images. The contemporary art center offers around thirty large-format photos, interactive experiences and a video. Expectations are high. From September 7 to October 1.
Phi is entering the fall on several fronts. Let’s start with the Phi Center, which extends its two current exhibitions: first the virtual reality installation Space Explorers: The Infinite, which recreates the experience of the International Space Station, will be presented until October 29. Ditto for Sex, desires and data, an immersive exhibition that makes the link between our sexuality and technology. For its part, the Phi Foundation is extending the exhibition Moridja Kitenge Banza: Living in the Imagination until October 8. But from November 3, we will be able to see the two installations by the Argentinian artist Rikrit Tiravanija, playful works where the visitor will be “invited to participate in the artistic experience”. To be continued.
Toronto-born painter Stephanie Temma Hier – who now lives in Brooklyn – is presenting an exhibition of her sculpted works. Influenced by pop culture, Stephanie Temma Hier paints consumer products (fruit, meat, etc.) or simply everyday scenes, which are subsequently framed by ceramic objects. During the same period, Alexandre Pépin will present his frescoes inspired by Byzantine art and the Pattern movement.
Patel Brown, who has just doubled the size of his Montreal gallery, welcomes Afghan-Canadian artist Shaheer Zazai, who exhibited his work at The Power Plant in Toronto recently. In Allow me to Sow and See the Garden I Become, Shaheer Zazai – who makes digital prints on watercolor paper using Microsoft Word! – explores the idea of gardening in a war zone as an act of resilience. For this exhibition, which is also part of the program of MOMENTA Biennale de l’image, the artist collaborates with a florist from Atelier Bochatay. Until October 1.
This is not a metaphor is the new exhibition by sculptor Valérie Blass, who continues to blur the lines between figurative and abstract art. In this exhibition presented in the fall, Valérie Blass explores the tension between the “familiar object” that we immediately recognize, and the “irruption of an optical anomaly”. We speak of a “journey through the metamorphoses of the image considered as sculptural skin from photographs”. From September 8 to October 22. Also to be seen: the exhibition by Jeannette Ehlers Play Mas, which explores the issues of the masquerade in the colonial context, through the figure of Moko Jumbie.
Several interesting exhibitions at the Simon Blais gallery in the fall, starting with a retrospective of the abstract painter Jean McEwen, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year. From September 13 to October 28, the gallery owner will present an overview of his 40 years of work. During the same period, we will be able to see a corpus of pastel works by Carol Bernier, who will pay homage in her own way to the painter McEwen, who died in Montreal in 1999. Finally, those who did not have the chance to see the exhibition by Françoise Sullivan (Pastels 1996-2004) can do so until September 9. Another Sullivan exhibit will be presented at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts starting November 1.
The UQAM gallery will present this fall Momenta X, which will bring together the works of artists Marion Lessard, Émilie Pitoiset and Naomi Rincón Gallardo. The exhibition, curated by Ji-Yoon Han, is presented as part of the MOMENTA Biennale de l’image. The theme ? “As individuals are constantly indexed, formatted, frozen in the same and the identical, how can we set in motion our ways of understanding identities and differences? » From September 7 to October 21.
The gallery is hosting the first solo exhibition by South Korean artist siren eun young jung, which presents excerpts from her project on traditional women’s theater (Yeoseong Gukgeuk). A research spread over 15 years in which the artist explores different ways of getting out of the norm through a series of videos and filmed performances where actresses with aging bodies “paint themselves and talk about themselves, contemplate themselves in their youthful photographs, replay in front of the camera of gestures left dormant humorously re-perform their techniques of “masculine acting”. » From September 5 to October 28.
Montréal arts interculturels (MAI) presents a multimedia installation by Canadian artist (of Palestinian origin) Rehab Nazzal, Driving Palestine, which depicts “Israeli structures of segregation, containment, restriction and surveillance in the occupied West Bank”. The images broadcast were captured between 2010 and 2020 and sadly bear witness to the violence of Israel’s colonial project. Alongside the exhibition, Rehab Nazzal is also presenting a short film, Vibrations from Gaza, which explores how deaf children in Gaza survive military attacks. All this happens from September 8 to October 21.
This fall, the Cache contemporary arts exhibition center is presenting the exhibition In the Shadow of Artifice, the result of a collaboration between Ianick Raymond and Laurent Lamarche. The two artists present joint and separate works, paintings, photos and video installations, with the collaboration of writer Pierre-Marc Asselin. September 23 – October 15. From October 19, it will be Matthieu Bouchard’s turn to hang his paintings. An artist who “works patiently to formally construct and deconstruct his pictorial language”, tells us the painter and curator from Cache, Eric Carlos Bertrand.
This fall, we will also question nature and the traces we leave there, but in a completely different way, with the work of Rajni Perera. The artist explores the theme of migration a lot – of Sri Lankan origin, she settled in Canada – and salutes her origins in her works. Phylogeny is an ambitious multimedia exhibition where she discusses taxidermy and naturalism, in addition to many other things. Intriguing. Until October 14.