The main floor of the market consists of overpriced souvenir shops and a few artisanal stores, visited mostly by tourists. It feels disconnected, fake. However, on the ground floor, facing de la Commune street, you will likely experience something more honest and engaging than in any other museum, monument, or[Read More…]
Art
Kent Monkman’s ‘History is Painted by the Victors’ tackles colonialist mythmaking
In a world where history is painted by the victor, Kent Monkman takes on a personal challenge to tell an equally biased history, one painted by his subversive, heel-clad, hypersexual alter-ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle. Monkman, a world-renowned queer and two-spirit artist from the Fisher River Cree Nation in Manitoba,[Read More…]
How the censorship of street art highlights political activism
On Sept. 8th, street artist Banksy unveiled a new mural on an outer wall of the Royal Court of Justice in central London. The mural depicted a judge beating a protester lying on the ground with a gavel covered in blood—a haunting image that sharply criticizes the British justice system.[Read More…]
‘Weci | Koninut’ cements voices of Indigenous land-stewardship in both present and future
What do you dream about? Hopes, fears, a pigeon wearing a coconut hat? What about your memories, or the pieces of yourself you can still hold on to? Weci | Koninut, a new installation in the Quartier des Spectacles, uses dreamlike experiences to ground audiences in the six seasons of[Read More…]
‘The Lost Paintings, a Prelude to Return’ grapples with past histories and lost art
The Montreal, arts interculturels’ (MAI) recent exhibition, The Lost Paintings, a Prelude to Return, brings together an expansive range of art to create a compelling and powerful showcase. Featuring works by 53 Palestinian artists, the exhibition showcased a diverse range of media, including photographs, sculptures, paintings, and multimedia pieces. The[Read More…]
Glimmers of art in everyday life at the MMFA’s Decorative Art and Design Pavilion
To my right stands a four-foot-tall ceramic vase with hands cupping its own belly. To my left, chairs built from large plains of vibrant primary colours. Directly in front of me is a bird’s nest half my height made from plush felt—inside resting three large eggs. As I continue to[Read More…]
‘Pounding the Pavement’ grapples with the ethics of representation in street photography
Montreal street photographer Gilbert Duclos and then–17 Pascale Claude Aubry engaged in a 10-year legal battle after he photographed her in public and published the image without her consent. As a result, in April 1998, the court ruled that although such photographs could still be legally taken in the public[Read More…]
Faith in art over profit with ‘Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde’
In a corner of the exhibition’s second room, Émilie Charmy’s Still Life with Pomegranates sits beside Jacqueline Marval’s self-portrait Minerva. The scenes in oil are classical: Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, condemned to the underworld for six months for eating six pomegranate seeds, resurfacing in the spring only to descend[Read More…]
Illusion, reality, and the aesthetic diversity of perspective
Strolling down boul. St.-Laurent towards the McGill Fine Arts Commission (FAC) exhibition, I momentarily regretted never completing that Art History minor. Not being an educated scrutinizer of fine art, how could my perspective add anything to the artistic conversation? But as the bubbling atmosphere of jazz, artists, and gallery-goers swiftly[Read More…]
Exploring the etchings of women’s shame at ‘Bad Girls Only’
Their bodies are cast in stark black ink. Harsh cross-hatching carves out exaggerated forms featuring sagging breasts and bulging stomachs. The slight fingers of one of the women curve around a heart, pulling it to her mouth moments before taking a bite. Another’s hand grasps tightly around the hilt of[Read More…]