the last place on earth you probably want to be

I didn’t realize it until I went to Montreal and Quebec a couple of weeks ago, but a lot of what bores me about art is the familiarity of media, the same ol’, same ol’ use of photography, painting, multi-dimensional materials, space, video, animation. I came to this realization first at MOCCA in Toronto, then at MACM and DHC/ART in Montreal, and finally at the Port du Quebec in Quebec City. I viewed works by hundreds of artists, saw paintings, photographs, films, installations, sculptures large and small, projections, collage. And I asked myself many times over: How’d they do that? This article isn’t about boredom. It’s about the excitement in being stumped by art, the thrill of questioning, incessantly, how a piece could have possibly been produced, the itch of never knowing for sure.

My intrigue toward MOCCA’s Damn Your Eyes show was less about the work and more about the space. Seeing the gallery transformed into an aural dreamland where visitors actually lingered and absorbed was a wonderful experience. With lights low and sound booming, MOCCA became a scape in which one could only be. There was nothing to look at, really, nothing to focus your visual attention. All you could do was take a seat on a beanbag chair, put your feet up on a beanbag ottoman, and exist within the sound.

What was stunning to me about the exhibition was not Camilla Singh’s design of a setting that “is conducive to leisure and devised for repeat visits” but that visitors actually complied. In the Project Room, five audio stations complete with headphones, volume and playback controls and a beanbag chair were intermittent throughout the room. When I visited the gallery all five stations were occupied throughout my entire visit — people patiently waited their turn to swap with other patrons. I watched as a handful of other visitors listened to the entire program — some two hours of sound art.

The success of this show is not only Singh’s doing — her selection of top-notch work obviously played a part. From Emmanuel Madan’s Freedom Highway, a 52-minute foray into the business of war and the commodification of citizenry, to COH PLAYS COSEY by raster-noton collective’s Ivan Pavlov and Cosey Fanni Tutti (in a sound room dropped into the Mainspace,) the work itself was wonderful to listen to, with echoes of popular post-rock, conversations of sounds, and texture, texture, texture.

FROM TORONTO TO MONTREAL
Although Montreal’s exhibitions didn’t shock and awe in the intuitive-space department, instead relying on the tried and tested sterility of the white cube, a lot of the work itself was mind-bogglingly remarkable in its production.

Starting with the inaugural Quebec Triennial at MACM, there were two pieces in particular that left me scratching my head.

Nicolas Baier’s Vanities 2, a looming polyptych of photographs of mirrors, displayed underneath unframed plexiglass in a wall-sized, skewed arrangement, exposed a jarring landscape of imagery. You can tell they’re photographs of mirrors — dusty, embellished with beveled floral corners, spotted and moldy in some places — but where is our reflection? Where is the photographer’s reflection? The mirrors lose their function through the function of the camera, and considering its title, it’s likely that the lack of reflection, the suggestion of a reflection offered by the plexiglass, should strike our conscience. Aside from how beautiful the massive polyptych looked, I was amazed by the disorientation imposed by the work.

Gwenaël Bélanger’s Dizzy video whisked me through a 360-degree stop-motion view of his studio from its dead-centre, accelerating dramatically before a mirror begins to crash at the forefront of the scene, complete with deafening sound effects. The mirror appears stationary aside from its descent into pieces, yet the camera’s lens still spins to reveal the perimeter or the space. How does Belanger do it? Again, as in Baier’s mirrors, the mirror in Belanger’s video is reflection-free. How is the camera capturing this without getting caught in frame? How is the mirror smashing in fluid succession as the camera still spins around the room?

(Also worth noting, though not spectacular in the sense of this article’s theme, is Michael Merrill’s gouache series of scenes of exhibited art, from Dan Flavin’s minimalist light pieces, to an intimate screening of Warhol’s Empire. Evoking a viewer’s knowledge of contemporary art history, the content of the works is a twist on typical approaches to subversion and appropriation.)

Next, Sophie Calle at DHC/ART. How spectacular, in the Debord sense of the word. Massive, exhaustive, deserving of no less than hours of your time, Prenez soin de vous is a study in the over-analysis of pain, done in a way that is clinical in its approach but richly emotional in its result. After receiving the ever-rude, ever-shameful break-up email, Calle did what most people on the receiving end of them could only ever dream — she made it (”it” being the entire break-up email, word-for-word) the subject of an epic exhibition with the participation of 107 women who assessed the vicious and evasive email according to their professions.

What a coup for Montreal’s DHC/ART to bring this show to Canada. I can’t see how another public museum could facilitate its size (without being too big) — four floors in the main gallery, and two separate galleries in the DHC/ART building across the street — and certainly no other city in Canada could successfully present a French-language show where understanding the text is paramount. (And with my severe lack of fluency, I missed out on much of the exhibition’s nuance, but I can appreciate still the process, size, and universality of heartbreak which was evident aside from language. There also seemed to be an unspoken unity in the network of women who were consulted.)

Prenez soin de vous was not difficult in its physical particulars (photographs of women reading the text, along with enlarged copies of their findings; videos of women reading the letter, or singing its words, or dancing and dramatizing their interaction) but the scope of the process is exhausting. How does a woman turn what so many of us experience first-hand into an acclaimed-around-the-world art piece? Therein lies the genius of Calle. Stifling the experience of pain through measured consideration, shared grief, and perhaps a touch of vengeance.

FROM MONTREAL TO QUEBEC CITY
Finally, Robert Lepage’s The Image MIll. Without saying much of the content of the animation except that it was completely entertaining, and its depiction of events that occured within my lifetime evoked a comforting familiarity, this massive production was simply mind-blowing. I couldn’t fathom the scale of the projection — I can’t say with confidence that there was a single vantage point at the Port from which the entire scene was visible. The sound quality was phenomenal — every tiny sound effect from roaring rain to crackling fire was so immersive, it was real. At the sound of booming thunder, heads turned upwards to the sky to catch a glimpse of an impending storm that wasn’t there. What’s more, the thousands-strong crowd was so captivated, not a sound could be heard at the Port during sound-free moments of the 40-minute presentation.

It’s wonderful that Quebec City decided to commemorate their 400th year with so many art initiatives that brought people together to celebrate this milestone for one of North America’s oldest cities.

The summer is always slow for art, but I have to say that these few exhibitions have been high on my list of favourites for the year. I’m looking forward to September when all of the smaller galleries and artist-run centres open their doors again to introduce their Fall programming.

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