Art matters all over town
100 artists exhibiting in 20 venues across Montreal
;)
Nearly 150 art aficionados gathered in the lobby of the Visual Arts Building and the VAV Gallery to participate in some live painting during the sixth annual Art Matters Festival. The March 7 event was coordinated by The Art Collective and coincided with a vernissage for the two paintings, including the one shown here, that were created onsite and raffled off later in the evening.
Photo by Sabrina Ratté - IITS Creative Media Services
A powerful wave of artistic energy is flowing through Concordia and out into the city these days, as the student-organized Art Matters festival offers up a dizzying array of events, shows and parties for all tastes.
The festival, which runs until March 17, features more than 100 artists showing work at 20 venues, including several high-profile gallery spaces with a reputation for top-quality artwork.
Even with this scope, about half of the artists who applied to show work in the festival were turned down by the 22 curators who worked on the shows at each venue. Only three of the exhibitions are on campus this year, co-producer Corina Kennedy said in an interview.
“We wanted to give artists the opportunity to get better exposure in high-profile places where people don’t usually get a chance to show their work,” she said.
Kennedy has been preparing the festival with co-producer Emily Shanahan for almost a year, and has found the whole process fascinating, especially seeing all the planning turn into reality at the end.
Many of the venues are in a cluster around St. Laurent Blvd., where the locations allow performances on opening night. Some of the vernissage parties offer live music, while others have hot music by up-and-coming DJs, or video screenings and dance.
One good bet is on March 12, at La Sala Rossa, 4848 St. Laurent, where a film screening starts at 7:30, including one intriguing piece by Graham Hall that uses archival footage of World War II set to heavily edited songs by the Beatles. At 10 p.m., music is provided by Dead Darling, Lesbian Fight Club and Yourself.
High-profile sites include the Darling Foundry, 745 Ottawa St., a top Montreal art space that was a main location for the 2002 Montreal Biennale.
As well, the Alumni Association’s Fine Arts Chapter is organizing two joint events again this year with Art Matters.
A careers panel and portfolio feedback workshop takes place March 17, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the VAV Gallery. The panelists include Nicolas Baier, the photographer whose lofty leaf images are on the exterior glass wall of the new EV building, Michèle Thériault, director of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery, and painter Tom Hopkins, who will be the moderator.
The second annual Alumni/Art Matters festival of film and video shorts will be held March 26 at the J.A. DeSève Cinema in the J.W. McConnell Library Building from 1 to 6 p.m.
The festival’s closing party will be held on March 19, from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. at Theatre Plaza, 6505 St. Hubert St. It features live music by The Adam Brown, Sunday Sinners, Bionic and The Captains, as well as DJ music by Women on Wax, including a variety of styles such as hip-hop, neuro and liquid funk, techno and electro.
All the events are free. The full program is available at various locations around campus and on the Art Matters website.
As well, there’s a faculty panel on March 10 that features painting and drawing professors talking about the influence of different educational institutions on their artistic practices. Speakers include François Morelli, coordinator of Painting and Drawing, and student painter Trevor Kiernander, a co-producer of Art Matters in 2005 and the current Fine Arts Student Alliance vice-president for design.