Essential in the art market, companies do not only collect. They also exhibit. Three of these collections have recently found new showcases. As an urban tour, in the form of a museum or around a coffee, the modes of exploration vary. Second of three texts.
The new Montreal headquarters of the National Bank (NB) is not just an office tower. It is also a “sculpture tower.” The one that will be inaugurated in September houses a series of imposing three-dimensional works.
“We often expect to see two-dimensional works. But the space here is so grandiose, it called for sculpture. I say it, it’s a tower of sculptures,” proclaims Jo-Ann Kane, curator of the National Bank Collection.
The expression could be described as excessive, because there are only six sculptures, while the skyscraper has forty floors. The image is nevertheless appropriate since these works are an integral part of the building erected near Place Bonaventure.
From the hall located at the corner of Saint-Jacques Street and Robert-Bourassa Boulevard, Scentimeby Shary Boyle, is a testament to the program: in this place of money and power, it is all about grandeur. This ceramic and glass mosaic sculpture is 810 cm high. Almost 10 m.
The other three works that occupy the ground floor and form a sort of route reach very respectable heights, from 330 cm to 480 cm. The only exterior piece, The song of the Dodoby Myfanwy Macleod, surpasses them with its 549 cm at its highest point. Verticality, a characteristic of any tower, is an inseparable element of these works.
While the BN acquired these six sculptures for its head office, they also add to the city’s public art. “It’s a legacy that we’re leaving to Montrealers. There aren’t that many sculptures of this magnitude,” says Jo-Ann Kane in front of the glass wall facing the REM railway tracks.
Color noisesby Fabienne Lasserre, and Almost seenby Jen Aitken, two works visible from the train, according to her, are part of a “linear park” in the landscape composed, on Robert-Bourassa Boulevard, of sculptures by Michel de Broin and Jaume Plensa. Lasserre does it in colors and transparency, Aitken, by a “drawing in space”.
The financial institution has been investing in art since 1971 and prides itself on owning 7,000 works “representative[s] of Canadian art history from 1895 to the present day.” The new sculptures stand out for having been created based on their intended location at 800 Saint-Jacques Street. Six competitions were held, for which some sixty artists, including from Quebec, says Jo-Ann Kane, were invited to submit ideas.
“The competitions [sont] a beautiful way for artists to think about space. The works are integrated, they are not stuck on. They inhabit [le lieu]are in communication with him,” says the woman who followed this process in 2012 to animate an ungrateful space in the former head office, three streets further north. The work Waveby Patrick Coutu, born from the competition held at the time, now occupies a more airy and brighter corner of the new address.
The UQAM graduate, who has been employed by the BN since 2002, was part of the jury, which this time was made up entirely of women. While she readily agreed to describe how the competitions were conducted, she refused to talk about costs, mentioning with difficulty the “special budget” granted by management. “The acquisition budget, which I cannot reveal, did not meet the needs of the new tower,” she said.
The BN continues to purchase art, between 15 and 20 works per year. Sculptures from competitions are added to this collection. The new tower, like all the other buildings of the bank, exhibits as many works as possible, including in private spaces.
Protective object
So it is by Scentime that most people begin their exploration of the sculpture tower. A ceramicist known for her hybrid figures, Shary Boyle offers a perfume bottle with a very long neck and flanked, at the very top, by a golden head. On the sides, the artist has drawn motifs of flora or fauna in danger of extinction.
The vase, oversized and fantastical in appearance, is presented as a protective object, which allows the person responsible for the collection to compare it to the bank, which “also contains and protects something, money.”
The work breathes well, despite the presence of an (also) huge screen that broadcasts advertising for the company. “It’s not advertising, we’re talking about our social commitment,” retorts Jo-Ann Kane, who points out that the screen will later be used for digital art.
With its three monumental structures, with distinct colours and shapes, Tendernessby Beth Stuart, occupies a prominent place, as if on a throne, near the lobby. Made of scagliola plaster, a material that imitates marble, the work suggests a distortion of rigid forms, especially in comparison with the columns that surround it.
The last two works are a little apart. The song of the Dodoto be discovered outside, on the east side, represents this despised and now extinct bird. It is the most illustrative sculpture of the six. Finally, Monkey, Monroeby Rochelle Goldberg, the only work that is not vertical, is housed on the conference room floor.
A small controversy had broken out in the spring when an article in the Montreal Journal had denounced the absence of Quebec artists in the final selection. This statement had shocked Jo-Ann Kane, because local artists were on the jury’s lists. Then, Fabienne Lasserre is from Montreal, even though she was born in Ottawa. The outcome of the deliberations gave what it gave, namely six sculptors, an observation obscured by the controversy.
“The competitions were not just for women,” she says. “I can’t name all sixty artists. [qui étaient sur les listes]but it was very equal, at all levels, from the representation of the provinces to those of gender, cultural and generational diversity.
Two other competitions will be launched in the coming months, in order to find works for the 36e and 40e floors. They will not be exclusive of anything or anyone, specifies Jo-Ann Kane.