Cultural return | In museums, we can’t wait to see…

From Quebec City to Ottawa, via Joliette and Montreal, museums are getting ready to launch their fall exhibitions. Here’s a preview of what’s on the program.

Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art

The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC) is exploring the life and work of Abenaki activist and filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin. The Indigenous artist, who has made numerous documentaries for the NFB, has also exhibited her visual works, including at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 2019. Alanis Obomsawin: Children need to hear a different story was launched in Germany last year through a partnership between the Haus der Kulturek der Welt (Berlin), the Art Museum at the University of Toronto and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

From September 26, 2024 to January 26, 2025 at Place Ville Marie

Visit the exhibition page

Phi

At the Phi Center, the possibilities of artificial intelligence are explored in the immersive exhibition Coded Dreamsby Marc Da Costa and Matthew Niederhauser. Starting October 9, you will be able to see Tulpamancera virtual reality (VR) journey through our memories; and also The Golden Keya collective work created “from tens of thousands of tales from around the world”. On the Phi Foundation side, the French artist Laure Prouvost presents her installation Oma-Iwhich “celebrates” the artist’s relationships with her family, friends, and the artists who inspired her. It will notably discuss Louise Bourgeois, Hélène Cixous, Marie Curie, Mia Haazen, Omas Gegen Rechts and Joan Jonas.

As of 1^er november

Visit Phi’s website

McCord Stewart Museum

The history museum opens its fall program with an exhibition that highlights the research work of artist Michaëlle Sergile, who is interested in Afro-descendant women in her weaving practice. The exhibition To all those women who were not named takes us to the Coloured Women’s Club of Montreal, an association run by a group of women at the beginning of the last century who helped integrate newcomers. Who were these women? The artist dug into the museum’s archives to try to trace them. We are very curious to see what she found there.

From September 13, 2024 to January 12, 2025

Visit the McCord Stewart Museum website

National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec

In Quebec, we will celebrate indigenous art with First Daysan ambitious exhibition that aims to offer a broad panorama, 200 years of creation, which will bring together as many pieces from the 18th century^e century than contemporary works. Early Days. Indigenous Works from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection begins on October 17 and brings together artists from 13 different nations. In the meantime, those who will take advantage of the fall to go to the MNBAQ are advised to extend their visit in the neighborhood, once the tour of the museum is finished, in order to take a look at the Garden Night Light by Suzanne Giroux. The light installation is visible from outside the Pierre Lassonde Pavilion, starting at 9 p.m.

Visit the MNBAQ website

Joliette Art Museum

Since Labor Day weekend, the Joliette Art Museum has been in the heart of the city with Ripplea digital work that lights up Place Bourget from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. The themes of inclusion and cohabitation are discussed in this work, which is the result of the work of Quebec artists Johann Baron-Lanteigne, Nathalie Bujold, Mara Eagle, Alexis Gros-Louis and Gabrielle HB. You can see Ripple Friday and Saturday evenings until September 28. If you can wait until early October, the museum is opening two exhibitions simultaneously, including one by Moridja Kitenge Banza, who is building a chapel incorporating pieces from the museum’s sacred art collection, but which risk being presented in an iconoclastic manner. It’s worth seeing.

Visit the exhibition page

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

The first opening of the fall is that of an exhibition which will present recent acquisitions of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Two by two gathered together brings together as many decorative art objects as paintings, 80 in total that are grouped in pairs, according to different, perhaps surprising, criteria. From September 11. This start of autumn is also the opportunity to see the magnificent exhibition of Flemish art that ends on October 20. Are you doubtful? Are you afraid that it might be a bit pompous? Reduce the risk and visit the exhibition on September 18, with the return of the refreshment evenings where, apparently, the atmosphere at the museum is exhilarating. We will be the first to try it out!

Visit the MBAM website

National Gallery of Canada

At least three exhibitions are opening at the NGC in October and November. First, the works of the six artists who are finalists for the prestigious 2024 Sobey Art Award: Taqralik Partridge (Circumpolaire), Judy Chartrand (Pacifique), Rhayne Vermette (Prairies), June Clark (Ontario), Nico Williams (Québec) and Mathieu Léger (Atlantique). And also the exhibition Intertwined Stories. Textiles and Modern Abstractionwhere you can see a selection of around 130 works by more than 45 creators, including Anni Albers, Ed Rossbach, Rosemarie Trockel, Jeffrey Gibson and Yayoi Kusuma. The Canadian artist of South Korean origin Jin-Me Yoon will present his series Women in the lead, an installation born from his photographic series Looking into the distance, presented in 2017.

Visit the MBAC website

Pointe-à-Calliere

A few days before Halloween, Pointe-à-Callière begins fall with Witches: from shadow to light, a journey centered on the mythical figure of the witch. But who were these women who were thus accused of witchcraft or black magic? Women with too free morals? Single women? Of color? Atheists? Educated? With knowledge? “A key figure in literature and popular culture, this exhibition reveals the tormented history of witches and delves into their mysterious world,” writes the museum’s management. From October 25, 2024 to April 6, 2025.

Visit the Pointe-à-Callière website