A hundred works spread over five kilometres: the excessiveness that has so tinged Underground art is a thing of the past. From now on, the festival of contemporary art scattered in the interior spaces of downtown Montreal, partly underground, brings together only about thirty artists. The Place Ville Marie, Place de la Cité internationale and Center de commerce mondial, as well as the passage under the Jacques-Parizeau building are the only ones to still host photo series, videos or installations.
Smaller, but no less party-loving. Underground art, which has reached fifteen editions, has given itself a noisy theme to match: “the party”.
“Why the party in the underground city? To bring it to places that are not reserved for that, everyday spaces where people work, shop, circulate, “says Jean-François Prost, artist, architect by training and associated with the theme since the publication. from his book Celebration (2021, VU editions).
If the fifteenth of Underground Art gives in the voice, it is in particular because Jean-François Prost is one of the curators. He is notably responsible for the presence of a sound artist (Magali Babin), a mythical New York nightclub (Paradise Garage) and mariachis (performance by Martín Rodríguez).
Rare work created for the event, You Can Feel It All Over by Magali Babin gives voice to an invisible yet vital population, those who work in underground Montreal. The artist wanted to know the favorite music to celebrate, and this is what resonates just before entering the corridor under Victoria Square.
The diversity of the list — from the violin of Stéphane Grappelli (minor swing) to a Kool The Gang hit (let’s Go Dancin’), Passing by merchant navy des Cowboys Fringants — is a reflection of the inclusive power of the party. “The party causes fortuitous encounters, states Jean-François Prost in his curatorial text, engenders another world, heterogeneous, undisciplined, where it is still possible for us to be together among our differences. »
The desire to echo a fragmented, more realistic and less constraining society runs through the exhibition. In a staircase leading to a metro station, there are undoubtedly some who will fall into the trap of the “Paradise Garage” poster. The only indoor parking lot in question is the one that housed this flagship nightclub of the 1970s, one of the first with a DJ.
“A party can transform our view of a place, of our life,” comments Jean-François Prost, in front of the Paradise Garage logo, a place of emancipation for LGBTQ+ communities and today a symbol of the fight against AIDS.
The one who made himself known twenty years ago within the SYN collective knows about wastelands and underground passages. And continues to fight for the mix of uses and against the “mono-occupancy” of buildings.
“A place generates the party by its architecture, its objects, he says. Conversely, an action can also cause it, regardless of the place. The mariachi tradition he experienced in Mexico — “I got woken up at 5 a.m.” — is a good example. “The mariachis bring the party, they are the ones who create it. They arrive in a sad context and people start singing. This idea prompted him to invite Martín Rodríguez to hold, in the underground labyrinth during “Festive Thursdays”, the performance mariachi perdido.
Brazilian rituals and others
Jean-François Prost is not the only one to have chosen the thirty artists —Eddy Firmin, the Brazilian Ayrson Heràclito and an internal committee at Underground Art have also selected some. Heràclito, a teacher from Salvador de Bahia, is partly responsible for the strong Brazilian delegation. In several of the videos he offers, it is a question, if not of carnivals, of dancing rituals and unusual gatherings.
“The party has a local aspect, specific to a culture. From Bahia and Rio, it’s very different, comments Jean-François Prost, who has already stayed in Brazil. But the party is also universal. Wherever you are, there is a desire to break with the speed in which you live, with productivity, with the functionality of places. »
Among the corners highlighted by the exhibition, the one under the stairs leading to Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle houses the videos (a diptych) of Antonio Pichillá Quiacaín. In Bailando vswe have a footthe Mayan artist from Guatemala opposes his dance with a stone, an act of cultural resistance, to a Catholic procession.
Movements and wanderings punctuate the 15e Underground art. The silent and immobile proposals suggesting them are also celebrations, as evidenced by the undulating mural by Robbin Deyo or the car surmounted by a sound box by Géraldine Entiope and Eddy Firmin. In terms of photos, we go from fairgrounds (images by David Champagne) to clandestine beaches (Steven Smith Simard), from the kitsch facades of nightclubs (François Prost, unrelated to the commissioner) to the interiors of abandoned clubs (André Giesemann and Daniel Schulz). The real party continues in the bar temporarily set up in a vacant space in Place Ville Marie.