Recent reviews published on the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC) encourage us to share our experience with this establishment. In 2022, director Mario Côté asked the MAC for illustrations of works from the archives of the Center international d’art contemporain de Montréal (CIAC Mtl) deposited in this museum for the production of a film on the creation of the CIAC, the Hundred Days of Contemporary Art in Montreal and the first Biennials of Montreal. The requested documents were refused on the pretext that they had not been accessible since the installation of the MAC in the Place Ville Marie building.
Mario Côté’s film was refused by the International Festival of Films on Art for the reason that the film included few illustrations, illustrations which had been requested from the MAC.
When the CIAC Mtl deposited its archives with the MAC Archives Service, we did so on the MAC’s promise to preserve them and make them accessible to the public and to researchers. We signed an agreement to that effect.
Today, archives managers at the MAC tell us that the archives will not be accessible until 2025 at best. Several large companies manage to move their headquarters while maintaining access to their archives. Why is it not the same at the MAC? All these years without access to the MAC archives will be so many lost years for researchers and the public who would like to produce documents essential to understanding life in the visual arts in Montreal, on works by artists, on the work of curators and exhibition curators who have produced documents on the history of art in Quebec. The MAC is also, in part, the art archives in Montreal, in Quebec, in Canada. It is a mission-essential service.
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