Cultural summer | Six must-see exhibitions

This summer, an Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec axis will impose itself on visual arts enthusiasts with six unmissable exhibitions. From Yayoi Kusama to Frida Kahlo via Stanley February, General Idea, Mika Rottenberg and American artists of the XX^e and XXI^e centuries, the route will be rich in discoveries and sensations.

Eric Clement
The Press

Yayoi Kusama in Phi

As part of its 15^e anniversary, the Phi Foundation will present, from July 6 to January 15, an exhibition of works by the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, a resounding event that will include two Infinity Mirrored Rooms, his fascinating light and immersive installations made of mirrors, which are his signature. The exhibition route will include sculptures from his series of bronze pumpkins (pumpkins). As well as eight paintings from his corpus My Eternal Soul. Given the popularity of the 93-year-old artist, visitors who wish to experience his creativity and, in particular, his illusions of infinite space will have to book their free ticket, from mid-June, on the site of the Foundation. In total, the visit will take about three hours.

From July 6

Stanley February at the MMFA

In addition to the sumptuous exhibition of Nicolas Party and that of Adam Pendleton, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is giving visibility this summer to the Quebec artist of Haitian origin Stanley Juillet. As is also the case, until October 16, at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec. Starting June 15, the 45-year-old artist will deploy his own Contemporary Art Museum/Department of Invisibles (MAADI), an artistic paw to highlight the lack of attention of Quebec art institutions towards racialized artists. A reality which tends to attenuate, as illustrated by MAADI, a conceptual and performative work that includes creations by marginalized artists. A “nomadic museum”, says Stanley Juillet, which aims to “contribute to the sharing of power in artistic institutions in order to democratize their governance and decolonize the historical narratives of art”. Info: mbam.qc.ca.

From June 15

General-Idea in Ottawa

An event in Ottawa, the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) presents the most comprehensive retrospective ever produced on the Canadian collective General Idea, founded in Toronto in 1969 by AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal. The exhibition will display 200 works. Installations, paintings, drawings, videos, sculptures, publications and archival documents that will evoke the important role played by the very non-conformist General Idea in the development of art and activism in Canada, the United States, but also in Europe for 25 years, until the death of Partz and Zontal in 1994. Known for his commitment to the punk movement, queer theory and activism against AIDS, General Idea had adopted a critical posture on consumer culture and the social inequalities, examining mass media, the art economy, queer identity and the AIDS crisis.

From June 3

America. Between dreams and realitiesat the MNBAQ

The National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec (MNBAQ) will present the exhibition in Quebec America. Between dreams and realities, a century of American art, with a hundred works that will illustrate the evolution of the visual arts in our neighbors to the South. The paintings, sculptures, videos and photographs come from the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington. They are signed by artists such as Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Edward Hopper, Malcolm Morley, Louise Bourgeois or even Arthur Jafa. The exhibition will discuss the impact of social and cultural history on artistic creation in the United States.

From June 9

Mika Rottenberg at the MAC – Place Ville Marie

Conceived in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto, where it will be presented in 2021, the immersive exhibition by Argentinian artist Mika Rottenberg has been mounted in the temporary premises of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Place Ville Marie , which he held until October 8. These are videos, installations and sculptures, including video installations NoNoseKnows (2015), Cosmic Generator (2017) and Spaghetti Blockchain (2019). In his work, Mika Rottenberg creates unusual relationships between bodies and machines in order to scrutinize capitalist realities dominated by production, distribution and unbridled consumption. She describes her work as “social surrealism”.

Until October 8

Frida Kahlo at Arsenal

As a North American premiere, Arsenal offers the immersive exhibition Frida Kahlo, the life of an icon, presented as a journey through the life of the famous Mexican artist. There will be no reproductions of works by Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), but “an assortment of archival photos, original films, digital environments, art installations, collector’s items and new musical pieces that recreate the most important moments of the artist’s life, allowing visitors to discover the incredible story at the source of the myth”. The exhibition will be presented in seven spaces with 360 degree projections and a virtual reality experience.

From June 10 to July 24