This text is part of the special Museums section
The new exhibition on display at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, How long does it take for one voice to reach the other?, explores the voice, as a symbolic expression of human emotion.
Its title, which borrows a line from The Country Between Us by the American poet and activist Carolyn Forché, says it in the preamble: this exhibition presents the voice and the word as tools of projection to others and to the world. An intention that takes on its full meaning after nearly two years of “social distancing” and strained interpersonal ties. Through a succession of works – paintings, sculptures and installations – some of which have been newly acquired by the museum, the visitor walks through a temporality that crosses styles and centuries: contemporary art (Betty Goodwin, to name but one ) rubs shoulders with classical works, notably those of 17th century painterse century like the Dutchman Rembrandt or the Italian José de Ribera. As soon as you enter, you feel drawn to the soundtrack that escapes from a gigantic pavilion revisited by Indigenous artist Rebecca Belmore, a frame that relates certain episodes of the Oka crisis and that sets the tone for a variation soundscapes. The culture of the First Peoples, of which oral tradition is the main vector, is moreover widely illustrated there, in particular with the works of the Inuit Elisapie Inukpuk (Throat song, 1941) and Mattiusi Iyaituk (My mother talks about the caribou, 1960).
Voices are rising
The great strength of this exhibition is to bring the visitor into an emotional crescendo, especially in a room that exposes the voice as a powerful weapon to denounce injustice and violence. In this regard, the work of the Mohawk Hannah Claus is edifying: it is all the suffering of the Aboriginals that is expressed through her paintings reinterpreting texts of violated agreements. Silenced voices are expressed in the masterful work of Indian artist Shilpa Gupta, Because, in your language, I have no place: 100 imprisoned poets (2017), a real cry from the heart that exacerbates the muzzled voice of poets held by totalitarian regimes for their “subversive” texts. Undoubtedly, it is the sculpture Yes, We Love You (2020), by Canadian sculptor of Haitian origin Stanley February who stands out as one of the highlights of the exhibition. To do this, the artist made a cast of his own body in the exact position of George Floyd, lying on the ground, both hands tied behind his back. The scenography contributes to the strength of the work, because the sculpture is installed in the center of a room of modest size in which it occupies all the space. As soon as we enter this room, it is difficult to avoid a recoil in front of this unbearable scene of suffocation that we are forced to bypass in order to observe. This makes us, visitors placed at the forefront, witnesses to the racism and violence to which African-Americans are victims.
In deafening silence
From muffled voice to silence (and death), the transition is unequivocal. Light / Time (2016), by Yann Pocreau, sets the tone for this installation of 772 light bulbs, some of which turn on and off in slow motion and which represent the 772 rooms of the former Saint-Luc hospital in Montreal (some of them they were even taken on the spot). In front of this work, the visitor feels as if he is at the bedside of a patient, watching the movement of breathing weakened by illness. But it’s Last breath (2012), by Canadian multimedia artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, who projects the visitor into an emotion of astonishing topicality. His work is a reinterpretation of the respiratory system, which obviously echoes the life support ventilators that have assisted (and are still assisting) so many patients during the pandemic.
Music before anything else
As a climax to the exploration, the visitor must enter a dark corridor, a sort of decompression chamber, which invites him to end his experience with a powerful emotion. The work Forty-part motet (2001), by Janet Cardiff, consists of 40 identical loudspeakers, each of which plays the musical work of Thomas Tallis (XVIe century). To achieve this installation, the melody line was recorded by separating each individual voice that makes up the original choir. The visitor-listener perceives both each of the unique voices and the vocal ensemble that emerges in unison. This strength of individual voices, coupled with that of a reinvented polyphony, propels the visitor into an almost mystical experience.