Do we need time? Determination ? No doubt both, but with the exhibition entitled “ How long does it take for one voice to reach the other ? “, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) proves that it is possible to mount a large event in a few months.
The one that opened the season on Sherbrooke Street lacks neither class nor timeliness. Strong pieces and more than justified speech (listening, bringing together, understanding…) make it a flagship exhibition, of which around forty works come largely from the house’s collections.
” We wanted [traiter] of everything we have experienced, create a unifying experience. We wanted exhibitions that talk about love, death, loss, what has touched us for a year, ”says in an interview Mary-Dailey Desmarais, chief curator of the MMFA.
“Allow yourself through art, through pure and authentic experiences, to digest emotions …” continues the curator of the exhibition.
Until early 2021, a program was on track. The pandemic and the cancellations it caused forced the museum to come up with a plan B for the start of the September school year. Gold, “ How long does it take for one voice to reach the other? “, which stands out with its long title in quotes, is not a stop-gap project.
“To make a major exhibition, it takes four years, sometimes five. There, we had… six months, affirms Mary-Dailey Desmarais. All the teams really had to come together. “
The result is astonishing. In the rooms where a year ago the museum brought us back to Paris “at the time of post-impressionism”, this time the public rubs shoulders with all eras, all genres, from Antiquity to the year 2020 and its sad news – sculpture Yes, We Love You, produced by Stanley February the day after the death of George Floyd.
The result is first surprising by the sobriety of the scenography (the white walls, for example), a break with the Bondil era which signals that the MMFA is moving forward in a different way. Then by the absence of cacophony. The rooms follow one another gently on a crescendo of emotions, from a personal, almost spiritual, and silent experience, to the collective expression of a choir.
With ” How long… “ The need to talk and listen to each other resounds, regardless of our differences, our fears, our visions. Than a religious painting of the XVIIe century of Europe alongside a caribou antler sculpture from Nunavik summarizes the audacity of a program based on rapprochement.
Musical, political, intimate voices
Through a diversity of words – “the voices of resistance”, “the ignored voices”, “the voices in unison”, say certain sections – the vocal cords, or the breath resonate, literally. The choir of 40 voice motet (2001), the work of Janet Cardiff which closes the course, can be heard from afar, like a seductive call to join him.
The expo opens almost inevitably with indigenous speech. It is no longer just a question of including this word. It is essential, as concretely testified by the enormous megaphone of Ayum-ee-aawach Oomama-mowan: Speaking to Their Mother, sound installation by Rebecca Belmore started during the Oka crisis of 1990.
Halfway through, it is the (real) breath of the poet and feminist activist Nicole Brossard, immortalized in the installation Last breath (2012) by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, which sets the pace for the visit. Life and death intersect in this room where we also find 772 ampoules from the Saint-Luc hospital “rescued” by Yann Pocreau (the work Light / time, 2016) and pre-Columbian terracotta flutes (Costa Rica), used in healing rites or funerals.
Human expression is a long-term affair. It lasts through the years, also requires more attention than just the time of a flash. The fragile and sensitive face of Hear Me with Your Eyes (1989), a photographic triptych by Geneviève Cadieux, cannot be seen at one glance – it will spark a discussion between the artist and Eunice Bélidor, curator of contemporary Quebec and Canadian art.
Literature is constantly an inspiration. Chez Cadieux (its title evokes the Mexican poet of the XVIIe century Juana Inés de la Cruz) and others. For the immense installation acquired in 2019 by the museum, Shilpa Gupta reproduced one hundred books of imprisoned poets. Even condemned, thought finds an echo.
The origin of the title of the exhibition can be found in Triptych (1990-1991), sculpture by Betty Goodwin integrated into the architecture of the museum which quotes the poet Caroline Forché. His question “How long …” is written on the ground. By walking on it, Mary-Dailey Desmarais saw the opportunity to go towards the other, towards implied voices.
The chief curator admits it: great things are born within the walls. “This exhibition is part of a broad reflection to activate our collections in an innovative way. There are endless stories around a work of art, ”says the one who does not want to relive the pressure of creating an exhibition in six months.