Montreal Museum of Fine Arts | A program focused on diversity

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) presented its 2022-2023 exhibition program to the media on Tuesday. Six deployments will highlight three American artists (Jean-Michel Basquiat, Adam Pendleton and Diane Arbus), a renowned Swiss artist (Nicolas Party), Canadian visual artist Shary Boyle and the theme of music in the Inuit visual arts. No Quebec artist solo for the moment, but two announcements will be made soon.

Eric Clement
Press

Nicolas Party: the purple hour

From February 12 to October 16, 2022

On November 9, a pastel on linen by Nicolas Party entitled Landscape was sold for US $ 3.2 million in a sale at Christie’s, New York. It was estimated to be between US $ 300,000 and US $ 500,000. Offering this work to the New York City AIDS Memorial charity, the Swiss artist smashed the record for selling one of his works at auction, 1.5 million, made last month … Suffice to say that the arrival of the master pastel artist at the MMFA is timely. We owe it to the links the 41-year-old from Lausanne has with the museum’s general manager, Stéphane Aquin. The latter proposed to Nicolas Party to dialogue with the museum’s collection and to create on site. For the exhibition Purple hour, he will present several works and will realize, in December and January, four large mural works of landscapes in situ. The works he chooses from the museum will be exhibited next to his own. Notably Purple hour, Ozias Leduc, and paintings by Nicolas Poussin, Charles Meynier, Lawren S. Harris, Ferdinand Hodler or Marseus van Schrieck.

Adam Pendleton: what we did together

From March 15 to July 10, 2022

As for Nicolas Party, this will be a first solo in Canada for Adam Pendleton, a young conceptual artist who is currently exhibiting, at MOMA, a body of work on politics and racism in the United States. “One of the most important artists of his generation,” says Mary-Dailey Desmarais, chief curator of the museum and curator of the exhibition. Being black and homosexual, he is interested in questions of identity. His painting, often in black and white, is reminiscent of the graffiti style, with a very social underlying message. Questions about individuality and community that he also transmits through writing, performance, sculpture and video. The museum will show one of his films, a portrait of the avant-garde dancer and choreographer Yvonne Rainer, which he produced one-on-one in a New York restaurant.

Shary Boyle: in front of the Ego Palace

From August 31, 2022 to January 15, 2023

Happy return of Shary Boyle to Montreal. The Toronto artist had not presented any works since Uprisings, at the Galerie de l’UQAM, in 2018, and a solo with Pierre-François Ouellette, in 2015. At the MMFA, we will be treated to an exhibition from the Gardiner Museum in Toronto adapted to the Montreal museum. Its title is inspired by the song Europe Is Lost by British poet Kae Tempest. An exhibition inspired by contemporary anxieties: the stranglehold of social networks, racial injustice, social inequalities, the environmental crisis, etc. The works will be paintings, drawings and ceramics questioning the dominant discourses.

Diane Arbus: photographs 1956-1971

From September 14, 2022 to January 29, 2023

Presented thanks to the Art Gallery of Ontario, which acquired 522 photographs from Diane Arbus in 2017, this exhibition will show 92 taken during her 15-year career, until the suicide of the New York artist in 1971. The photographs illustrate Diane Arbus’s sense of observation and her penchant for street shots and portraits. Several of the photos were published in the magazine Esquire in the 1960s. “Among the subjects she dealt with were beauty pageants for beginners, scout meetings, street gangs, a pet crematorium or even drag queens shows,” explains Anne Grace. , curator of modern art at the museum.

The music and art of Jean-Michel Basquiat

From October 16, 2022 to February 19, 2023

Co-produced with the Cité de la musique-Philharmonie de Paris, The music and art of Jean-Michel Basquiat was scheduled to take place in 2021-2022, but was postponed due to the pandemic. She continues the museum’s tradition of presenting exhibitions that link music and visual arts, after Warhol Live, We Want Miles. Miles Davis: jazz in the face of its legend, Splendore a Venezia, You Say You Want a Revolution, Conceived and Chagall. She will show the influence of music in the creation of Basquiat, whether it is jazz or opera. “He had a huge collection of records and listened to a lot of music which structured his practice,” says Mary-Dailey Desmarais. He identified a lot with black jazz musicians who had to deal with a lot of racism. ”

Read our article on the exhibition

Music that comes from the cold: Inuit art, song and dance

From November 9, 2022 to March 13, 2023

“This is an exciting project that will be the first major exhibition showcasing the visual arts related to the performative arts of Inuit culture, including throat singing and drum dancing,” said Mary-Dailey Desmarais. The works of art will come from the circumpolar region, from pre-colonial times to the present day. The exhibition will be curated by Lisa Qiluqqi Koperqualuk, curator-mediator of Inuit art at the MMFA, and Jean-Jacques Nattiez, ethnomusicologist, collector and professor emeritus at the University of Montreal. It will present sculptures, drawings and prints by renowned artists such as Pitseolak Ashoona, Annie Pootoogook, Kenojuak Ashevak or Mattiusi Iyaituk.