We could have simply chosen a few pieces and presented them to the public, but curator Iris Amizlev decided to make the exercise a little more playful for us, the visitors, and more complicated for her, by creating links between works, especially pairs.
We appreciate the exercise that makes visiting an exhibition of pieces from the permanent collection much more interesting, an event that would otherwise not draw crowds. Thanks to this presentation, visitors cannot help but push their thinking a little further, linger over the work and, yes, see links with its peers.
The curator had over a thousand works to choose from. She immediately took on the challenge of matching them, which gave birth to Two by two gathered togetherwhich presents about sixty of them. In fact, to be quite precise, 80 works will be presented during the year that the exhibition lasts, but some will be removed, and sometimes replaced, because they are too fragile to be exposed to light for all that time.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
The museum’s curator of special projects, Iris Amizlev, in front of the 2015 work Natives playing on the landby Lets’lo:tseltun-Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, and that of Nicolas Party, Landscape, from 2021. In front, a monumental sculpture by Manasie Akpaliapik made of whale bones.
I wanted to make a more dynamic journey, something that would be interesting for the public and encourage them to participate in finding the connections that I made.
Iris Amizlev, curator of special projects at the museum, who curated the previous exhibition on pop art at the same venue
Joy is therefore a constant, although the styles and periods are greatly varied here. The exercise also suggested drawing from the museum’s various collections. We therefore find small Mexican terracotta pieces dating from before our era to works carried out a few years ago. Almost all of the works are being shown at the museum for the first time.
This is the case of this painting by Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun that was chosen to represent the exhibition and which shows a forest on fire. “It talks about deforestation due to oil pipelines,” says Iris Amizlev. It is difficult to deny the formal links with the Landscape by Nicolas Party, when he is his neighbor.
Find the links
Other connections are less obvious, but none are undeniable. “I thought that even children can have fun here and make comparisons; what is different? What is similar?” the curator jokes. “The connections are everywhere, you have to look for them.”
In front of the monochrome pieces by Stéphane La Rue and Claude Tousignant, she insists on the fact that one must also see that they are, in both cases, sculptural works, since these two brilliant artists include the frame in their canvases. “So with each step that one takes, the work changes,” says Iris Amizlev.
Not all visitors will have the pleasure of taking the tour with the curator. Which is not so bad: the evening of our visit, the day after the opening, the public was already having fun, the couples discussing among themselves the possible connections, including this touching dialogue that we witnessed between a boy and a blind girl.
There are a few trios of works in the exhibition, but only one piece is unique, without a friend: Mushrooms by multidisciplinary artist Kiki Smith.
“I ran out of walls,” the curator explains, but we like the fact that this circular bronze is alone in the world. As if it were sufficient in itself.
Find the link…
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PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Magnificent rapprochement between the Nature Morta by Canadian Jessica Eaton made in 2022 and these objects from the Roman Empire
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PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Japanese artist Kishio Suga presents this piece that marries branch and canvas, here on the left. Beside it, the bronze branches of Giuseppe Penone support the artist’s face. This duo is one of those in front of which we do not question ourselves for very long.
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PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Two works of light: Pass through (1999), by Jim Hodges, made of 98 incandescent light bulbs, and the unique egg by Dutchman Ben Swildens — Egg table lamp from 1969.
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PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
What could possibly link these three works? The gaze? The couple, present in the last two pieces? The couple by Louise Bourgeois, from 2002, is the first work acquired by this artist by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
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PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Undeniable family resemblance between the Polychrome in brown and fluorescent orange by Claude Tousignant and Intra-Muros by Stéphane La Rue. There are 27 years between the two works, one could not say which is the predecessor of the other.
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PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Certainly one of the most playful duos of the exhibition, Listening to the silence by Glenda León, neighbor of the Blackbird by Charles Sandison, a piece where the notes fly away like birds. First obvious link: music.
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Autumn at the museum
The exhibition Two by two gathered together is presented in the basement, in this space which connects the two main pavilions of the museum. The first, the one located to the south of the street, still presents Dreamscapes by Andō Hiroshigeuntil October 13, which tells the story of the Japan of the shoguns. On the other side of the street, the Flemish are masters with the very beautiful Vice, Virtue, Desire, Madness: Three Centuries of Flemish Masterpieces which also ends in October, on the 20th. This means that the next few weeks are ideal for visiting the museum — you get these three exhibitions for your admission price!
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