One sip is enough to judge a bottle. Likewise, the Plural fair, which opens this weekend in Montreal, promises to provide a quick, well-understood understanding of current trends in contemporary art developed in recent years by the artists represented in the gallery.
“We seek to show what is best in one and the same place, what is magnificent, while attaching projects, special presentations, debates,” summarizes Anie Deslauriers, general director of Plural for several years. only weeks, after a career in a gallery.
The 2024 edition takes place all weekend (from the 12th to the 14th) at the Grand Quai of the Port of Montreal in a space offering “incomparable natural light, a beautiful playground,” says the director. The fair, organized by the Association of Contemporary Art Galleries, brings together exhibitors from seven Canadian cities selected by two curators (Jessica Bradley and Florence-Agathe Dubé-Moreau) and a curator (Léuli Eshrāghi, from the Museum of Fine Arts from Montreal).
The edition brings together 46 exhibitors, twice as many artists as last year. The program adds debates and round tables on cutting-edge topics, such as ecofeminism in art. A sculpture garden brings together works from exhibitors. The selection proposed by curator Evlyne Laurin includes around thirty works. “Plural is really a concentrate, an overview of what matters and what is happening now,” adds the director.
When it was created in 2007, the event, called Papier, placed more emphasis on small format, fairly inexpensive works. Becoming Plural last year, it extends its offering by presenting works on all kinds of media and in all kinds of formats created by (let’s say) 1% or mid-career artists.
Mme Deslauriers summarizes this transformation by saying that his event fits in a way with the journey of the collector, who begins by purchasing a drawing and ends after a few years by acquiring a large sculpture or an art video. Seasoned collectors are also entitled to a VIP pre-opening evening on Thursday evening.
“We’re not going to lie, Montreal is a small market,” says the director. That said, some galleries are doing very well. The pandemic even caused people who were confined to buy more works. The majority of our exhibitors’ clients are in Quebec, but some galleries also participate in international fairs to diversify their clientele. »
Joint project
Others are at the fair for the very first time, in the Pavilion Space reserved for emerging galleries. This is the case of Projet Commun, an experimental organization founded in 2021.
“I created this small structure to experiment with new things by developing artistic and cultural proposals with audiences,” explains Sarah Turcotte, founder of Projet commune. “We have a programming committee which forms cohorts bringing together emerging artists and curators. We also bring together members of the public. These people work together to develop proposals presented or activated in different cultural places. »
The kiosk rented by Projet commune will exhibit 3D objects by Orise Jacques-Durocher as well as videos and photos by Charlotte Guirestante Gomeshi in the company of Alexane Ferland, representative of the public, in this case students from the Le Vitrail school, who participated in the creation of the photographer and videographer.
Mme Turcotte is a doctoral student in museology. She studies the shift towards communication, marketing and blockbusters museums started at the end of the last century.
“It may seem contradictory to participate in a trade show with an organization that defends very community values,” she comments. In fact, when I read the description of what Plural was looking for in emerging galleries, I immediately recognized Joint Project. »
Renting the kiosk still costs him $2,000. Established shopping malls pay four times as much. “This participation in a commercial event allows us to pursue our mission,” says M.me Turcotte. Our kiosk allows artists to have their work discovered by collectors or museum people. It provides us with another way to meet people, perhaps new people who would like to collaborate with us. »
The “off” is “in”