This text is part of the special booklet The summer of museums
In Montreal, museums give pride of place to local history, that of elsewhere, that of the past and that of the present. Throughout the metropolis, exhibitions weave a common thread between New France, the 19e century and the current era, sailing between Italy, France, Algeria, Colombia and, of course, Quebec. Discover the exhibitions not to be missed in Montreal over the coming months: summer promises to be a change of scenery in the shadow of the works of our museums.
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA)
The MMFA is offering no less than four exhibitions this summer, including the brand new The universe in the palm of your hands. Thoughts and Splendors of Indigenous Colombia, which will open its doors on June 3. On display are 400 Colombian works dating from around 1500 BCE to the present day, including gold pendants and masks, ceramic effigies, watercolors, and textiles from the collection, among others. of the Museo del Oro in Bogotá. Conceived in collaboration with the indigenous Arhuaco community of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the exhibition honors the age-old knowledge of this founding people. Workshops for families, guided tours and a series of films will be offered to the public in addition to the exhibition.
The museum also offers The Wolf Clan. The Art of Dempsey Bob, from May 18, a first retrospective of the work of Canadian sculptor Dempsey Bob. Through some sixty works of all kinds (masks, panels, wall sculptures, containers and ceremonial clothes) that testify to his Tahltan and Tlingit heritage, the artist from the northwest coast of British Columbia builds a bridge between his personal cultural background and more contemporary influences. Dempsey Bob won the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2021.
The third exhibition, Interior views. Portraits of the inhabited space (until July 2, 2023), explores the notion of interior in works by Quebec and Canadian artists from the MMFA’s collection. Paintings, photographs, installations and sculptures grouped into five themes (the studio, the between-place, the utopian interior, the intimate interior: a care space and the domestic interior) overlap and complement each other in a kaleidoscope which offers a current look at past spaces, weaving a link between the memory of confinement and the timeless relationship to intimacy.
Finally, we will not miss Nalini Malani. Beyond borders (until August 20, 2023), a very first individual exhibition in the country for this artist of Indian origin who works in video art. For nearly half a century, it has worked to make the stories of marginalized people seen and heard, especially those of victims of violence. The exhibition includes a nine-channel video installation and a performative wall drawing, in addition to a large-format video work, ballad of a woman, projected onto the facade of the Michal and Renata Hornstein pavilion at the MMFA. This one was created especially for the occasion.
Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC)
At the MAC, it is the French artist Lili Reynaud-Dewar who is honored in the exhibition I Want All of the Above to Be the Sun [Je veux que tout ce qui précède soit le soleil]. Active for about twenty years, she works in sculpture, performance and video by staging herself in exhibition spaces, museums and artists’ centres. In videos filming her performances, she can be seen dancing in empty rooms, her body painted. Added to this is a series of self-portraits in polished aluminum recently started. Finally, there is a video installation of four simultaneous projections entitled Roma, 1er and November 2, 1975 (2019-2021), project undertaken by Lili Reynaud-Dewar during a stay at the Villa Medici in Rome. The performance reenacts the last hours of Pier Paolo Pasolini, controversial Italian filmmaker, just before his assassination.
Several activities are organized in connection with the exhibition, including a meeting with the artist in the form of a conference on May 16, at 6 p.m., at the Canadian Center for Architecture. Two other visits-meetings are also on the agenda: one with curator Mark Lanctôt (May 24 and 31, 5:30 p.m., one in French, the other in English), another with dancer and choreographer Marie Claire Forté , film professor at Concordia University Luca Caminati and artist Frédéric Moffet, who offer a three-headed reading of the work of Lili Reynaud-Dewar right in the rooms of the museum (June 21 and 28 at 5:30 p.m. ).
McCord Stewart Museum
Starting June 2, the McCord Museum is offering Montreal in the making. Duncan, 19th century paintere century, a unique exhibition bringing together for the first time some one hundred works by the first British artist to settle in Montreal. Born in Ireland, James Duncan (1806-1881) landed in Canada at just 24 years old and quickly began to paint his new home. Through his canvases (including several watercolours) and his drawings, we plunge into the colonial city that was then the metropolis: when photography was not yet commonplace, these works allow us to live in the heart of Montreal’s daily life. 1830s to 1880s. Among the viewpoints that we enjoy rediscovering are Mount Royal and Île Sainte-Hélène, in addition to the streets of the time which are teeming with passers-by, carts and businesses today. disappeared today.
Are you visiting the Museum? Be sure to stop at Hochelaga. Changing Montrealan exhibition by the colorful photographer and filmmaker Joannie Lafrenière that showcases the people and places that shape the colorful neighborhood of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, until September 10, 2023.
Outdoors, the photography exhibition Building Montreal (from June 16 to October 15), which will take place on McGill College Avenue adjacent to the museum, retraces 25 large-format historic photographs from the Museum’s Photography collection. The theme ? The most Montreal of all: construction sites. It follows the development of Montreal’s infrastructures, from the 1850s to the 1980s.
Finally, don’t miss the lunchtime concerts every Wednesday, from July 5 to August 23, in the Urban Forest, an ephemeral park on Victoria Street. You will find artists from here who promote the diversity and richness of the city.
Montreal History Festival
It is from May 12 to 14 that the 3e edition of the Festival d’histoire de Montréal, which focuses on the history and heritage of the city with exhibitions, podcasts and guided tours, among others. At the Musée de Lachine, for example, we discover the exhibition It grows ! A story to cultivate with historian and curator Éliane Bélec. The exhibition recalls the know-how in terms of food autonomy transmitted from generation to generation by Quebecers, from the preparation of seedlings to the preservation of food.
At the McCord Stewart Museum, this is the exhibition swallow the mountains which will be offered. With Karen Tam, artist, and Guislaine Lemay, curator of the Material Culture collection, we can discover how the artist of Chinese origin explores the construction of her cultural identity through her art. His installations, sculptures, textile works and drawings are brought together at 3e floor of the building. At the same time (and in a complementary way), Karen Tam looked at the Museum’s archives in order to question the stories constructed and received around the Chinese diaspora in Montreal. She will share her impressions on Sunday, May 14, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. in English and from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. in French.
Finally, at the Musée des métiers d’art du Québec (MUMAQ), a guided walking tour is offered around the exhibition. A cultural history in Saint-Laurent, the permanent exhibition of the venue. It explores the history of the Saint-Laurent district through some of its key buildings as well as several objects, some of which date back to New France. Sunday, May 14 at 11 a.m. Limited places.
Quebec Crafts Museum (MUMAQ)
At MUMAQ, two temporary exhibitions are to be discovered. Lyse Charland Favretti. breath of lights (until September 3) offers a retrospective of the career of this Quebec visual artist who has worked on stained glass since the 1970s. A technical section offers an incursion into the artist’s studio, where you will be able to follow the process of creating the canopies and glass murals that adorn certain public buildings in Quebec’s Far North, but also certain metro stations in Montreal: it’s up to you to see if you can recognize them!
Finally, the exhibition Algerian Cultural Heritage Days (until June 11, 2023), meanwhile, showcases treasures from this North African country. Costumes, brassware, leather goods, music and jewelery come together in a fairy tale of artifacts brought together thanks to the collaboration of the Écomusée de l’Algérie.
This content was produced by the Special Publications team of the Duty, relating to marketing. The drafting of Duty did not take part.