Return ? Africa in search of its masterpieces. If you still doubt the relevance of returning African works of art to their country of origin, you have to see this documentary by Nora Philippe. Bronzes from Benin, royal treasures from Abomey… “Hundreds of thousands of African works and objects live today in our museums in the West”, specifies the film. A looting that was mainly done during colonial invasions. A punchy movie. At the Museum cinema on March 25.
The museum and the nonconformist billionaire. “Money Creates Taste,” 1990s artist Jenny Holzer sarcastically wrote in one of her famous truisms. With the explosion of the prices of works on a delirious, speculative art market that often values the mediocre, will museums be subject to the good – and especially the bad – taste of hyperfricated collectors? This is what Olivier Lemaire’s film will leave an impression on us. We follow the evolution of the new Bourse de commerce / Pinault collection museum in Paris in 2021, designed by the architect Tadao Ando. The best rubs shoulders with the worst. At the Canadian Center for Architecture on March 27.
Still Max. For nearly 50 years, Max Dean has produced performances, installations, art videos, photographs and interactive works that have marked the history of Canadian art. His Robotic Chair which dismembers and rebuilds itself is a major work. This film by Katherine Knight speaks above all of her recent work, but makes connections between her creation and her personal life, in particular with her way of artistically approaching her prostate cancer. At the Canadian Center for Architecture on March 19.
experimental fifa. Curator Nicole Gingras has selected seven experimental films directed by Charlotte Clermont, Nayla Dabaji, Guillaume Vallée… International Dawn Chorus Day (2021), by John Greyson, where birds converse during an online video encounter. Celebrating freedom while humans were isolated due to COVID-19? Much more than that. The birds actually talk about the filmmaker Shady Habash, who died in a prison in Egypt, as well as the writer and activist Sarah Hegazi, also imprisoned and tortured in the same country. At the Outremont theater on March 17.
Joan Mitchell. A woman in abstraction. She was thea of the greatest abstract artists of the XXand century. This statement, which does not correspond to the rules of inclusive writing, respects Mitchell’s desire, who did not want to be reduced to the ghetto of “women artists”. In the 1950s there were critics who dared to claim that women could not paint. And the galleries of the time did not take more than two women in the group of artists they defended. “It was their quota,” says Mitchell in this film by Stéphane Ghez. At the Museum cinema on March 26.