Every good Montreal alley has its… its hangars. But only one of them, in Villeray, can claim to house THE hangar. More precisely Hangar 7826, name of the last of the microgalleries. And for its fifth exhibition, the broadcaster is becoming more professional: three artists will follow one another until the end of January under the watchful eye of a curator. Meet somewhere between rue Saint-Gérard and rue Foucher.
Inaugurated anonymously in the spring of 2021, the place stands out from all its counterparts made of concrete and sheet metal. It is not the usual extension of the private domain. In short, it has an alleyway. If ever the door, largely glazed, is closed, the curious who approach it can take a look.
The owner of the hangar (and the triplex behind) for ten years has not changed the layout of the place. The new door corresponds, says Gilles Tarabiscuity (from his artist name), to the “hole there was there”. “The shed was rotten, the roof was leaking,” he recalls, quite proud of the elegant transformation he has achieved.
It was he who did everything, without financial effort – “trifles” – and under the approval of a municipal permit for an artist’s studio. “In the 1990s, I would never have had a license. I would have been given a grant to demolish the thing, ”he believes.
He undoubtedly took advantage of a more conciliatory context, even if the issue of the workshops remains problematic. The artist and teacher at CEGEP believes he has also benefited from the vast current of small solutions, such as small houses (tiny living) or, in the art world, pocket galleries.
Gilles Tarabiscuity ensures that he does not claim to run a gallery. All he does is lend his workshop. His project was to equip himself with an exhibition space, but did not result from a gesture of rebellion, even after having sent his file, without success, to a hundred galleries.
Wiggle there, now
The art historian Laurent Vernet, known for his expertise in public art, is delighted to have discovered Hangar 7826. It is he who signs the triple program entitled Shake. This one, which runs from November to the end of January, offers in turn projects by Emmanuel Galland, Sayeh Sarfaraz and Michael Patten.
“Emmanuel and I wanted to do something. We didn’t know what, we didn’t know where, he explains. There was an emergency. Shake talk about it: you’re home, you’re confined, you’re restless and you want to do something. “
The appearance in their horizon of Hangar 7826 responded to this need to “take action without waiting two years”. Galland’s project, My Dates / Close Friends, brings together a collection of “male first names” captured on the Internet. A collection which “was beginning to gain momentum”, confides the curator of the exhibition. That of Sarfaraz, On the way, will bring together a multitude of compulsive drawings that link the tradition of Persian miniatures to current events in the Middle East. Finally, from Patten, #Latergram will be the result of sorting a “thousand images”.
“Mike [Patten] is concerned with producing and disseminating [sur Instagram] almost immediately. This double pole interested me, says Laurent Vernet. It’s not just a matter of taking a photo, but of distributing it too, without waiting. “
The former employee of the Bureau d’art public de la Ville de Montréal likes what “comes out of institutions”. Hangar 7826 makes it possible to satisfy his wish to meet people in their daily life and to continue his research on the unexpected rapprochement “between contemporary art and Mr. and Mr.me Everybody “.
Like Gilles Tarabiscuity, Laurent Vernet does not believe that exhibiting in alternative places means waging war against the network of established presenters. ” It’s the fun to write a chapter in a book is the fun also to write an article that is quickly found on the Internet, he says. This is what Hangar allows: to act yes, by thinking, but in an intuitive way. “
Gilles Tarabiscuity does not know how all these intuitive and heterogeneous exhibitions will transform his old rotten hangar. Until then, he had entrusted the keys to both an arts graduate from UQAM and the children of the alley, who exhibited “abstractions”. He also welcomed a friend, Alain Néron, “who has been working for 15 years in his workshop, hidden in a church basement, without anyone knowing what he is doing”,
Friend Alain will have been important for Hangar 7826: during the summer, he introduced as a visiting schedule, “Saturday and Sunday, from 3 pm to 5 pm”. Laurent Vernet and his artists adopted it. It pleases the owner. For the time being. But what is he dreaming of if not?
“I would like to see something exploding, trying to get out, a crazy thing. Something you wonder how to get him in, how to get him out. »Notice to interested parties.