The 21 Swings public art installation, outside at the Quartier des Spectacles in the heart of downtown, is the kind of instrument anyone can play – and everyone is, no matter what their musical ability, age or whether they find themselves next to friends or strangers on the swings…

The long row of seven sets of colourful swings, like a mini playground along President-Kennedy Avenue between St-Urbain and Jeanne-Mance in the Quartier des Spectacles, is set up for collective music making until the end of May. Each swing hits its own notes, some sounding like a piano, some like a guitar or harp.

In French, the interactive installation’s title, 21 Balançoires, hints at part of its concept: to bring people together in public space in a kind of balance that reflects the fast-paced urban environment while showing how community-oriented Montreal really can be. That is, the more people work and play together, the more music can be made.

21 Swings came to Montreal’s streets last year and is even bigger this year and the music different with each group of people who happen to swing by. Created by Montreal artists Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat and design group Daily Tous Les Jours, the installation is a project that blends artistic talents and urban design. Both Andraos and Mongiat have long been involved with interactive public art and design projects in Montreal and around the world, often looking to inspire people who might not think of themselves as musicians, performers or artists – with projects like 21 Swings, like magic, everyone becomes a creative force. Fittingly, the location of the swings is called Promenade des Artistes.

As people swing, melodies and harmonies are made along with others swinging next to them and nearby – sensors track the height, the speed and the position of the swings, triggering notes that match the swingers movements. Add to that an LED lighting system on the swing’s seat bottoms, and it’s a full-on collaborative, cooperative music show like no other, with participants listening to the music, slowing down and speeding up to adjust their part in it, and having a really good time just playing around.

THE DETAILS

21 Balançoires (21 Swings), until June 2, 2013

Photos by Susan Moss

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The MACM is always an accessible museum, but these days it’s even more interactive than usual thanks to two works by British-born, Berlin-based artist Tinho Segal. Creating a cross between theatre and visual art that somehow sidesteps art performance, Seghal builds entire sets in museums and hires “actors” to animate them in carefully choreographed situations.

Right now there are two of his pieces at the MACM: his iconic Kiss, from 2002, which involves a couple reinterpreting famous kisses drawn from the history of art in a tightly choreographed 8-minute loop; and This Situation, from 2007, a conversation piece that has the “agents” discuss philosophical issues between themselves and with the visitor, if you so choose. Passersby can influence the whole direction the performance takes awhile they are in the room. Now that’s power!

Right next door in the video room don’t miss 4 000 Disparos by Brazilian artist Jonathas de Andrade, for which he filmed male faces in Super 8 film as he travelled throughout Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, in a journey of territorial recognition of a Latin America he belongs to without feeling part of. French artist Laurent Grasso and Montreal artist Lynne Cohen round out the current exhibitions: With his trickster’s take on temporality and the making of history, Grasso’s show, titled, Uraniborg, presents neon signs, objects, videos and more that lead to the creation of what the artist calls a “false historical memory.”

Cohen, on the other hand, presents 40 of her interior landscapes – since the 1970s the artist has been capturing, unpopulated, often odd spaces constructed by humans, used by humans, but devoid of humans. The images are filled with the tension created by that emptiness and the occasional inexplicable aspects of the photographs. Photo: courtesy of Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto.

On April 5, make sure you catch the Friday Nocturne, the museum’s popular series from 5 to 9 pm every first Friday of the month, which this time features saxophonist Colin Stetson. Famous as a member of Bell Orchestre and a collaborator of Arcade Fire, Lou Reed and Feist, Stetson explores the limit of his instrument in his solo work, creating beautiful soundscapes that will transport you to wholly ethereal planes.

In May this bunch of exhibitions will make way for two new guys: the first solo exhibition in Canada of Brooklyn-based artist Eve Sussman and her collaborative team Rufus Corporation, for one. Generated by algorithm but influenced by the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, Jean-Luc Godard and Wim Wenders, Sussman’s filmic pieces offer a futuristic look at space and time, utopia and dystopia, fractured narration and torn landscapes from Russia and Central Asia. In the next room there’ll be Montreal artist Michel de Broin, whose playful multidisciplinary practice extends from photography to video to sculpture, and explores the notions of resistance, misappropriation and recycling with a cynical sense of humour.

THE DETAILS

Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, 185 Sainte-Catherine West, (514) 847-6226

Photo Credits- Tinho Segal Photo: ©Tate, Jonathas de Andrade Photo: courtesy of Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto

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City of Lights, City That Never Sleeps… what are you when you’re both? You’re Montreal during the annual Nuit Blanche and Art Souterrain, that’s what – the arty party night to end all party nights in the city that parties all the time…

Don’t expect to get any rest if you’re in Montreal on March 2, because the night will come alive as the city revels all the way to the next day. As the grand finale of the 10-day long Montreal En Lumière festival, Nuit Blanche Montreal lights the city on fire through the night with, among other things, more art than you can shake a stick at. In addition to the museums and galleries in the Quartier des Spectacles that stay open all night and generally put on a fiesta (drinks and snacks, performances and spontaneous dance parties are all regular occurrences), there are events happening all over town, from Old Montreal to the Plateau to Mile End and the Olympic Park.

How about you start your night out with a tour on the giant Ferris Wheel in the heart of the main site downtown? If you want to stay in that area, may we suggest the cooking class at the MMFA, followed by the philosophical dance party at the Grande Bibliothèque (‘cause we all know no one could cut a rug like Goethe) and a few more hours shaking your moneymaker at Karnival, a huge fiesta hosted by Poirier at Club Soda.

If you’re wandering down to Old Montreal, get your sing on at PHI Centre or your swim on at the Hilton Montreal Bonaventure before taking in a gumboot show at City Hall. Plateau/Mile End bound? Make sure you stop in at Nouveau Palais for a flick or two, Monastiraki for the famous collage party and Mainline Theatre to witness a theatrical extravaganza. If the Olympic Park calls to you, you’ll get a sneak peek at the brand new, as-yet-unopened Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium, plus you can skate on a superhero-themed ice rink.

Nuit Blanche also marks the launch of an art trail through the underground city: Art Souterrain, which runs from March 2 to 17. During one of the coldest months in the city, culture vultures can take refuge in the toasty underground network of malls and metro stations and be thoroughly entertained all the while, thanks to 7 kilometers of in situ exhibitions, installations and performances by over 120 artists. The word “smorgasbord” comes to mind! Here are five must-sees on the trail.

1) Start at the centre of it all, at the Place des Arts, in Zone 1, with the kid-friendly work of Montreal artist TAVA, who harkens back to an old school comic aesthetic to create an imaginary world with his installation La Voie Lactée (the Milky Way). Kids can use it as a maze!

2) Get brainy thanks to Le Pendule (the Pendulum), a performance/video/installation work by Barcelona artist Julia Mariscal, at Complexe Desjardins, in Zone 2. Barcelona is this year’s guest city, and there are many works by compadres throughout this zone. This one represents a whole environment, with sound accompanying a projection onto sleek metallic spheres that recall planets.

3) Get a taste of home with Mémoire en cours (Memories in the making), an installation by Yu-hang Huang composed of dozens and dozens of little white houses suspended at head-height. Dive neck deep into these symbols of memory-making at Palais des Congrès, in Zone 4.

4) Montreal artists Paul Litherland looks into the contrast of work and home with his photographic project Postes de travail familial (Family work stations), exhibited at the Tour de la Bourse, in Zone 6. Featuring portraits of particular homes, the project will continue to develop over the years to track our growing computerization.

5) Pazzazz, by renowned Montreal artist Dominique Pétrin who was in the last Quebec Art Triennial, is an eye-catching fresque whose style the artist describes as “Greco-Roman mixed with a 1970s dance hall vibe.” See what that means at the CDP Capital Centre, in Zone 7.

Prepare for your Art Souterrain tour by using the free iPhone app and downloading the audio guide here.

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THE DETAILS

Nuit Blanche, March 2, 2013

Art Souterrain, March 2 to 17, 2013

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Arsenal was already among the city’s biggest non-museum art spaces, but as of last week they’ve broken their own records. With a brand new show dramatically titled Like Thunder Out of China, uniting nearly 50 works by contemporary Chinese artists, they revealed a massive (think 22,000 square feet) section of the building that was as of yet unused. Part cavernous exhibition hall, part loading dock, the possibilities for parties (Grand Prix and Fashion Week are already regular clients) are endlessly exciting.

The art on view also does the space justice: The showstopper is the famous Miss Mao 3 by the Gao brothers, an 8-foot-tall stainless steel bust of Mao sporting huge inflated breasts, a creepy doll smile and a Pinocchio nose. (Is it any surprise the work is banned from exhibition in China?) The father of Chinese pop art, Qui Jie, contributes a series of drawings replacing politicians’ heads with those of cats – another sort of derision, only cuter. In fact, all the art was chosen for its cheeky spunk, its dissidence, its ability to comment on the state of China today from within. All the artists included still call China home.

When you hear Chinese art you may automatically think Ai Weiwei – he’s not included in this show, which focuses on the younger generation, but Like Thunder Out of China does mark the Canadian launch of the book Weiwei-isms and MAO, the complete book of his Mao iconography. Check it out in person, in the beautiful Arsenal space.

THE DETAILS

Like Thunder Out of China, Until July 27, 2013

Arsenal, 2020 William, (514) 931-9978

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Iceberg isn’t all snow and ice though; it’s a three-part, open-sided metal tunnel (with additional alcove-like structures in front of Place des Arts) that responds to people’s movements – it creaks and drones, evoking the sounds of a real-life iceberg as it turns upside down in northern waters, while multi-coloured lights flash and fade along the way.

Located outside along the Place des Festivals (Jeanne-Mance between de Maisonneuve and Ste-Catherine Street), Iceberg is a piece of art created by Félix Dagenais and Louis-Xavier Gagnon-Lebrun – and it’s meant to be played with: standing in one spot or running right through will produce different results, from cacophonous noise to almost symphonic sounds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OimJf5dZvp0 Meanwhile, an interactive installation of a different sort lights up the facades of eight buildings throughout the Quartier: Le jour des 8 soleils has us pull out our iPhones or play an mp3 soundtrack as we follow a character from building to building. Artist Pascal Grandmaison uses video projections matched to the architecture of each building’s facade, joined by music and narration that lead the way, from Berri-UQAM metro station to Place des Festivals and points in between.

Even if you don’t have an iPhone or mp3 player, the installation is fantastic to simply look at on the outside walls of La Grande Bibliothèque, the Centre de design de l’UQAM, the Cégep du Vieux Montreal, Place de la Paix, Place Émilie-Gamelin, UQAM’s President Kennedy pavilion, Berri-UQAM metro station and Saint-Laurent metro station.

Along the way, also see the stunning arctic-focused photography of Daniel Beltrá’s Polar Drift – images of icebergs, frozen sea and naturally illuminated winter sky, all taken from high in the air – displayed in large format prints along the Promenade des Artistes (on de Maisonneuve between St-Urbain and Jeanne-Mance.) Iceberg and Polar Drift stick around until February 3 and the video projections of Le jour des 8 soleils are on display until March 2.

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THE DETAILS

Luminothérapie, Until February 3, 2013

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(discover downtown) There’s always something happening for free at the Quartier des Spectacles in the downtown core. Outside, make some music with the illuminated outdoor installation Iceberg and watch for video-projection art on the sides of buildings, part of the high-tech Luminothérapie art exhibition. Inside in the centre of the Place des Arts complex until February 3, see photography exhibition Finzi Pasca, Dali & La Verità, of and inspired by the Salvador-Dali-focused stage show La Verità, opening at Place des Arts in January.

(cool outside) Outdoor enthusiasts love Montreal in winter – when you’re cross-country skiing, playing hockey, skating or into any winter sports, the cold just doesn’t seem to matter as much – and if you’ve got your own equipment, much of it doesn’t cost a thing. Skating in Parc Lafontaine, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing on the Mountain, or simply walking through the city are all free all the time, and there’s plenty to see too. Walk around Old Montreal and be sure to look into the sky on New Year’s Eve at midnight and on January 5 at 8 p.m. to see the Telus Fire on Ice fireworks. And the all-new Olympic Park Winter Village is free for everyone, with a skating and hockey rink, a toboggan run, activities for kids, a snowy tennis tournament on January 5, a “Funky Karnaval” music and dance performance January 5-6, and more – and while not free, on Saturday, January 5, several of Montreal’s food trucks will serve up delicious food, from burgers to gourmet dishes.

(art activities) Admission is always free to the permanent collections at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where new exhibitions open this January: see an array of works by Impressionist artists, Taiwanese artist Chih-Chien Wang’s As Far As We Were, As Close As I Can, Iranian photographer Aydin Matlabi’s Landscape, Revolution, People, as well as paintings, sculpture, new media art and more from famed Quebecois, Canadian and international artists. On January 19, DHC/ART foundation in Old Montreal unveils Thomas Demand: Animations, an exhibition of the German artist’s films and videos, interlacing photography, architecture, sculpture and media images. Outside the downtown core, climb inside SQUEEEEQUE the Improbable Igloo, artist Alexis O’Hara’s large speakerbox igloo, where she and other artists will be performing and welcoming the public to play too from January 10 to February 17 at Maison de la culture NDG. And for a taste of what Montreal artists are up to, visit smaller galleries and artist-run centres in the five-storey Belgo Building (372 Ste-Catherine W.)

(moving images) Escape the cold throughout January at the state-of-the-art PHI Centre, a multidisciplinary arts and cultural hub in beautiful Old Montreal, where free screenings of top Canadian films such as Xavier Dolan’s Lawrence Anyways, Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell, Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis, Midnight’s Children, The End of Time, and more will be shown on select evenings – admission is on a first-come, first-serve basis!

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Photo credit: © Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn / SODRAC, Ottawa
Rolltreppe / Escalator, 2000, 35 mm Film Loop, 2,00 min

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The Christmas spirit is truly in the air at another big fair, Le Marché Casse Noisette, known in English as the Nutcracker Market. More Montreal and Quebec creations are around every corner at this fair, where gourmet food, jewelry, clothing, bath and beauty products and much more abound among the Christmas trees and tinsel, November 29-December 9 at the Palais des congrès de Montréal.

Hip, cutting-edge design is what the annual souk @ sat is all about, with over 100 professional artists and designers selling unique, often made-in-Montreal clothing, jewellery, handbags, furniture, home accessories, toys, art and more. The sale happens November 30 to December 2 at the Société des Arts Technologiques (1201 St-Laurent), a high-tech education centre, music and entertainment venue, and also home to the inventive FoodLab restaurant.

With a pro style similar to souk’s, Smart Design Mart lets vendors set up approachable mini-boutiques in a huge industrial loft space, where everything from locally designed clothing to home decor to food can be found in a range of prices. The Mart is open on the evening of December 7 and during the day December 8-9 at 5505 Casgrain, in the bagels-and-coffee-and-cool neighbourhood of Mile End.

Also in Mile End is the holiday version of Pop Montreal’s Puces Pop Craft & DIY Fair, an always-lively mix of hip, quality hand-made items for winter and beyond, all infused with plenty of love and care – happening the evening of December 14 and during the day December 15-16 at Saint-Enfant-Jesus Church (5035 Ste-Dominique). For those looking for more traditional craft-fair fare, stop by the Old Skool Crafts Holiday Fair, December 8-9 and 15-16 at L’Église St.Michel (105 St-Viateur W.). And if you’re in town November 17-18, check out the creative goods at Expozine, one of the largest small press fairs in North America, where authors, artists and zine makers impress live and on paper – also held at the Saint-Enfant-Jesus Church.

Explore more of the city by heading south-east to the Haut & Fort Noël Market, dedicated to Quebecois designers and creators of “ideas, objects and furniture made here”– happening December 6-9 and 13-16 at Marché St-Jacques (2nd floor, 1125 Ontario E.). As with all the craft fairs in Montreal, the artists are right there to talk about their work and answer any questions – there’s something special about this kind of face-to-face meeting, and so often we get a good story to go with our purchase, not to mention a warm, fuzzy holiday feeling.

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Take a break in Montreal this week with days dedicated to amazingly affordable fine food, high-flying and inspiring on-stage entertainment, international film and art, family-friendly sounds of science, and lots of great live music…

(fantastic food) The food-centric week begins on Friday with an array of gourmet food trucks – from tacos to crepes to hamburgers – set up for your culinary pleasure at Montreal’s Olympic Park. For sit-down meals, check out Montreal’s TASTE MTL Restaurant Week, ongoing to November 11, with gourmet prix-fixe menus – from $19 to $39 – at some of Montreal’s best fine-dining restaurants. Choose by cuisine or discover new parts of the city by choosing by neighbourhood: spend an evening in Old Montreal, the next one at a restaurant downtown, in the Plateau or Mile End, Outremont, the Village or Griffintown.

(life on film) Film festival season continues in Montreal with the French-language – English subtitles usually included – Cinémania, to November 11, with features, shorts, retrospectives (including an extensive one on Sandrine Bonnaire’s films), presentations and Q&A sessions, and more. Among the many films, see Cinémania’s opener, an official Cannes competitor, Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone, starring Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts in a story of a former boxer, his son and a woman coming to terms with a life-altering disability. And on November 7, doc film fest RIDM begins its reign of real life representations, with films from around the world, including Peter Mettler’s The End of Time, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Mekong Hotel, a series of 15 favourite docs chosen by 15 members of the film community, and much more.

(circus & theatre) Circus shows in Montreal are always an adventure of some kind, but that adventure is guaranteed to be thrilling and heartfelt with inventive and talented Montreal-based international circus troupe 7 Doigts de la Main – their latest show, Séquence 8, is chock full of stunning acrobatics and ensemble work, big laughs, great music and a love of circus arts and audience connection, at La Tohu circus centre to November 17. In theatre, Black Theatre Workshop extends its successful run of Harlem Duet, an award-winning play that spans Shakespeare’s Othello and the sentiments of Martin Luther King in a story of the struggle to gain true equality in North America. And Persephone Productions presents Shakespeare’s classic of classics Hamlet at the Calixa Lavallée Théâtre in Parc Lafontaine, November 1-10.

(beautiful bodies) International rock star choreographer Hofesh Shechter’s Political Mother is powerful, beautiful and moving – for dance fans or simply for anyone looking for a great show. With 10 extremely talented dancers and 7 musicians live on stage, Political Mother tells a story of hope in the face of tyranny – at Théâtre Maisonneuve at Place des Arts, November 1-3. In the same performative vein of dance-meets-music-meets-storytelling, Montreal choreographer Frédérick Gravel debuts his Usually Beauty Fails, November 7-10 and 14-17 at Cinquième Salle.

(east & west) The 13th Arab World Festival of Montreal entertains and informs, highlighting links between Arabic and Western cultures through music, performance, film, art and talks, to November 10. On Friday November 3, hear famed pianist Abdel Rahman El Bacha play works from Bach to Prokofiev and more, at Cinquième Salle. On November 4, hear the music of Algeria’s Hamdi Benani, at the Corona Theatre, while Zohreh Jooya and her Afghan dance ensemble captivate in a North American premier at Cinquième Salle at Place Des Arts, and up in the neighbourhood of Mile End at the beautiful Rialto Theatre, spend the evening at Goodbye To The Duels, Hello To The Duets, a concert for peace, featuring Moroccan singers Abderahim Souiri and Laila Gouchi. See the festival’s program online for full details and more.

(educational entertainment) The Montreal Science Centre gets kids and adults really listening with new exhibition Musik: From Sound to Emotion, a zone where science, creativity and entertainment meet. Learn how music affects different parts of the brain, how we experience music physically and emotionally, and get a chance to make music of your very own in the exhibition’s high-tech music lab. The exhibition is based on input from numerous scientists at Montreal universities as well as from musicians, including  Montreal-based pop-punk band Simple Plan.

(joys of music) Friday night begins a week of great music with Montreal’s Esmerine, celebrating 15 years of Constellation Records, at the Musee d’art contemporain. On the other end of the show spectrum is the laser-light-show spectacular The Australian Pink Floyd Show at the Bell Centre, while Designer Drugs and Beat Market electro-rock the SAT. Saturday night cranks the decibel level with Sonar Festival on Tour, featuring Die Antwoord, Azari & III, Seth Troxler, and  more dance-worthy acts, at Metropolis. Monday night sees Martha Wainwright pouring her heart out at the Corona Theatre, the sweet west-coast pop-rock sounds of Grass Widow at Il Motore, and a late night of dancing to the great Richie Hawtin, Loco Dice and more at the SAT. The week turns rock retro with Journey on November 5 and ZZ Top November 7, both at the Bell Centre. And Thursday night rules as Howl! Arts brings the great D’bi Young and Kalmunity Vibe Collective to Sala Rossa and NYC’s Yeasayer rocks Cabaret du Mile End.

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Montreal-Brooklyn is happening in November in Montreal and then in January in Brooklyn, the event uniting eight art institutions in each city and a total of 40 artists, seeks to highlight both similarities and contrasts between the two places’ art scenes by, on the one hand, bringing New York artists to galleries throughout our city and, on the other, engaging Montreal artists on the subject of Brooklyn. Here are three must-sees to get you started.

1) At Centre Clark: Here at the project’s HQ, the curators chose to contrast two pairs of artists: Julie Favreau (from Montreal) and Patrick Martinez (from Brooklyn) in the gallery’s big room, and Mathieu Beauséjour (Montreal) and Steven Brower (Brooklyn) in the smaller one. They’re really trippy pairings – Favreau and Martinez both work with the symbolism and narrative potential of everyday objects, Favreau in video form and Brower by building ever-growing plastic straw structures – his own version of Meccano. Brower and Beauséjour make social commentary in their respective installations; Brower’s contribution consists of a sealed hatch that blocks the entrance to the room unless the viewer follows very specific instructions.

Once inside, Beauséjour’s video Don’t Worry Darling, There Will Be More Riots in the Spring depicts a white-haired man in a suit attempting to make a political speech but instead gagging on an egg. Referring to the Maple Spring, the work features eggs in a major way, inspiring thoughts of walking on eggshells, or, conversely, of rebirth – the rebirth of a nation? One can only hope.

2) At the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal: The MACM organized two exhibitions within the Montreal-Brooklyn project: one is a solo exhibition of video works by New York artist Janet Biggs, which feature people with extreme jobs in extreme parts of the world – an ice spelunker, an arctic explorer, a coal miner and a sulphur miner – and make exotic what, to the subjects, is the mundane.

The other exhibition features a couple of videos by Montreal artists Aude Moreau featuring New York. A kind of love letter to the Big Apple skyline, Moreau’s slow and poetic work titled Reconstruction makes the familiar skyscrapers seem alien through the use of weird time-lapse and space morphing effects. It lends a whole new look on the city, from Battery Park to Ground Zero, that oddly has the effect of making it look as if it were made out of cardboard while simultaneously making it even more majestic than it is in person.

3) At Articule: For their contribution, titled Territorial Re-marks, Mile End gallery Articule selected artists from both cities whose work deals with the idea of territory: of the mind, of the body, of societies, of wilderness. The four artists united are Jérôme Havre and Michelle Lacombe from Montreal, and Emily Roz and Patricia Smith from Brooklyn. There’s a great interplay between the amazing wall-art left over from a performance by Lacombe, the utopian urban planning of Smith and the heavily symbolic sculpture by Havre. Roz gets special mention for her paintings because I’ve got a total thing for wilderness, and the way she paints ironic territories where beastly beasts roar and maim in chintzy floral environments more befitting of your grandma’s sofa than of the jungle drives me, well, wild!

THE DETAILS

Montreal-Brooklyn, Various locations in Montreal until November 17, 2012

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There aren’t many galleries that play sweet jazz as you peruse the art, but the Galerie Lounge TD isn’t your ordinary gallery. On the second floor of the Maison du Festival Rio Tinto Alcan, on Sainte-Catherine Street in the Quartier des Spectacles, this gallery sits in the centre of Montreal’s musical scene.

Above the Jazz Fest space that hosts some of the world’s biggest music performers, half the art gallery is dedicated to a collection of popular Quebec art that’s for sale (there are pieces by famous artists like Armand Vaillancourt and Afred Pellan, as well as by musicians like Diane Dufresne), and the other half to solo exhibitions that usually relate to music.

The current solo boasts all recent works by local legend Barbeau, officer of the Order of Canada and a figurehead of the Quebec visual arts scene for close to seven decades now. The abstract painter, who developed the Automatist movement in the 1940s alongside founder Paul-Émile Borduas, presents a collection of 2011 and ‘12 canvases and works on paper featuring colour explosions, geometric compositions and rainbow-hued sunbursts.

And in homage to the locale, the curators take a new look at Barbeau’s career through the lens of music – examining movement, rhythm and harmony in his use of colour and line.

The idea of rhythm and syncopation prevails throughout the works on display, through their gestural expressionism and the pointillist brushstrokes that Barbeau is exploring these days. The idea of movement, though, is particularly evocative – in an National Film Board film that’s showing in the gallery space, titled Marcel Barbeau: Libre comme l’art, a dancer is asked to create movement with one of Barbeau’s large-scale metal sculptures.

Her actions really bring the sculpture to life, and shed a new light on the small sculptures that sit around the gallery; it’s as if the materials struck a pose, mid-dance, and have been frozen in time. After seeing the film, I could picture the painter, also, physically sparring with his canvases, paintbrush in hand, leaving his trace… I guess music was in the air, in more ways than one.

(PS- Admission is free!)

THE DETAILS

Marcel Barbeau: Movement, Rhythm and Harmony, Until December 23, 2012

Galerie Lounge TD, 305 Sainte-Catherine West, (514) 288-8882

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