Once again I was in Montreal. The hotel I had chosen was called
L HOTEL and had caught my eye on Internet for the a slogan
Where else can you have breakfast with Lonquist, a martini
with Jim Dine, stroll pas a series of Rosenquists or sleep with
Lichtenstein?
Yes, most of our rooms have original art work also.
I was in «Calder» - but it was not original art work as you can imagine. Botero and «Love» were welcoming me after the long haul from Paris.
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| Botero |
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| "Love" -that hotel |
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| Inside next to the bar |
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| Next to this statue |
Montreal is a little like Mondrian’s «New York» or one of his paintings on the same theme. Neatly set out in parallel lines and impossible to lose yourself in.
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| Mondrain - New York |
A Canadian friend is always losing himself in Paris as streets twist and turn. In Montreal, the horizontal streets are very long and in a way, the centre of the city is not unlike New York but without the buzz or energy. It was a holiday weekend but fortunately the Modern Art Museum was open. That would be my first step.
The first time I had visited it was in 2004 with my Mother. An itzy-bitzy set up and neither of us could quite understand what we were looking at. The second time was in 2008 and frankly I wasn’t too impressed either. Perhaps because the artists, most of them unknown to me, seemed to say «I have seen that somewhere before» and just didn’t speak to me. However, there were two exhibitions. One called «ZOO» and the other «On Abstraction». They both seemed appealing - especially the second one.
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| Ai Weiwei Circle of animals 2010 |
ZOO is a statement. There has been a notable interest in animals in contemporary and modern art of over the past years. This I had seen in Paris with both the exhibitions at the Grand Palais and the Musée des années 30. (Chapters "Reassuring and Otherwise" - 17th May and "Large Animals" 27th April). There is certainly a preoccupation concerning our relationship between animals and nature and the precarious state of our planet’s environment. Mythology, natural sciences and varied concepts are depicted. True, impossible to speak of animals or animality without speaking of our relationship to them. Ai Weiwei, the Chinese and oh so contested artist who re-examines the traditional signs of the zodiac.
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| David Altmejd |
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| Keith Smoth |
Fortunately or unfortunately I was stopped in taking photographs at this point by one of the museum attendants but stuck up a conversation with him. We then spent quite a long time discussing modern and contemporary art and he told me a lot about Canadian artists. David Altmejd’s half man half animals are fascinating as is his statue outside of the Beaux Arts museum. As he said to me, there are some sculptures that shock and people «tut-tut» about. How could they? This is so erotic and the eyes of both the animal and the girl are gazing into one another’s with love. It reminds me very much of a chapter in a book written by my mother called «The Goat» when this same relationship occurs.
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| Another view and a tree |
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| Ai Weiwei from a distance |
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| Animal tree |
The space is divine and the museum was far from being crowded. I wished I could have talked for longer with the attendant.
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| Blue Progression |
The same joined me again in the «On Abstraction» exhibition. I was looking at Paul-Emile Borduas «Blue Progression» (1955) In fact this whole room kept my attention for quite some time. The attendant told me that he came to say «hello» to the same painting when he came in, in the morning. I could too.
In fact it is one painting that I would like to have on my wall. And that is very rare.
The Annish Kapoor too was an eye opener for me. I have seen much of his work over the years, but nothing like this. A whole room for the installation. Would we have had that in Paris?
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| Anish Kapoor 1984 untitled |
There were some 60 artists, most of them local and unknown to me. I came to terms with Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923-2002: Canadian) who I once compared with Jackson Pollock. How wrong could I be. Here at least I had the chance of looking much more closely at his work which was shown along side Borduas (1905-1960: Canadian). This was the first time I had really felt at home in this museum.
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| Jean-Emile Riopelle |
There was so much fascinating work in both exhibitions and the four hours I spent in the museum were quite rewarded by a stroll around the garden before I left. One thing that I would like to have had more was sharing my thoughts with the Canadian museum attendant. In all these years of museum visits, I have never spoken to one who was so knowledgeable.
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| Trevor Gould "God's window" |
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| Henry Moore |
Next chapter. Another lovely moment in Montreal - Les Beaux Arts. Tom Wesselmann, «Spotlight on Design» and a few hours spent in the permanent collections.
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