The Art Collective @ Art Matters
Phase 3 of our Interactive Bunker Project takes place Tuesday March 6, 3 to 7 p.m., in the lobby of the Visual Arts Building at the corner of Crescent and René-Lévesque. We’re adding a middle layer to our imaginary underground world, filling in the space between the two layers worked on so far in interactive sessions in November-December and in February.
Then don’t miss our two special events next week:
Monday March 12: A drawing/video event on Monday March 12 (noon to 5 p.m.) in the vernissage space of the Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery on the ground floor of the EV building. Read details below for this not-to-be missed event and if you would like to be involved as a co-ordinator for this event, please let me know. Last year’s event like this involved participation by about 100 people.
Tuesday March 13: Come and draw with UQAM students at their Café des arts, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. This is the third year Concordia and UQAM students have done collaborative art-making during Art Matters at the Café des arts (like our Café X). A one-week show of the work produced has its vernissage on Thursday March 15, 6 p.m., at Café des arts, and the names of participating artists will be posted on our website.
Below is more information about the above events, Art Matters and two shows that are worth checking out.
Art Matters, Concordia University’s high-profile student-organized arts festival that presents the best work of Concordia student artists to the art world of Montreal and beyond, led by Celia Perrin Sidarous and Jim Verburg, the festival’s co-producers and artistic directors. Click here for more information about the festival: http://artmatters.concordia.ca/index.html
You can also check out the Art Matters myspace section at: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=144248126
Friendly Fire is a strong Art Matters show at Art Mur, curated by Montreal artists Joshua Barndt and Ed Janzen, a fibres student who is president of the Fine Art Student Alliance. Ed made the first mark at The Art Collective's April 2006 interactive show at Concordia University's Visual Arts building. http://artmatters.concordia.ca/evites/artmur.jpg
More on March 6 event: At the March 6 event in the VA Building lobby, come and fill in a room with your vision of what’s happening underground when life becomes too difficult on the surface. And take a look at the network of dozens of fascinating interconnected drawings that look at how life underground is evolving in the imaginary future scenario.
More on March 12 event: get ready for an interactive drawing and video event in the space just outside the excellent Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery, on the ground floor of Concordia University’s EV Building, 1515 Ste. Catherine St. W. Not-to-be missed videos of interactive installations will be shown and fresh video will created and shown by leading-edge visual and video artists. Drawings drawings will be put up on the walls and windows of the space, just outside the Gallery with its not-to-be missed LiveLifeLab show by Bioteknica artists Shawn Bailey and Jennifer Willet, who explore the crucial concepts and issues linked to fast-advancing biotech research.
http://fofagallery.concordia.ca/bioteknica.html
The Bioteknica website is definitely worth a visit:
The Bioteknica show at the FOFA Gallery follows the excellent futuristic show presented by Montreal artist Bill Vorn. Red Light, a reactive robotic installation, provided a unique window into the mysterious interaction between living things and technology.
http://fofagallery.concordia.ca/vorn.html
PROJEX-Mtl show: Eliza Griffiths and Susan G. Scott, two Concordia teacher/artists, are presenting work at the PROJEX-Mtl gallery in a show that focuses on the portrait. It continues until April 1.
Here is information about the show:
http://projex-mtl.blogspot.com/search/label/%27Visages%27%2021%20f%C3%A9vrier-1%20avril%202007
Here is Eliza Griffiths’ website:
http://www.artengine.ca/elizagriffiths/
The show also includes work by Concordia artist and teacher Susan G. Scott
http://www.susangscott.com/
PROJEX-Mtl Galerie is at 1000 Amherst, suite #103, in Montreal, facing the Radio-Canada tower. Open Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 5:30. For information: 514.570.9130. See information below about the show. See more information below.
Robert Winters, co-ordinator of The Art Collective
robertwinters@videotron.ca
On the PROJEX-Mtl website, you can find this description of the ideas involved in portraiture:
In accessing the visage, there is certainly as well an access to the idea of god. »
Emmanuel Lévinas, ‘Le Visage’ Ethic and Infinity.
The origins of the portrait can be traced in the primitive masks. These masks were believed to literally ‘bring’ the traits of the spirits to the living, hoping to facilitate the fascinated spectator’s own passage in the beyond. The blank surface of the canvas also starts as a ‘blank mask’, and will possibly in due time tale the appearance of a portrait more or less individualized. This operation will enable the interiority of the visage to hopefully come through. The exhibition ‘Visages’ explores the symbolic space emerging between the fascination of the mask and the appearance of an interiorized visage.
From the quasi mortuary masks by Marlene Dumas and Michel Denée to the poetic portraits of Sylvie Bouchard to the expressive and loaded images of Eliza Griffiths to the impressionistic portraits of Susan G. Scott and the cold melancholy of the photographic portraits of Thomas Kneubühler, and the cosmetic coldness of Alex Katz this exhibition will take another look at this timeless theme in the midst of the stylistic implosion characteristic of our contemporaries.