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:

http://www.bioteknica.org/

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

For information about her UQAM show, which continues until March 31, 2007:

http://www.galerie.uqam.ca/#basculer

Philomène’s work involves the creation of life-like individuals who reside in a dark space, through a projection system that allows them to come to life and interact with each visitor to the space. The reaction of the individual character varies with the movements of the viewer, using an interactive system of sensors that lead to different reactions by the onscreen person, depending on the movements each viewer makes in the dark space, which uncannily seems to be inhabited by at least the spirit of the projected individual character, which is played in each case by Philomène.

When the visitor enters the space where the character waits, it is usually peaceful as the character waits, moving slightly, watching. It becomes more animated as the visitor moves into the space and has the distinct impression that there is an uncanny relationship with the character, which takes on a life in the viewer’s imagination that goes far beyond being merely a projection.

You can read more about Philomène and her fascinating work at:
http://www.philox.net/en/home

To read more about Formica, the disturbing character who was living in the cavern below Parisian Laundry this winter, click here:
http://www.hour.ca/visualarts/visualarts.aspx?iIDArticle=11424
http://www.molior.ca/communiques/comm_paris_formica_2007-01-05_eng.pdf

The Parisian Laundry site has information about Philomène’s show as well as about many other excellent shows that have been there.
http://www.parisianlaundry.com/exhibition_archives/philomene-longpre

To read about an earlier project by Philomène, called Octopus, click on the page below. You can also watch a short video of Octopus, including an other-worldly soundscape, by clicking the second link below:

http://www.molior.ca/video.php?projet=11&vid=octo1.mov&width=240&height=190
http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2004/010804/philomene_longpre.html

Here is how Philomène’s career is described on her website:

MONTREAL - Philomène Longpré’s fascinating art is an attempt to explore the relationship between physical reality and the virtual world that increasingly intersects with it as technology becomes increasingly sophisticated and expands its reach into the fabric of our lives, and our imaginations.

“I’m always trying to connect the virtual world to the physical world,” Philomène said in an interview while visiting Montreal to present two compelling shows in early 2007 at two leading-edge galleries, one at the Parisian Laundry and the other at Galérie de l’UQAM, which continues until March 31.

One influence of Philomène’s work has been Carl Jung, who explored the universe of images in the subconscious mind and developed a system for understanding archetypes in the individual and collective consciousness.

In her Illusio installation at Galérie de l’UQAM, “which explores the language of colour,” the character “is trapped by the shadow of its environment,” she said, adding that “the character takes form and represents the colour the visitor triggers.” This installation “is a metaphor for being over by its own environment,” she added.

When visitors arrive, various colours are triggered, with light coming through 365 two-inch holes. The installation is described on her website as “an interactive video system where visitors trigger different emotional stages of a virtual character. The installation explores the character’s predicament of being trapped by the shadow of its own environment.”

Her Formica installation, which was shown at Parisian Laundry, explores “the process of communication, including the multiplication of all the links that everybody builds up.” The piece seeks to trigger “memories and links we have with our history,” she said. The character in the video projection system is played by Philomène in costume. She filmed herself with a remote control using a video camera on a tripod. One goal of the interactive video system is “to create emotional inks with a virtual person,” she said.

In fact, a visitor to Formica’s dark cavern below Parisian Laundry had an uncanny sense that the character was alive and could respond in unpredictable ways to movements within her space.

There is also news about these points (take your time, there are lots of links to explore):

Key shows by David Elliott, Philomene Longpre and Bill Vorn.
YouTube videos about shows by the Painting and Drawing Association, which has collaborated with the Collective at art-making events.
Two New York Times stories about Monet’s pencil and pastel work, and post minimalist art.
Features of the website operated by Juliana Espana Keller, guest curator of the Collective’s CDEx show at UQAM in May 2006.
A key influence on our Interactive Bunker project: artist Alexis Rockman, whose work shown in Canadian Art magazine was recommended by Montreal artist Adrian Norvid, visiting professor of painting and drawing, who is advising the Collective this year. You can see images from Rockman’s work on our website.
1) Feb. 12 and 13 is Phase 2 of The Art Collective’s Interactive Bunker project, takes place this Monday and Tuesday (Feb. 12, 13) in the lobby of the Visual Arts building at the corner of Crescent and René-Lévesque in downtown Montreal. Come and draw your vision of life underground in an imaginary future world where the surface is no longer habitable. The first phase took place Nov. 30-Dec. 1 and the new phase takes us further underground.

2) Concordia University Studio Arts chair David Elliott’s not-to-missed show at Joyce Yahouda Gallery, an excellent gallery in Montreal's Belgo building, which opens Feb. 17 and runs until March 17. (see details below) David has provided invaluable advice and support to the Art Collective as it operates in its third year of exploration of collaborative art-making.

The Collective, which operates in collaboration with the Studio Arts department, thanks Concordia’s Fine Arts Student Alliance for its ongoing support and funding of the Interactive Bunker project, including FASA president Ed Janzen, who made the symbolic first mark at the collective’s Strings show in 2006.

Hélène Brousseau, FASA's vice-president finance, placed the symbolic first mark on Phase 2 of the Interactive Bunker project on Feb. 12.

Philomène Longpré’s show at Parisian Laundry, which ends Feb. 24: http://www.molior.ca/artistes.php?section=bio&artiste=7&lang=0&cc=1

This cutting edge show is especially recommended for those who were able to visit Bill Vorn’s excellent show, which just closed at Concordia’s leading-edge Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery. See details below about this show by Bill, who gave excellent advice and support to The Art Collective in its key second year of operations, while he served as acting chair of Concordia University’s high-profile Studio Arts Department.

http://fofagallery.concordia.ca/upcoming_exhibitions.html

To read a story about Hexagram, a Concordia project that Bill Vorn has played a key role in developing:

http://ctr.concordia.ca/2004-05/jul_28/03/index_d.shtml

1) Interactive Bunker project:

See images from the first phase on our website’s gallery page, at:

http://gallery.theartcollective.net/

2) See info below about shows by David Elliott and Bill Vorn.

3) Check out a YouTube video from the 2006 Concordia University Painting and Drawing Association show last January at L’Espace gallery in Montreal. The video, by Ztron, includes images of a piece about wartime identity by Robert Winters, the collective’s co-ordinator, starting at the 45-second mark. The clip is titled FASA Vernissage at l’Espace. The video includes a few words from artist Nathalie Quagliotto, who worked on two large-scale collaborative pieces done by The Art Collective during its show at the VAV Gallery in November 2005, in collaboration with the Painting and Drawing Association.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XziuyEdcZDA

Ztron also has a short video on YouTube from the PDA’s recent show, called Study in the City, FASA show 2007 Vernissage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WRqictGzKk

4) Attached to this note and posted on our website, you can read two excerpts from recent New York Times art stories: the first is about a show called “The Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings,” which will be at the Royal Academy of Arts in London from March 17 to June 10, and at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., from June 24 to Sept. 16. The second, “A Promise that Never Bloomed, a Post-Minimalist You’ve Never Heard Of,” by New York Times art writer Holland Carter, is about alternative art spaces in New York and a post-minimalist that the art world skipped over. You can read more excellent arts coverage at: http://www.nytimes.com/

http://Robert Winters, co-ordinator of The Art Collective

robertwinters@videotron.ca

Below is a description of his show, from the Gallery's website, which is at:http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/page/arr_out_fr/media/documents/Calendrier_expositions_2006-07.pdf

Il nous fait plaisir de vous annoncer l’exposition Parades de François Morelli qui aura lieu à la Galerie d’art d’Outremont du 11 janvier au 4 février 2007.

English translation of the text on the website, followed by the French text on the website:

For more than 15 years, François Morelli has printed on various media (paper, walls, sheets, clothing, skins…) through the use of special ink stamps he has produced by a Montreal company. He chooses each of the images, which he finds in illustrated books, his sketchbooks or in the objects in his work environment. As with collage, this involves a conversation of juxtaposition and inclusion. This heterogeneous compositional approach has parallels with Byzantine mosaic work as well as with the lyricism of heavy metal images on rock T-shirts.

Depuis plus de 15 ans, François Morelli imprime sur divers supports (papiers, murs, draps, vêtements, peaux…) à l’aide de tampons encreurs qu’il fait fabriquer mécaniquement par une industrie spécialisée. Il sélectionne chacune des images, qu’il récupère dans des livres illustrés, dans ses cahiers à dessins ou à partir d’objets se retrouvant dans son environnement de travail.
Comme dans le cas de la technique du collage, il s’agit très souvent d’opérer une rhétorique de la juxtaposition et de l’inclusion. Cette constitution hétérogène rappelle autant les mosaïques byzantines que l’imprimé heavy métal et pourtant lyrique d’un t-shirt de rocker.

You can see the pieces in the show in our gallery, under Our Work.

The show, curated by Montreal artist Adrian Norvid, was exhibited while Adrian's own show was ongoing at Joyce Yahouda Gallery, at the Belgo building in downtown Montreal, 372 Ste. Catherine St. W., Suite 516.
You can visit the gallery's website at:
http://www.joyceyahoudagallery.com/

Collective member Stephanie Reynolds served as a curator at the Bunker 2006 show, working on the display of the work chosen by Adrian Norvid and playing an active role in co-ordinating the design and execution of the interactive underground bunker piece. Stephanie worked on many of the collective pieces chosen by Adrian for the show.

Adrian, who is giving feedback for the collective this year, is visiting professor of painting and drawing in the Studio Arts program of Concordia University’s Fine Arts Faculty. Adrian came up with the Bunker project idea during a discussion with collective co-ordinator Robert Winters about the collective’s special events this year.

We will be creating a large-scale image of what life might be like if humans have to move underground to survive whatever calamity might take place on the surface of our planet.

Bunker habitations can suggest humans living like another species: eg. ants, other insects, burrowing animals. Our drawing will be interconnected large panels showing cutaway views of life inside the bunker. What can we see? Come and draw and paint your vision of life underground.

This is the first phase of a special project funded by the excellent Fine Arts Student Alliance at Concordia University; we have received $522 in special funding for materials so we’ll have lots of top-quality paper and materials, but feel free to bring your own materials to draw or paint with.

FASA's website is at:
http://fasa.concordia.ca/fasadirectory.htm

Adrian Norvid, visiting professor of painting and drawing, has contributed excellent ideas for implementing this project, which he conceived of. He is also expecting some artists from his class to come and work with us.

Adrian also has curated a new show of 20 collaborative pieces from our work since January and those will be on display during this ephemeral show. Pieces from the show will be posted in the Our Work section of our website.

You can see a drawing of one view of the Interactive Bunker in the Photos section of our website, done by Montreal artist Stephanie Reynolds, who is helping co-ordinate and curate the Bunker show. Member David King had his drawing of the bunker project chosen by Adrian for the show of our best work that will be displayed. Member Khadija C. Baker also worked on planning for the Bunker project.

We’ll be sketching out on large pieces of stonehenge paper the structure for an imaginary underground bunker where humans and other creatures make their habitat sometime in the future.

Then you can be a curator/co-ordinator of the Bunker project which takes place Thursday afternoon and evening (Nov. 30) and on Friday during the day (Dec. 1), in the Visual Arts building lobby at the corner of Crescent St. and Rene-Levesque Blvd. in downtown Montreal. Interaction with any artists that want to participate is encouraged. This is the first stage of our special project funded by Concordia’s Fine Arts Student Alliance. Please let me know if you would like to be a curator/co-ordinator for a section of paper linking this Bunker project; each section will be documented in terms of participants, and will be presented on our website.

2) Don’t miss Adrian Norvid’s excellent exhibition of drawings, which continues at Joyce Yahouda Gallery, at the Belgo building in downtown Montreal, 372 Ste. Catherine St. W., Suite 516. The show runs until Dec. 17.
You can visit the gallery's website at:
http://www.joyceyahoudagallery.com/

Below, you can read more about Adrian and his work. Adrian, who is giving feedback for the collective this year, is visiting professor of painting and drawing in the Studio Arts program of Concordia University’s Fine Arts Faculty. Adrian came up with the strong Bunker project idea during a brainstorming session about the collective’s special events this year.

Adrian Norvid, this year’s visiting Professor of Painting and Drawing at Concordia’s Studio Arts program, has made the excellent suggestion that our large-scale interactive project could be the creation of a bunker image, a bit like an ant farm seen from the side. This underground city offers countless panels for showing life in this new civilization, and the panels of images can fit together to make a very large image. We will use a total of eight rolls of Stonehenge paper, provided by our grant from the Fine Arts Student Alliance. Other ideas are also being discussed, pass along your thoughts.

Adrian is preparing his show of drawings at Joyce Yahouda gallery in the high-profile Belgo building in downtown Montreal; news about the opening will be in next week’s note.

Check out new images from our live television collaborative art making project with Art Matters on Global television. The images were prepared as part of our documentation of the TV appearance in March; clips are being prepared for our website.

October 1, 2006
Artquake
By BRUCE HAINLEY
New York Times
I am amused by fancy art-world types who breeze into Los Angeles planning to “get” the scene in a few days. They would have better luck reading “In Search of Lost Time” over a long weekend. America’s second-largest city sprawls — physically, aesthetically, socially — over nearly 500 square miles, so any attempt to nutshell the burg and its cultural bazaar takes on comic aspects. Note that the Pompidou Center’s recent survey of Los Angeles art was called “The Birth of an Artistic Capital” and that Michael Govan, the new director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has declared Los Angeles the new New York, forgetting perhaps that Angelenos have never wished to be New Yorkers and that long before the 1955 birth date pronounced by the Pompidou, Hollywood was producing things as provocative, philosophical and influential as anything given the name of, well, art.
Sun, sand, great surf, a climate usually allowing a smooth shift from beachwear to cashmere pullover and until recently — “recently” thanks to no major earthquake in more than a decade and brutalized New Yorkers’ finding respite here — relatively cheap studio and living spaces, all with easy access to the materials of the film, television and porn industries, explain why anyone, not just artists, would wish to live and work here.

October 15, 2006

Art Advisers
By MIA FINEMAN
New York Times
WITH so many wealthy collectors competing for the work of a few dozen international art stars, top galleries are in a position to handpick their clientele these days, keeping long and closely guarded waiting lists for new work. As a result, many insiders say, today’s art consultants are valued as much for their entree as for their advice on choice acquisitions.
“The most important thing an art adviser can provide is access,” said Mark Fletcher, 44, an adviser who specializes in postwar art with an emphasis on emerging artists. “It’s become much more difficult to buy art these days, especially in the primary market, which is highly imperfect because, unlike auction buying, it’s a closed system based largely on relationships of trust.”
Like many top advisers Mr. Fletcher spent years forging connections in the art world before starting his own business in 1998. He worked for several years as director of the Gladstone Gallery in New York, and then in London at Anthony d’Offay Gallery.

Damien Hirst: To read an excellent New York Times article about British artist Damien Hirst and the Dead Shark, his battle to restore his famous Dead Shark piece, check out excerpts on our website (under news) at: www.theartcollective.net

2) We received $522 in funding from Concordia’s Fine Arts Student Alliance to do interactive projects and you can be involved in co-ordinating one or more of these event. We have to figure out when they should take place, what themes we should have and what kind of special guests we might want to have. If these events are in the evening, this could allow several Collective participants to join us who can’t make daytime events. The money will cover a full roll of stonehenge paper and supplies for each event, so there are interesting possibilities to talk about.

3) Don’t miss the excellent Salon Rouge show at the VAV Gallery in downtown Montreal, which continues until Nov. 10, which includes work by three high-profile Montreal artists who have helped The Art Collective: David Elliott, François Morelli and Adrian Norvid.

David Elliott, chair of the Studio Arts department, presented a major show at Joyce Yahouda Gallery in the Belgo building in late 2004. You can read about the show here:

http://ctr.concordia.ca/2004-05/oct_21/16/

You can read about François Morelli’s recent shows at the Belgo building in this article in The Journal:

http://cjournal.concordia.ca/journalarchives/2006-07/oct_12/007793.shtml

Adrian Norvid, who is giving feedback on the Collective this year, has a show opening shortly at Joyce Yahouda Gallery.

Swimming With Famous Dead Sharks
By CAROL VOGEL
ASTON DOWN AIRFIELD, England - In this vast Gloucestershire flatland dotted with abandoned airplane hangars, a former Royal Air Force Station where pilots once plotted classified missions during World War II, the artist Damien Hirst was overseeing a secret operation of his own one recent morning.
It was a delicate undertaking, one that required rubberized protective jumpsuits, long tables of medical equipment and more than 224 gallons of formaldehyde. The goal: to replace the decaying tiger shark that floats in one of Mr. Hirst’s best-known works of Conceptual art, “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.”
As rap music quietly played in the background, five men and one woman wearing bright yellow suits, black rubber gloves and breathing masks huddled over the shark’s hulking 13-foot-long replacement. The immediate impression was that the shark was being treated by a team of acupuncturists: some 200 large needles dotted its body.
So toxic was the air that the property could be reached only through security-coded iron gates, and no one, not even the artist, was allowed near the shark without protective gear. As Mr. Hirst, 41, looked on, he plucked a long hypodermic needle from a nearby worktable.

Our proposal for a special project grant went in to the Fine Arts Student Alliance before the deadline, we’re asking for $500 for an interesting project that’s a bit different (hint: it involves eight special events).

2) Check out new images on our website by collective member Stephanie Reynolds; they are in the photos section.

3) You have until Saturday to catch an art show organized by Concordia in collaboration with the Festival du nouveau cinéma. The show is called Nouveau Cinema - New Image. Two multi-layered digital prints by Robert Winters were selected for the show, which continues until Saturday, noon until 5. The gallery is in a storefront space on the ground floor of EV building, the entrance is directly from Ste. Catherine St.

Here’s a Concordia Journal item about one artist in the show, a German photographer/filmmaker who says some of her work is inspired by The Godfather. Photo is by Robert Winters:

http://cjournal.concordia.ca/journalarchives/2006-07/oct_26/007915.shtml

fyi, here's website with info about the show:

http://mediarelations.concordia.ca/

website's page that describes Robert’s images:

http://mediarelations.concordia.ca/mediaroom/pressreleases/2006/10/007855.shtml

We meet this Friday at 10 to 130 in VA 315 in Visual Arts Building at corner of Crescent and Rene-Levesque Blvd.

This week we are expecting a new artist who has just moved to Montreal from Ottawa.

We also have welcomed two new artists to the group:

Jennifer Laoun-Rubenstein, who was featured in a VAV Gallery show with her collection of “roommates” in small boxes that could be purchased. Watch our website for photos of her work and a description of the ideas behind it.

Matt Goerzen, who works with painting, drawing and printmaking. His interests include comics.

Also please look into the event described below involving the impact of the Canadian mining industry. Member Judith Brisson is involved in this project.

Robert Winters
co-ordinator of The Art Collective
robertwinters@videotron.ca