Category: Arts

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How live art adapts to social distancing

Montreal’s 14th annual OFFTA festival has rethought its programming

An annual artistic event created in conjunction with the Festival TransAmériques (FTA), the OFFTA is a Montreal-based festival dedicated to avant-garde creation in live art. Produced by LA SERRE — arts vivants, a non-profit creation platform which works year-round to support local emerging performance artists, the festival will feature live art performances to be presented both online and outdoors, in an effort to adapt to social distancing.

This year, the festival will take place from May 22 to 32. Yes, you read that right. Another day, May 32. Similar to the reorganization that we are currently facing in our daily lives as a result of the pandemic, this new day was imagined to create a deceleration and allow for a new relationship with time. This edition brings together necessary artistic voices that tackle the idea of time, thereby inviting the public to reflect upon different realities.

“We wanted to give people more time to take in other temporalities, lending another rhythm to what might seem inevitable to us,” writes Vincent Repentigny, LA SERRE’s artistic and general director, in the editorial published on their website. “We tried to create new time, draft new calendars, imagine new interstices that we can fully occupy, coordinate widespread deceleration and abandon ourselves to this force that we cannot control.” 

Amongst the fifteen live art creations that will be part of the festival, interdisciplinary artist Mélanie Binette will present her latest work. She is the co-founder of Milieu de Nulle Part, a collective interested in site-specific creation. The original version of her work, Errances, was created in memory of her father, who died of a heart attack at Theatre Maisonneuve in 2002. The interactive piece consisted of leading one person at a time, by the hand, through a walking tour of the underground corridors and the esplanade of Montreal’s Place-des-Arts.

In an effort to adapt to the current situation, Binette will not take participants by the hand for the OFFTA. Instead, to experience what Errances has become, they will be invited to go on self-guided walks in their respective neighbourhoods, while listening to an audio guide narrated by Binette.

To preserve the connection between the artist and the public, as one would have in the one-on-one experience, Binette invites participants to book a phone call with her to discuss their encounter with her work. The worldwide crisis we are going through is making mourning a part of our daily lives. Thus, Binette’s work proposes an opportunity to reflect on issues we are facing, both individually and globally.

While Binette’s piece takes the public outside, other performances will take place online. Hugo Nadeau’s work, Nous campions loin des endroits où la mort nous attendait, will be presented via Twitch Livestream. The audience will be invited to watch commentary of a video game created by Nadeau himself. Titled Nous aurons, the game is based in a post-apocalyptic world set in the year 2197.

Moreover, Toronto-based artists Andrea Spaziani and Matt Smith will present a rethought dance partition.  Spaziani’s choreography explores the archetype of Venus, which she describes as an ensemble reconstruction of the feminine persona of Venus, displayed through aquatic behaviour. Titled Silver Venus Redux, this creation has been transformed for the OFFTA festival as a dance score to be watched, or listened to, with headphones. The audience will be able to listen to the recording of the sound of the six dancers performing the choreography, and to view images of the cinematic landscape of Silver Venus Redux by Alejandro Fargosonini.

In addition, OFFTA will be offering a series of five artist-driven round table discussions organized by Montreal-based interdisciplinary artistic collective PME-ART, titled Vulnerable Paradoxes. These discussions between artists and professionals will address questions, and raise issues, regarding the place of performance art in society and the relationship between performance artists and their audience.

Through its multifaceted interdisciplinary programme, the OFFTA will be an experimental laboratory for the artists and the public alike. Alone at home, participants will be confronted with their own thoughts, distractions, and maybe even with boredom.

“If we don’t know yet what will remain of the world that we are now leaving behind, or what to expect next, we make the daring gamble to invent a deconfined festival,” writes Repentigny, in a statement published on the OFFTA’s website. “We invited the artists to present original artworks, thus allowing their necessary voices to reach you.”

Via performances, balcony parties, discussions and interactive projects, the festival has planned various events to create a sense of community. The goal is ultimately to preserve the precious link between artists and their audiences, in whatever form it takes, despite the challenges that may arise.

In an effort to make the event as accessible as possible, people can choose to pay what they can through a variety of pass options.  For OFFTA’s full program and schedule, and for further information, visit offta.com.

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Parallel Lines considers what it means to be alone, together

How two Concordia alumni are expanding their practice virtually

In March, museums and galleries across the world closed their doors indefinitely. Instead, many have opted to display their collections online and offer free accessibility. The PHI centre, situated in Old Montreal, generally serves as a venue for interdisciplinarity in the arts, and aims to create a connection between art and the viewer.

Their newest exhibition, Parallel Lines, is a virtual artist residency aimed towards investigating the notion of what it means to be alone. Through the residency, 10 artists of various disciplines will produce a project as a means of expression and inquiry, employing their agency to expand both their practice and the PHI’s mandate of fostering connections through the process of making and experiencing art.

“What is interesting about the PHI’s mandate through this residency is [that it offers] a portal into the mental and creative process of artists from various media,” says Naghmeh Sharifi, an MFA graduate from Concordia’s Painting and Drawing program, and one of the 10 artists-in-residence. Through a multidisciplinary approach, her practice investigates the psychology of the body through the way it interacts with, and contextualizes itself within, the spaces it inhabits.

Sharifi’s project, which has yet to be named, expands on a project she had been working on prior to the residency, titled Là où tu ne pourras jamais aller (A place where you can never go). Consisting of a series of monochromatic paintings, the works focus on distortions of memory. Sharifi uses solely the color blue as a measure of distance; her point of departure includes found imagery, the artist’s own archives which explore notions of nostalgia, and the idea of remembering and reconfiguring memories.

“In the early days of the shutdown, I started experiencing a different form of nostalgia for a very immediate past, and I was not alone,” says Sharifi. “There were thousands of images surfacing on social media platforms taking on hashtags such as #pre-confinement and doing what nostalgia does best: idealizing that past.” She adds that she was initially intrigued by how these definitions of nostalgia were changing, but as time went on, she started identifying more and more with the spaces she had been confined to and the everyday objects she interacted with.

Dayna McLeod, a professor and PhD graduate from Concordia’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture, uses humour in her work by exploiting the body’s social and material conditions via performance-based practices. 

Similarly to Sharifi’s project, McLeod’s residency piece builds on an earlier project. Covid Sleep is a digital video installation composed of night-vision surveillance footage of the artist and her girlfriend sleeping. The footage will be taken over the course of the 60-day residency.

“I’ve always had sleep disturbances like nightmares, sleepwalking, and night terrors, but [I] didn’t realize their extent and frequency until I started these recordings,” said McLeod. “I anticipate the final version of this work will be a 30 to 60 minute digital video installation sound, as sometimes, I gasp, yell, talk, scream, and otherwise ask questions while asleep.”

Through Parallel Lines, the PHI continues to offer a glimpse into the artist’s creative process across a variety of media, and enables people to experience art in a new way. Viewers are invited to observe each artist’s process by entering their virtual studio and following along as artists upload new additions to their work every day.

“In the series I am working on, the process is as important as the finished result, so in that sense there is an overlapping of interests with what this virtual residency is offering to the general public. I think it is a very unique and privileged opportunity,” says Sharifi. “As an artist, I feel that seeing the finished piece in a gallery space can sometimes offer a partial experience of the work. [Sometimes] people go through an entire exhibition in less than a few minutes, hardly connecting with any work.”

As the current situation unfolds, and as institutions begin to assume responsibility for their lack of accessibility, the art world must continue to adjust to changing times.

“There are virtual exhibitions and even virtual gallery spaces being created. The art world is adapting to new ways of existing. It also means more agency and autonomy for artists [and] becoming less dependent upon physical spaces,” says Sharifi. “Connectivity means everything these days.”

To visit the artists’ virtual studios and for more information about Parallel Lines, visit empreintesvivantes.phi.ca/Parallel-Lines.

 

 

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Horse Girl: Approaching ambiguity in film

Alison Brie loses her grip on reality in Horse Girl

Jeff Baena’s film Horse Girl focuses on a woman named Sarah who slowly loses her grip on reality. She is portrayed by Alison Brie as an awkward and shy woman, and we get a sense of Sarah’s daily life working at a crafts store by day and watching supernatural crime shows at night. At home, she’s pitied by her mean-spirited roommate Nikki, played by Debby Ryan. Nikki organizes a last-minute birthday party for Sarah who was going to spend the evening alone, and later that night she has a strange dream. Soon, Sarah begins to have recurring blackouts and starts to see people from her dreams in real life.

First and foremost, Alison Brie is spectacular. Her performance is believable, strong and moving. No matter how crazy Sarah’s delusions get, you never doubt that she believes them. Brie makes her character’s descent into madness feel rooted in real emotion. John Reynolds charmingly accompanies her as Darren, Sarah’s love interest who accidentally fuels her fantasies. Horse Girl was co-written by Baena and Brie, which marks the actress’s debut as a screenwriter. She is previously known for her stunning range of work in TV shows like GLOW, Mad Men and Community.

Despite being engrossing throughout its runtime, Horse Girl fails in achieving some ambitious goals that would have been integral in making the film memorable. There were plenty of interesting ideas: it’s a character study, it shoots for ambiguity through a possibly unreliable narrator, and it discusses conspiracy theories and issues related to mental illness. 

On a technical level, the film is perfectly fine. There are cool zoom shots, and I particularly like some of the imagery in the film and how it depicts Sarah’s state of mind towards the end. There are some tonal shifts throughout the film as the atmosphere becomes darker and crazier, but these changes are justified because they make sense according to Sarah’s perspective. Additionally, the transitions were smooth.

Horse Girl is a bit slow to start but ambitiously grasps at many big themes, which I respected as a viewer. However, it was this attempt to capture so many ideas that led to my biggest issue with the film: the ambiguity, or lack thereof. Baena seems to be trying to puzzle the audience and make us wonder if Sarah’s delusions might be real. There are some suggestions that create this ambiguity, like scratches on walls or strange people who believe her theories, but the most compelling evidence was introduced too late in the story. Because of this, I was never convinced that any of the strange events were outside of her mind, despite the fact that the film is trying to set it up to be vague. This made the ending, although interesting, less impactful. When it came to themes of conspiracy theories and mental illness, they were not explored in-depth enough to feel like anything was truly being said about it.

All in all, Horse Girl is a fascinating study of one woman’s mind and the film stays committed to her perspective. It was not life-changing by any means, despite its attempts at tackling ambiguity and dark themes, and it isn’t as mind-bending as it would like to be. Yet, it’s a fun ride nonetheless. It’s worth it for Brie’s performance alone.

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Annual graduate student exhibition Ignition moves online

What can we learn from the first wave of virtual exhibitions?

With online exhibitions and art events on the rise, a new standard for criticism is sure to follow. Simple photo galleries aren’t cutting it: viewers want more engagement, something new and cutting edge that really takes advantage of the internet’s wide range of artistic possibilities. Tim Schneider, art business Editor at ArtNet, listed four key components to creating effective online viewing rooms in a recent article:

1. Distinguishing the viewing room from regular online shops by including links to artist statements, portfolios and more

2. thinking outside of the white cube and allowing for a rotation of artworks that would create new dialogues and opportunities for solo shows

3. controlling the accessibility of the viewing room by offering options to sign up for newsletters, donate money, or purchase an artwork

4. promoting the viewing room on other online platforms, allowing  opportunities for public engagement ex-situ, and opening the floor for conversation on video chattings apps

Concordia’s Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, located in the LB building, has recently made the switch to online programming for their final exhibition of the year, Ignition 16. Ignition is an annual exhibition featuring the work of graduating masters students from Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts.

The gallery has opted for a weekly turnover, featuring select artworks from the exhibition in line with a specific theme. The week of April 13 focused on the idea of feedback, spotlighting three of the featured artists. Their programming asks viewers, “what experiences and responses arise when feedback falls silent, tightens its constraint, or contradicts the output we’re accustomed to?”

During the exhibition, members of the virtual public were invited to watch Ahreum Lee’s Memory Palace, an autobiographical account of the intersections between politics, technology, the immigrant experience and  family, to consider society’s control of bodies through Diyar Mayil’s sculptural series (dis)bodied, and to view documentation of Janice Ka-Wa Cheung’s YOU ≠ I, an interactive installation exploring digital narcissism and the uncanny within the everyday.

The gallery’s website isn’t very obvious to navigate, and it takes some sporadic clicking around before you can make it off the homepage. Once you find your way to the programming, you are met with three columns of bold text, and it is within the middle of one of these columns that you will finally reach the online exhibition. In and of itself, the online exhibition doesn’t seem any different from the gallery’s usual webpages for in-person exhibitions.

The feature image on the Ignition 16   page has no context either, although I presume it features the artist’s works—but whose, exactly? The page is divided into two wide columns, one containing a breakdown of the week’s themes (upon my visit on April 17, only the description for the week of April 13 was available), and the other containing the curatorial statement and a list of the artists.

It is only in this second column that the works are accessible to viewers. Each artist section contains a description of their practice, a statement for the selected work, questions to spark further exploration, and links to further information (usually the artist’s own website).

While some of the ideas brought up under the “explore” subheading are quite relevant in this time of social and physical distancing, unless you are going to write about the works or plan to ponder the gallery’s questions in the intellectual corner of your home with a lovely beverage, these questions do not really promote active engagement.  I am left wanting more, wanting full screen viewing, not a window with 15 tabs open for me to click through and eventually get overwhelmed and bored by. These artists had their graduating exhibition cancelled, so they deserve full screen gallery representation.

Among the nine artists, the best received works were the video pieces, hyperlinked on the Gallery’s webpage via Vimeo. It’s evident why that is: audio-visual work thrives online. It’s incredibly accessible, and anyone can view it in it’s intended quality when following the right link. Interactive pieces shared through documentation are a close second, especially when viewers are granted insider access to the artist’s process. Although I’m sure the work could have been designed in another way, with the specific purpose to be interacted with online and under the current circumstances, it’s understandable why it isn’t.

These are trying times we’re living through, and we are all learning as we go and doing the best with what we’ve got. This experience has left me wondering what we can learn from the first wave of virtual exhibitions. How can we better them for future renditions? How can we include this kind of digitally-accessible content in everyday museum and gallery programming as the pandemic blows over?

Share your thoughts with us @TheConcordian on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

PS, we are hiring for the 2020-2021 academic year! For more information visit theconcordian.com/work-with-us/. 

Feature image courtesy of the Leonard and Bina Art Gallery. Gif includes the works of Ahreum Lee, Memory Palace, 2019-2020, Christopher Johnstone, Five Acres, 2020, Diyar Mayil, Leaky Pants, 2018 and Janice Ka-Wa Cheung, YOU ≠ I, 2019.

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The Concordian editors unleash their inner art critics

Bringing you our favourite online art experiences

What makes a museum experience memorable when… well, when you can’t actually go to the museum? After most institutions closed last month, hundreds of art museums around the globe have made their collections accessible online for free. With the opportunity to browse museums all around the world, how does one choose where to go first?

From the UK to Japan, our staff has compiled a list of our favourite pieces, exhibitions and virtual tours for you to experience. While some choices are based on interest and desire to learn, others are based on memories and personal sentiment. Regardless, read on for some insightful, personable and critical responses to art around the world. Enjoy your time at the Concordian Art Gallery.

The Concordian Art Gallery’s first-ever exhibition investigates the appeal of an artwork through a critical approach. The works, which date from the 19th to the 21st century, depict histories both personal and collective. From the ecclesiastical etchings at the Rijksmuseum to Migishi Kōtarō’s abstract compositions, the featured works draw upon personal experiences to explore our relationship with art. Although eclectic, the ensemble of works invites viewers to reflect on their history and memories and how they interrelate with art.

Matthew Coyte, Managing Editor 

Anonymous English School. Commander Robert R. Bastin. Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery. Exeter, England.

I picked this museum because it’s one that I’ve had my eye on for a while. My family is originally from Devon, England, so I’ve always wanted to visit, and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery have been on my mind as well. This painting of a relatively unknown man just connected with me because he looks like my grandfather who passed away this summer. I guess everything just came full circle from my interest in connecting with my family’s roots to this piece.

Lola Cardona, Assistant Video Editor

Women Hold Up More Than Half The Sky. Glasgow Women’s Library. Glasgow, Scotland.

From the online exhibit “Sisterhood is Powerful: UK Posters” at the Glasgow Women’s Library.

I like this piece because of its simplicity, both in its colour and its message. The orange and the blue creates a visually pleasing image and the photograph itself is interesting to look at because of the subject. In it, women are working from extreme heights on what looks like a bridge. The caption “women hold up more than half the sky” seems to be promoting the fact that women work as hard, if not harder than their male counterparts. I see this image as a statement about women in the workforce, in particular, making sure women have equal job opportunities and are recognized for their accomplishments.

Chloë Lalonde, Arts Editor 

Masayoshi Nakamura, Man and Woman. 1963. Colour on paper. Nagoya City Art Museum. Nagoya, Japan.

Kōtarō Migishi, Composition: Still Life with Fireplace. 1933. Oil on canvas. Nagoya City Art Museum. Nagoya, Japan.

I initially wanted to do the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg, but I was so thrown off by the palace and had no attention span for the work it contained. The museum is massive, with three floors of rooms upon rooms and all sorts of halls. It was truly incredible, but no specific artwork caught my eye. But it did spark a desire to be a Russian princess. I realized that I wanted to stumble upon something fresh, something I had no idea existed. I was aware of the Hermitage before this.

I came across the Nagoya City Art Museum (NCAM) on Google Arts & Culture, and its feature image caught my eye. I didn’t recognize the artist, and barely had any idea what it was I was even looking at. Perfect. Turns out it was a Frida Kahlo, Girl with Death Mask. The painting depicts Kahlo’s would-be daughter. I was struck by her white face, full of horror, contrasted with light blues, pastel pinks and Easter yellows.

Among the 50 or so pieces in the NCAM’s collection, two more pieces stood out to me. Masayoshi Nakamura’s Man and Woman (1963) and Kōtarō Migishi’s Composition: Still Life with Fireplace (1933), for two very different reasons.

I immediately felt repelled, but not repulsed, by Nakamura’s painting. The way the paint pools in matte, layered splotches to create the base for the man and woman’s faces immediately reminded me of dried, flaking tempera paint, which gives me this nails-on-a-chalkboard feeling. But the painting itself feels relatable, childlike, as though Nakamura sketched on eyes as a last-minute thought. The swift black ink, like smudged eyeliner, blurs the lines between the man and the woman, and you can only theorize who is whom. My favourite parts are the big blotchy noses. I love the way the paint cakes up to create a shape. While most paint is quite fluid, sometimes it is lumpy, thick or even creamy. This kind of paint allows you to sculpt with it, like scraping plaster onto a wall, smoothing it out in circles to create ridges, keeping each scrape visible. This painting feels distraught, violent. It feels last-minute, not that big of a deal. I like that.

Migishi’s still life is an aesthetic choice. Now, this is the kind of art I’d like to make in isolation. I’m a big fan of line work, big wobbly shapes and juxtaposing neutrals with bright primary colours. I like the hint of recognition—I spy a wine glass, a bunch of grapes and a fireplace— and the rest is up to your imagination.

Cecilia Piga, Assistant Photo Editor

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, De predikende Christus (De Honderdguldenprent). Rijksmuseum. Amsterdam, Netherlands.

I chose Rijksmuseum because it’s from one of the museums I’m most excited to visit during my exchange in Amsterdam next semester, fingers crossed! I’ve always been intrigued by the tools and process behind etching, so I was drawn to this piece as soon as I recognized the marks on the print. I love the contrast and texture of this printing technique. What I like the most is the intricate level of detail the artists put into a small print.

Lillian Roy, Assistant Life Editor

Elsa Schiaparelli: Jackets. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, United States.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a few virtual exhibits available on Google Arts and Culture. Interestingly, a lot of them have to do with the MET’s fashion collections, ranging from late-nineteenth-century footwear to contemporary labels like Comme des Garçons. My favourite collection features vintage dinner jackets designed by Elsa Schiaparelli, an Italian designer who got her start in the early 20th century. I love how the crisp, tailored silhouettes contrast with the elaborate designs and flashy colours, combining elements that are both masculine and feminine. With its jewel tones and stunning embroidery, I found this green jacket to be particularly eye-catching.

Aviva Majerczyk, Copy Editor

Adam Mickiewicz as a Pilgrim, Jan Styka. National Museum. Krakow, Poland.

I chose the National Museum in Krakow because I was supposed to study in the city this summer, before the world as we know it descended into chaos. Additionally, I thought it could be interesting to learn more about my personal Polish heritage. So, I was glad to see that the museum had a large digital collection with many online exhibitions. I chose Independence, a collection of Polish works based on the political notions of 20th-century socialist statesman Józef Piłsudski, which was presented to celebrate the centennial of the independence of the Republic of Poland in 2018. This exhibition is very patriotic in tone, highlighting Poland’s constant struggle against outside occupation. As would be expected from a state-sponsored collection, there were plenty of busts of leaders and paintings of glorious battles. Yet, the piece that struck me most was Adam Mickiewicz as a Pilgrim by Jan Styka. Mickiewicz was a romantic poet and activist in the 19th century, who is often called Poland’s greatest poet. The painting shows Mickiewicz holding a staff and looking up at an ominous cloudy sky. His figure is sharp and detailed against the wash of colour behind him. This piece makes Mickiewicz appear to be almost holy— like a Moses figure. From this, it is obvious that he is greatly revered in Polish history. Overall, Independence was a great gateway to Polish history. It definitely sent me down a few Wikipedia rabbit holes to learn more about the mentioned leaders and uprisings.

Virginie Ann, News Editor 

Widad Kawar, TIRAZ. Amman, Jordan.

As I scrolled down the list of virtual exhibits available on Google Arts and Culture, my eyes were caught by the title “home for Arab dress.” It reminded me of my time in Morocco, during Ramadan, when my girlfriends and I went to pick some beautiful traditional caftans. There is something truly simple, yet very graceful, about this type of clothing— which ends up making you feel very elegant. So, I chose to visit the virtual Widad Kawar collection from Tiraz museum in Jordan. The collection contains over 2000 costumes and jewelry, which both hold an important place in Middle Eastern art and history. My favourite exhibition ended up being Ya Hafeth Ya Ameen: Protective silver jewellery from the Middle East, which brings the viewer into Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Oman. The mix of text, 360-degree photos and the zoom option allows for an immersive experience, which I personally find more interesting than just staring at a computer screen.

Learning history through jewelry is quite unique. The exhibition approaches how conflict, migration and even politics have an influence on dress and jewellery creation. I loved reading about the superstitious meanings of jewelry and their connection with divine and mystical forces through various forms of protection, such as talismans. Our own disconnection, even complete rejection, of religion here in Quebec makes it hard for some people to understand that sense of belief. But, call me naive, I love believing that carrying something such as a piece of jewelry can be meaningful. I think it reinforces a sense of community, an aspect that is greatly present in the Arab world. The most common protection jewelry against the Evil Eye is the Hand of Fatima, dating back thousands of years. Yet, capitalism has transformed it into something you can now purchase in any form, without understanding its background.

As someone who has a strong interest in the history of the Middle East, I was happy to find this short exhibition, which made me calmly travel over the Arabian Peninsula, while sipping on my second Stout during the global pandemic.

“What if in an unsure world – a world in which your family depend on a good harvest for survival, and sickness can easily lead to death – amulets provided a sense of comfort and control, and talismans offered a connection to the mystical powers that seemed to govern your life, but which you can’t always see?” – Tiraz Widad Kawar home for Arab dress

Lorenza Mezzapelle, Assistant Arts Editor

Paul Getty Museum. California, United States.

I spent a good two weeks trying to find a specific artwork that I would want to talk about and share. Ultimately, trying to navigate museums virtually just didn’t cut it for me, as I found it to be much too distracting and too difficult to actually read the accompanying texts. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised at how simple it was to navigate J. Paul Getty Museum’s online platform. They offer a variety of ways to interact with numerous artworks, and rather than offering a virtual tour, viewers can scroll through an exhibition in chronological order, on a webpage. In addition to offering their exhibitions online, the museum has made hundreds of books in their Virtual Library available… for free! From architecture to critical theory, their selection is unparalleled. Some of my favourites included Cezanne in the Studio: Still Life in Watercolors and Otto Wagner: Reflections on the Raiment of Modernity, which I intend on reading in their entirety after handing in my finals.

While most of the exhibitions I scrolled through were interesting, I personally enjoyed Bauhaus: Building the New Artist: it was easy to scroll through, informative and read in the same way as walking through an exhibition space from start to finish. Each part of the exhibition features an interactive exercise, including one based on Kandinsky’s theory that shapes correspond to colour. My favourite part of the exhibition was definitely the “Learning with Albers” segment, which provides a brief, but insightful overview of Josef Albers’ influence on the Bauhaus movement and on studies of materiality. The text is accompanied by annotated notebook pages of various Bauhaus students which illustrate their studies via journal entries and photographs.

 

 

Feature graphic by @sundaeghost.

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Social isolation participation masterlist

Here’s a list of things worth checking out this April

1.

RAW is looking for 250 fashion designers to create masks to help support hospitals around the world.

2.

Visit Skawennati’s AbTeC Island in Second Life by following the instructions at this link. Free to participate with the Second Life software.

3.

Skin Tone: how will we hold onto each other live-streamed performance at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (part of In the No Longer Not Yet) Watch here on April 1, at 5:30 p.m. Free to participate.

4.

Living with Ataxia , virtual exhibition from April 4 to 10 at GHAM & DAFE Gallery’s online platform available here. Read more about the exhibition on Facebook. Free to participate.

5.

Parallel Lines, virtual artist residency at Centre Phi, applications upon until April 1 at midnight. Free to participate, and 10 lucky artists will receive $2000 for their work!

6.

Balcony sing-a-long, courtesy of POP Montreal and URSA , with local bands, every tuesday until April 28. Free to participate.

7.

The Good Drama, a virtual intergenerational activity, held in collaboration between the Office of Community Engagement at Concordia University, the Sustainability Action Fund and Bâtiment, will be facilitated by Drama Therapy Masters student, Sandy El-Bitar via Zoom. These sessions will take place Tuesdays at 5 p.m. until April 14. Zoom ID posted in the event’s discussion page on Facebook. Free to participate.

8.

Art Hive Live, on Facebook, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 4 to 5 p.m. until April 15. Free to participate.

9.

Online salsa classes with the San Tropes Dance School every Wednesday from 7 to 8 p.m. until April 15, for as low at $10.

10.

The Social Distancing Festival, international celebration of visual art, dance, music, comedy and theatre (even operas!) Events running until the end of May are free, though there is an opportunity for donation.

11.

Visit Place Less, an online exhibition space designed by Concordia student, Colin Courtney. Currently only viewable through Instagram (@place.less), Place Less’ first, form-free exhibition features eight local artists working in both digital and material practices.

12.

A collection of free and paid videos (ranging documentary films to experimental productions and animations) is available on Vithèque, with special programs, May We Live in Peace, screening free until April 13, and Funny Women (no end date as of yet.) You must create a free account in order to view. Stay tuned for the release of dv_vd : Rachel Maclean on April 23.

13.

Don’t forget about the National Film Board of Canada’s online database, now also offering educational programming for children and teenagers, as well as online “campus” resources for teachers.

14.

ArtJam vol. 36 will be available via Facebook and Youtube Live on April 3 for their first-ever virtual edition.

15.

Google Arts & Culture is encouraging users to “Recreate art at home” through their “Pose of the day” feature. Among Google Arts & Culture’s plethora of collections and activities are lab experiments, virtual travelling, and, naturally, Harry Potter: A History of Magic, a special from the British Museum.

16.

Visit La Cenne’s current exhibition, Lentement le temps, a collaboration between visual artist and illustrator, Charlotte Gosselin (@charlotteecharlotte) and Camille Lescarbeau (@camillelescarbeau), via the space-rental tour on La Cenne’s website.

17.

Artnet also put together this list of “11 Things Not to Miss in the Virtual Art World This Week.”

18.

The Dark Poutine podcast community is putting together a digital cookbook! Instructions about how to participate are available here.

19.

Grimes released the greenscreen footage for “You’ll miss me when I’m not around,” which she invites fans to download and edit via We-Transfer link found in the video’s descriptions. The artist also included a lsit of free/cheap software to use to do so. Upload to Youtube and tag your videos with #grimesartkit to share!

20.

Blink-182 is also seeking contributions to their music video for “Happy Days” to combat social distancing blues. Videos must be filmed on mobile devices vertically and can be submitted here. Read more about the initative here.

 

 

Not on the list? Know of anything more? Send an email to arts@theconcordian.com and I’ll be happy to add your event!

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Portrait of a Lady on Fire: A tale of burning desire

A stunning portrayal of queer love, art, and the female gaze

Portrait of a Lady on Fire, written and directed by Céline Sciamma, is a beautiful film, through and through. Everything from the screenplay to the cinematography invokes an abundance of emotion and builds tension between the two main characters, Héloïse and Marianne. In the late 18th century, a woman named Héloïse is about to be married against her will, and Marianne is an artist commissioned to paint her in secret. Marianne keeps her intention unknown because Héloïse has refused to pose for previous painters to defy her imminent marriage. Although Héloïse believes Marianne to just be a walking companion, their relationship develops into something more as their desire for each other grows.

The pacing of this film, due to its direction and writing, is flawless. It is slow without being boring; every scene introduces new emotional elements that keep the film going. The chemistry between the lead actresses, Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant, is remarkable. Their performances are nuanced and natural, bringing raw emotion to the forefront of each scene. The characters’ yearning for each other is expressed through glances, stares and carefully composed body language. The pace makes you anticipate the budding romance, and the tension between the leads is expressed during these slow scenes.

Sciamma explores interesting themes other than love and queer romance through her writing: art, womanhood, memory and the concept of “the gaze”— how we observe art and other people. There is a fascinating exploration of the female gaze and the difference between being looked at and being seen.

Another thing that stands out about Portrait of a Lady on Fire is its sound design and soundtrack. It wasn’t until a song was sung by a group of women in the film that I realized there was no soundtrack at all – every sound is diegetic (meaning it’s occurring inside the world of the characters). Throughout the film, only two songs are heard. In between, every sound overwhelms the space, even noise as small as the movement of fabric. Sciamma’s choice here was clever, for the lack of nondiegetic sound in the film produces a sense of authenticity for the time period. The sounds of the natural world are almost overwhelming, which contrasts with the present day, as the natural world is often drowned out by man-made noise. When music is heard, the experience is elevated to a new emotional intensity, allowing you to connect with the character’s experience.

The mise-en-scène is gorgeous as well. The dark, candlelit rooms evoke a sense of warmth, comfort and intimacy. The bright and colourful exterior shots by the ocean create a feeling of freedom and expression—it is where Héloïse and Marianne share their first kiss, after all. Like the sound design, each shot was carefully assembled for the sake of the story and effectively captured the characters’ longing for each other.

Ultimately, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is an excellent film. Sciamma knows her craft and expertly constructs a film that makes the setting feel genuine and drives the audience to understand what the characters feel. It is an emotional experience that is beautiful to see and hear; it is not something to be missed.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire will be accessible on Video On Demand on April 3.

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Arts

Happening in and around the white cube this week…

Changing the way we interact with each other, technology, and the way we make art

Hello, and welcome to the white cube, online version. Should this be a podcast? Maybe.

Over time, I’ve gone through waves of whether or not I wanted the white cube to be capitalised and this is it, finally: no caps. It will just be in italics, that way you know I am referring to this column and not to an actual white cube. Moving on.

I have spent more time than ever on my computer this week. It’s truly astonishing. I’ve used it for everything. Working, writing, countless emails, bingeing Tiger King, and of course, becoming a ~digital artist~. So, I’ve taught myself how to make gifs using powerpoint and a screen recording Chrome add-on and, since I don’t have photoshop, I’ve been playing around with more Chrome add-ons, like Sumo Paint. My style is painterly, naive and wobbly—oh, how I have grown to love this word over the past two weeks.

I feel wobbly. Picture a jelly bean on its back, rocking back and forth. It can only stay still on its side. It’s unstable, and that’s how I feel. I don’t feel sad or angry, nor do I feel worried or anxious. I know this current situation is out of my control, and I’m riding the waves. I’ve lost my footing and I’m finding it again. I don’t want to talk about the c-word anymore.

Instead, let’s talk about this Instagram account, belonging to Max Siedentopf, a German multidisciplinary visual artist and now apparently, my wobbly dream-come-true.

Look, I had no idea who this guy was when I stumbled upon the account (between falling asleep during Baumgartner Restorations’ Youtube videos,) but I was immediately enthralled by his Home Alone project. As I’m writing this, Siedentopf’s account is home to 50 ways to occupy yourself while you are home during this global crisis, or more nicely put, Global Crisis of Being Stuck at Home: a survival guide. Check it out. You are very welcome.

Siedentopf posts the next day’s challenges on his Instagram story, inviting followers to choose and photograph themselves doing them, for him to share in galleries on his feed the following day.

Home Alone Day 9  (March 27)

  1. Place your bed vertically
  2. Find a way to communicate with aliens
  3. Build your own indoor mountain
  4. Use your mouth to become a human fountain
  5. Sleep in your bathtub for variation
  6. Wear all your jewelry at the same time to stand out

This bit of participatory/interactive performance art almost feels like a meme. Though Siedentopf is initiating the performances, he isn’t actually doing them. His prompts are simple, yet incredibly bizarre, resulting in the uplifting content we didn’t know we needed. Siedentopf’s creative endeavour stands out against the waves of posts tagged with “isolation art club” and “quarantine art club.” There is a surreal pressure on creativity right now. With all this time we have, we’re forced to face a burst of inspiration or stagnancy, telling ourselves we have no excuse to not exercise our artistic practices and creative hobbies.

I can’t help but wonder what the world will be like post-c-word. The way we interact with each other, technology, and the way we make art is changing more and more everyday.

On Animal Crossing, some artists are even throwing together virtual exhibitions. Most recently was Brighton-based artist, Stephanie Unger, who hosted an ultra-creative exhibition on the game, inviting players from around the world to visit.

Can you taste the future isolation-flavoured art world?

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Arts

The role of virtual museums in a time of isolation

Museums and galleries are being forced to adapt amidst uncertainty

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind for everyone. There is a lot of uncertainty regarding jobs, school and just about everything right now. With vernissages being cancelled, and museums and other art spaces being closed indefinitely, many questions are being raised within the art world.

However, amidst all this uncertainty lies a new wave of innovation. Many art institutions have made their collections available digitally, for all. From the Louvre to the Sistine Chapel, viewers can visit these otherwise costly landmarks from the comfort of their own home, for free. Some museums, like the Louvre, are providing virtual tours, while others like the MET, are giving access to their collection databases.

But what does this mean for the museum as a physical space to view, experience and enjoy art? Does the accessibility of digital galleries affect the experience of engaging with art? In reality, this is not a new concept. Many institutions already have digital access to their collections, including the MET and the MOMA, and platforms like Artsy and Artnet already serve as online galleries, where patrons can view and purchase art.

Nonetheless, the current circumstances have provided many museums with the opportunity to expand and grow, as they adapt during these difficult times. The Biennale of Sydney recently announced their decision to close their exhibitions and move online, and Art Basel will host virtual booths for all 231 featured galleries.

In an effort to give viewers the freedom to explore their collection, the Glenbow Museum in Calgary has begun Glenbow From Home. The initiative allows access to virtual tours, online collections and educational videos, as a means of providing “inspiration, beauty, and most importantly, a sense of connection to the people and world around us,” according to the museum’s website.

Viewers can familiarize themselves with Canadian art by strolling through The Royal Ontario Museum and The Vancouver Art Gallery via the Google Arts & Culture platform or expand their knowledge of Indigenous art through the Canadian Museum of History’s Online Exhibition of Inuit Prints and virtual access to Alex Janvier’s Morning Star – Gambeh Then.’ To learn more about the history of the popular Christmas classic, The Nutcracker, The National Ballet of Canada is offering an online photographic exhibition.

Galleries and museums are not the limit. While travelling is currently off-limits, you can explore sites like Machu Picchu, the Taj Mahal and the Uffizi Gallery from the comfort of your home. Google Arts & Culture even allows individuals to search sites by location, via their interactive map.

As we self-isolate and practice social distancing for the next couple of months, viewers can take this opportunity to visit locations they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford, or have time to visit amid their busy schedules. So sit back, get comfortable and use art as a way to de-stress.

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Arts

Solidarity in art: FIFA reinvents itself

Watch films from one of Montreal’s biggest festivals online until March 29

The Festival International de Films sur l’Art (FIFA) was set to take place from March 17 to 29. Along with all other public gatherings,  they had to cancel last week, for the first time in 38 years. They announced the decision five days before their opening ceremony, only to be reborn online two days later.

“Art is nothing without its stories,” reads the festival’s website. They are known for showcasing, among other things, portraits of artists, documentaries about various forms of art and experimental films. Their new online platform, hosted by Vimeo, now gives viewers the opportunity to become art experts and refine their film tastes, from the comfort of their homes.

“We’ve seen such a remarkable wave of solidarity for the festival,” said Jacinthe Brisebois, head of programming. Indeed, on March 18 only, not even 24 hours after its release, the festival’s online viewing platform had sold more than 1,200 tickets.

“Surprisingly, many of our featured films this year relate to art therapy, proving that art helps our well-being and that we need activities that stand out of our daily lives,” said Brisebois.

 We Are Not Princesses, a Syrian-American documentary by Bridgette Auger and Itab Azzam, opened the official launch of FIFA’s online platform on March 17. It follows a group of Syrian refugees in Beirut as they put together a rendition of the Greek tragedy Antigone by Sophocles.

“It’s a beautiful story of resilience,” Brisebois said. We get to know each of the actors’ difficult life stories, and how they relate to Antigone, who became one of the most prominent examples of strength and resilience in classical literature. Daughter of Oedipus, Antigone is remembered in Greek mythology (mostly thanks to the Sophocles’ tragedy) for having fought fearlessly for her brother Polynices’ honour against King Creon.

We Are Not Princesses also won the grand prize of the festival, awarded by a special jury of artists and programmers.

The Canadian documentary Traces of Hope, by Christine Doyon, is another story of healing through art in the Middle East, and one of the most important films of the festival, according to Brisebois. A group of young Syrian refugees, also in Lebanon, are invited to create an animated short film, and through their creative process, discuss what art means to them.

FIFA also remained true to their old habits, as many of their feature films remain documentaries on the lives of artists—this year, that included documentaries of artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Ernest Pignon-Ernest, Raôul Duguay, Paul Auster, Leonardo da Vinci and many more. They also feature documentaries on various stories of the art milieu, such as Caravaggio’s lost painting and how a Brazilian diplomat saved a massive east German art collection.

Nicole Gingras, a part-time instructor at Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts, curated a selection of experimental films titled FIFA Experimental. Most of that selection is now also offered on FIFA’s online platform.

Marjan Ansari, a Concordia MFA student, directed a film presented as a part of FIFA Experimental. Titled Paper Planes, it was created in collaboration with Concordia’s Department of Contemporary Dance and is also part of the festival’s Spotlight on Iranian Art Films. The short film shows choreographies around Montreal, inspired by the real lived experiences of refugees and Ansari’s own story of immigration.

The entire selection is available here until March 29 at midnight. It costs $30 for unlimited access to over 150 films.

 

 

With files from the Festival International de Films sur l’Art (FIFA).

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Arts

A (virtual) walk through Art Souterrain in the age of social distancing

Come away and Reset with me

“Someone once said it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.” 

This quote, taken from Fredric Jameson’s “Future City,” given the current state of global affairs, might feel more relevant than ever.

On March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic and in just under a week, it ushered in a new era of social distancing. This article, originally conceived before the pandemic, was intended to pique the reader’s curiosity about the exhibit (and unintentionally the COVID-19 curve). So instead, we invite you to venture beneath the downtown core, into the underground city and visit Art Souterrain, a public art exhibition, from the comfort of your own home.

Art Souterrain’s 2020 theme Reset showcases art as a response to “humanity at a turning point.” Up until last week, the COVID-19 pandemic felt more like a distant possibility than a pressing reality.

It is true that many people, pre-COVID-19 crisis, had already seen the world at a tipping point, one that cried out for massive intervention. People were in the process of reorienting their own courses, avoiding the onset of environmental extinction, fighting the privatization of public services, protecting Indigenous lands or even preparing for an inevitable pandemic.

And yet now, all of our active, externalized and productivity-focused lives have abruptly come to a halt. We’re seeing the collapse of already precarious economic and healthcare systems, extensive financial turmoil, extreme physical isolation and a move to bring the real world, more than ever, online.

Social distancing is certainly in our best interest. And while we remain secluded, our pace will slow. We might have the time to rethink, reimagine and reset our social patterns and behaviours.

And although a visit to The Underground City is not condonable under the current circumstances, perhaps this piece will soothe your needs to escape the confines of your home while you embark on a virtual tour, highlighting the contributions of Concordians at Art Souterrain.

On March 7, I googled 10,000 steps. “Should you really take 10,000 steps a day?,” a headline for a click-bait “article” posted on the Fitbit—a popular and elite fitness tracking device—Get Moving blog was the first thing to appear. The content of the article meant little to me so I decided to skip over it. Its content is irrelevant, but what the article represents is what matters.

The commodification of fitness, 10,000 steps, is movement to quantify health habits and include them in daily assessments of productivity. Measured on your smartphone, Fit Bit, or other costly technical devices, 10,000 steps symbolize a bourgeois obsession with the analysis of a daily routine. These very devices are marketed towards the white-collar class as objects that define a productive, wealthy, and superior lifestyle.

RESO or the Underground City is Montreal’s subterranean labyrinth. It’s a highly developed, intricate, permanent network that on a regular day, is a transitory space for the bulk of its regular users; a site where Montreal’s establishment clock in their daily steps en-route to meetings, brief errands and quick lunch breaks.

It’s a conduit between the largest shopping malls, banks and businesses in the city. A site of convenience, and rather pedestrian in nature—both figuratively and literally—a patron of the Underground City may never have to leave the indoors to transfer from one building to the next, making their life simpler, shorter and more efficient.

Walls of the tunnels are plastered with posters of advertisements, interactive marketing strategies, TV advertisements and out-of-date pop music blaring through speakers. Some walls are long stretches of wide spaces with small storefronts selling luggage, computer items, gaming paraphernalia, customizable t-shirt stores or food courts armed with a visual grammar all too ubiquitous and familiar.

In a narrow, grey, hallway between L’OACI and Bonaventure Metro, five human-like forms clad in geometrically painted pylons lay scattered intermittently throughout the space. A few wear them like hats and look like witches. Others carry them like a javelin, resembling medieval knights on horses.

Gab More’s One Cone Army reinvents painting as a medium, using it as a sculptural street sign, occupying physical space. More’s signs stick out like sore thumbs, obstructing a hurried pedestrian’s path, reminding us that our city remains in a constant state of disarray.

From a distance, they look like war photographs you’d see at the World Press Exhibition: piles of rubble-strewn bodies, clouds of fire, mass armed conflict. At a closer glance, one might think it’s piles of debris leftover from the Turcot Interchange.

It is neither. Using digital manipulation, artist Sean Mundy has created Ruin, his own interpretation of a post-apocalyptic world. These austere images are concepts of a dystopian future. But their visual grammar is familiar, and the thought of a cataclysm doesn’t seem so distant either.

By the large fountain in the Centre de Commerce Mondial, a wedding party poses for bridal photos. Throughout the space, tour groups gather to learn about Canada’s parliament pre-confederation. Supposedly, this experience also functions as an escape room.

Surprisingly, none of these are performance pieces, they’re not part of Art Souterrain. These groups are the Saturday crowd.

Skawennati – Calico & Camouflage: Assemblée.

Throughout the centre, plastered on brick pillars and marble walls, are life-sized digital avatars. They carry protest signs with phrases such as “I can’t believe we have to protest this shit” and “Water is life.”

Skawennati, a Mohawk multi-media artist, brings visions of Indigenous futures developed in virtual reality to be as large as life in the form of plastic wall decals. Covered in neon camouflage vests, cargo pants or skirts, they look like computer-generated images used in a rendering of a condominium development or the Sims. But they’re the opposite of that. This is Calico & Camouflage: Assemblée. 

Skawennati still arms the space with viewing stations, a style more evocative of her traditional work. On TVs, you can watch her films Words Before All Else Part I, II and III. Her videos are powerful, but it’s the figures on the wall that are eye-catching. They are what Skawenati says is a form of “visibility in spaces of assimilation.”

Arkadi Lavoie Lachapelle – La Chorale

In a quiet corner of Palais des Congrès, Montreal’s largest convention centre, lies a beige mission-style bench. It looks like a giant extended rocking chair situated beneath a reflective ceiling.

Arkadi Lavoie Lachapelle has created La Chorale, resistance against “productivity centred” lives. Its form is simple, its message is subtly disarming: sit down, relax, disconnect from your daily routine and rethink.

Warm pastel portraits decorate the walls of a tunnel leading towards pension fund investment offices in Edifice Jacques-Parizeau. JJ Levine’s Family is quietly on display. 

The shots are soft meditations into intimate private lives. A parent and baby are asleep, covered by magenta sheets, lying in a bed beside a bright orange wall. A soft pink backdrop, grey couches and a young couple in jungle-print t-shirts hold hands. A toddler sits in a baby-blue jumper on turquoise stairs, their piercing gaze pointed directly towards the viewer. A parent breastfeeds their baby in a floral-print gown seated on top of a chestnut coloured storage trunk.

Family is a series of portraits of queer family life, made visible in a space that represents traditional values. Levine boldly subverts images of the nuclear family and claims them as their own symbols of family life.

JJ Levine – Family

In front of a Van Houtte Café in Palais Des Congrès are a series of perfectly arranged white cubes protruding diagonally into the air. At the top of the cubes lie charcoal coloured, miniature mountains. This topographical sculpture is Elyse Brodeur Magna’s Un Tout Parallèle. 

Applying thought from Greek philosophers, Lucretius and Epictetus, Un Tout Parallèle suggests that when atoms deviate from their parallel path, they create new physical bonds; in turn, new forms. Although uniform in their style, these sculptures are products of fresh physical creations, and invitations to climb the mountain in search of a restored purpose and a new physical form.

Tough times are certainly ahead, but how do we transcend them? Perhaps Un Tout Parallèle leaves a hint. 

Maxime Loiseau – Bac à Sable

“Eat, Sleep, Game, Repeat. Eat, Sleep, Game, Repeat. Eat, Sleep, Game, Repeat.” This routine, or rather, this mantra is the modus operandi for the stereotyped gamer. Using performance and installation, artist Maxime Loiseau propels the imagined reality of the disconnected gamer into the real world.

Occupying a storefront opposite a food court buried beneath Place Victoria, Loiseau has created a life-sized diorama. It resembles a gamer’s basement, covered in gaming paraphernalia, junk food, used pizza boxes, with clothes strewn across the floor. This is Bac à Sable, giving the public a voyeuristic view into virtual life.

It’s a reference to geek culture and comment on overconsumption. But as we retreat into cloistered lives for the foreseeable future, gaming might be the antidote to reimagine the reality we’re facing.

This is where I end my 10,000 steps, in a food court in downtown Montreal, decorated like a 1990s shopping mall. Its shabby decor is a fitting backdrop for Reset and its exploration of urban obstruction, public display of private life, productivity culture, questions of alternate futures and transcendentalism.

This reset is an artistic form. We’re in a state of reset, but don’t know what it looks like yet. Our lives are slowing. As we retreat inside for society’s betterment, there are barriers that inhibit one from collecting their 10,000 steps, but the pressure to do so might also be dwindling. If anything, when we make our way out of it, hopefully, we can take these messages to heart and reset our daily lives.

 

 

 

Photos by Anthony James Armstrong.

Video by Lola Cardona.

Categories
Arts

It’s a Netflix Party: police corruption, fistfights, a crazy ex-girlfriend and a weird roommate

Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg collaborate on a fifth movie together, Spenser Confidential

Witty and sarcastic, ex-cop Spenser (Mark Wahlberg) is always quick to throw an amusing comeback. Yet, he is also a work in progress, taking every opportunity to help others and better himself.

Spenser Confidential is inspired by the book Wonderland by Ace Atkins, and the characters are loosely based on the ones Robert B. Parker created in his Spenser crime novels.

This action-comedy movie starts with a flashback from five years earlier, showing Spenser, who was then a cop, going to his captain’s house and beating him. At the same time, the narration is him pleading guilty for disturbing the peace, harassment in the first degree and for aggravated assault of a police officer. He ends his confession with “the son of a b*tch deserved it.”

After spending five years in prison, Spenser goes to live with Henry (Alan Arkin), a funny old man who only eats hot dogs, and Hawk (Winston Duke), Spenser’s new roommate.

The movie revolves around this team trying to solve the murder of a woman while looking for enough evidence to get dirty cops arrested. Boston police captain John Boylan (Michael Gaston), who Spenser had assaulted, is killed the night he gets out of prison, and the murder is pinned on officer Terrence (Brandon Scales), who, according to the police, killed himself after killing Boylan. Spenser claims that Terrence wasn’t a crooked cop and that he was murdered, which is why he starts another investigation into Boylan’s murder.

Fights are always happening in this movie. To be exact, Spenser gets into four significant fights and a dog attack. The first fight is during his last day in prison. While in the library, he gets jumped by a group, including Squeeb (Austin Post a.k.a. Post Malone). After the murder is pinned on Terrence, Spenser goes to a cop bar to find Terrence’s ex-partner, where he, once again, gets jumped, this time by a group of police officers. Later on, when Spenser is running after a car, he gets attacked by Lego, a dog. The third fight is at Marcela’s Burritos, where he gets attacked by members of a Dominican street gang involved in drug smuggling. Finally, the fourth and last fight is against Driscoll (Bokeem Woodbine), the main villain and the brains behind all the murders.

This movie is not only funny, but it also examines corruption within the police system. It reminds us that justice is not always served and sometimes, more than we’d like, bad guys get to walk the streets free, framing innocent people for their acts. This movie serves as a reality check while making us laugh about Spencer getting beat up, his crazy ex-girlfriend Cissy (Iliza Shlesinger) and Hawk’s weirdness.

Spenser Confidential is also about relationships. We see Spenser and Hawk’s friendship grow during the movie. They start as rivals, Spenser being jealous that Hawk has been spending more time with his dog, Pearl, while he was away in prison. But the two roommates quickly bond and become friends. Spenser and Cissy’s relationship also improves and in the last scene together, they’re actually getting along and not yelling at each other.

This could easily be one of the best movies of the year, as it’s the perfect combination of an action-comedy and a drama. It’s funny, exciting, and we see the characters developing. For example, in the last fight, Spenser controls his anger and stops punching Driscoll, making a citizen’s arrest instead. As well, the performances are incredible and the plot keeps everyone alert. It keeps the audience wanting to know what Spenser’s next move will be, or when he’ll get beat up again, which is probably the funniest part.

Netflix Party, a new chrome extension, allows people to watch Netflix together virtually and offers a chat section to discuss the show or film. If one person pauses the video, it pauses it for the rest of the group, as if everyone were watching it on the same screen. This extension has gained popularity over the last few days, as people from all around the world are implementing social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Stay at home, talk with some friends and put Spenser Confidential on to enjoy together from a distance. Stay safe!

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