Category: Arts

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Arts Arts and Culture Exhibit

Cruel to be Kind/ Les plus beaux cauchemars: A reflection on women’s condition

Cruel to be Kind exhibition at Outremont Art Gallery. Photo by Maya Ruel / The Concordian.

Montreal artists use colours and various mediums to create a dream-like exhibition.

Jeanie Riddle and Delphine Hennelly, two Montreal-based painters, have taken over the Outremont Art Gallery from Nov. 8 until Jan. 7. The room hosting the artists’ exhibition, which is located inside the neighbourhood’s library, has undergone a complete transformation in order to showcase both women’s work. 

Jeanie Riddle completed her MFA in painting from Concordia in 2005. Her portfolio includes acrylic paintings on canvas and on paper, as well as sculptures made of various fabrics. Delphine Hennelly, for her part,  tends to make artwork which “addresses the human condition and prescribed gender roles,” according to her biography on the website of the Huxley-Parlour Gallery in London where her work was shown in February 2023. 

The gallery walls are covered in Riddle’s and Hennelly’s vivid artwork, and on top of the paint are hung portraits and pieces of their collection. The exhibition is called Cruel to be Kind or Les plus beaux cauchemars, which translates to “the most beautiful nightmares.”  This title feels very appropriate—upon entering the room, an aura of alternate reality becomes overwhelming, as if pacing inside a colourful dream. 

Cruel to be Kind exhibition at Outremont Art Gallery. Photo by Maya Ruel / The Concordian.

All in tones of pastel, the artwork presented at the gallery varies greatly in style from one piece to another. Riddle and Hennelly’s artistic styles and chosen mediums are very different. 

Hennelly finds much inspiration in art history and tapestries. She mostly creates vivid portraits which, even though she allows herself much creative freedom and steers away from realism, are still somewhat figurative. Women figures (though some have green skin) and outlines of human figures are easily distinguishable in her art. . 

Riddle’s artwork, in contrast, is much more abstract. She paints colorful shapes and uses fabric, such as scrunched up latex, to create unique pieces which could be associated with clouds. There are also a few pieces displayed in the middle of the room which resemble bags and have been dyed in tones of pastel. 

The encounter between both styles could have been difficult to digest, but somehow the artists’ work complete one another and are entangled brilliantly.

Cruel to be Kind is an exhibition with strong feminist undertones. All the human figures painted on the walls are women, and they are either smiling, holding the hand of a child, wearing hats and dresses, or are completely naked. 

Painting by Delphine Hennelly. Photo by Maya Ruel / The Concordian.

A painting hung on one of the walls has been created with only a few strokes of blue acrylic paint accompanied by a yellow line which has a shape of breasts. Another painting shows a woman, all dressed-up, holding a handkerchief to her face—alluding to the hardships of living in a patriarchal society. The antitheses in the title, “cruel” and “kind,” or in French, “beautiful” and “nightmare,”  correlate with the way women are treated and depicted in society—“both desired and despised,”  as per the artists. The colours used in the artwork are light and vibrant and give a pure feeling of femininity:  lots of warm pink, purple, light blue, and yellow.

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Arts Arts and Culture

The origin story of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle

Volume Two of The memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle by Kent Monkman and Gisèle Gordon. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian.

Cree artist Kent Monkman and his long-time collaborator Gisèle Gordon discussed the process behind their recent book project recollecting the memoirs of Monkman’s time-traveling, supernatural and gender-fluid alter ego.

On Nov. 20 at the Grande Bibliothèque de BAnQ, an audience of primarily Concordia students and alumni were treated to a rare performance by Miss Chief Eagle Testickle herself. Donning a glittering transparent robe and sharp stiletto heels, Miss Chief orated an excerpt from her fantastical memoir, beginning with her eye-witness account of the creation of the universe when she was only a young elemental being. 

This was followed by her recounting of  her turbulent yet thrilling descent to earth, her erotic discovery of her new human body, and her horror at the brutal and neglectful treatment of the sacred belongings of the Indigenous people of Turtle Island (aka North America) she had come to know and love. 

Artist Monkman and writer Gordan’s new book weaves the origin story of Miss Chief into the intertwining histories of the Cree people and the colonization of Canada. True stories of real historical figures are told through the perspective of the imaginary protagonist—a familiar intervention to those already well-versed in Monkman’s prolific painting career. 

Miss Chief has long been a staple in Monkman’s body of work that seeks to challenge canonical representations of North America in the history paintings of 19th-century artists such as George Catlin and Paul Kane. Miss Chief interrupts the reductive colonial gaze through asserting a queer Indigenous subjectivity into Monkman’s historical scenes. 

Monkman and Gordan’s approach to writing Miss Chief’s memoir was largely informed by both of their backgrounds in performance art and film, and the text certainly lends itself to live oration. Listening to Miss Chief verbally recount anecdotal encounters filled with tension and rich, witty dialogue brought Monkman’s paintings to life and tied them all together into a fully developed narrative. 

After Miss Chief’s performance, Monkman sat down with Gordan to discuss the inception of the book project and the enduring process of piecing it all together. The collaborators had spread out prints of all of Monkman’s dynamic paintings and began sorting them into chapters of what would constitute the story of his central character. Monkman remarked how “the memoir became an exercise in filling in the gaps of her story,” and that he hopes to continue developing the life cycle of Miss Chief in future endeavours—perhaps a project inspired by Peter Paul Rubens’ series on the life of Marie de’ Médici at the Louvre Museum.

Volume two of The memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: A true and exact accounting of the history of Turtle Island is now available in bookstores starting today, Nov. 28!

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Arts Arts and Culture Community Student Life

December films at Concordia

Graphic by Caro DeFrias

What to watch on campus this month.

As the year comes to a close and exams, final papers and projects loom ever nearer, there are a number of excellent films screening on campus to help motivate you through your finals and make the long, cold and dark nights of December a little warmer with the gentle glow of the silver screen. 

Cinema Politica, a non-profit media arts organization dedicated to socially engaged cinema, has two final screenings for their Fall 2023 programming. On Dec. 4 at 7 p.m., Cinema Politica will host the Queer Cinema for Palestine event and premiere Foggy: Palestine Solidarity, Cinema, & the Archive (72 min). This collection of short films juxtapose archival footage, re-enactments, and present and past histories into a dialogue in tribute to historic and current activism and resistances Palestinian people. 

The films include Sultana’s Reign (Hadi Moussally), Homecoming Queenz (Elias Wakeem), Tempest In A Teapot (Amy Gottlieb), Knobs & Chai (Noor Gatih),  Nazareth (Mike Hoolboom), My Whole Heart Is With You (Essa Grayeb), Even A Dog In Babylon (Lior Shamriz) and The Poem We Sang (Annie Sakkab). This screening is dedicated to the ongoing struggle for Palestinian liberation, and not only offers film viewings, but also a vibrant space to gather, to learn, to grieve and to celebrate ongoing strength and resistance together.

On Dec. 11 at 7 p.m., Cinema Politica will screen Tautuktavuk (What We See). Co-directed by Carol Kunnuk and Lucy Tulugarjuk, this film explores the story of Inuit sisters Uyarak and Saqpinak as they attempt to connect during the beginning of the pandemic, each dealing with their trauma in their own ways. The film explores the intersecting and compounding impacts of pandemic measures, intergenerational trauma, domestic and sexual abuse, primarily through a series of video chats which attempt to bridge the physical and emotional gaps.

From Nov 3 until Dec. 15, the FOFA Gallery is hosting daily screenings between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. of Looking In, Looking Out, a new Black Arts Series presented in collaboration with the NouLa Black Student Centre and the Visual Collections Repository (VCR). The screening will showcase the work of six filmmakers of the Concordia community. This selection promises to meditate on familiar emotions and experiences, intertwining word and moving image alongside pasts, presents, and potential futures to speak to the concept of Black aliveness while still honouring the nuanced multiplicity of Black experience. The films include elemental (Ra’anaa Yaminah Ekundayo), I’m Glad You’re Here (Karl Obakeng Ndebele), Mango Lemon Soda (Emem Etti, ASK ME WHAT MY NAME IS (Desirée de Jesús), Chez Dr. Bello (Badewa Ajibade), and halves & doubles (Adam Mbowe). The series explores themes of intergenerational strength and trauma, personal grief, collective love, and more. 

More information about these films and events can be found on Cinema Politica and FOFA Gallery’s websites. With only a few weeks left in the semester, make sure to catch these films before the end of term.

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Arts Arts and Culture Exhibit Student Life

Matrilineal Memory: Celebrating Métis heritage through generations of women

Juliet Mackie, Jacqueline, 2023, Beadwork on felt. Courtesy of Shé:Kon Gallery. Photo by Michael Patton.

Juliet Mackie paints motherly love and female power in her latest artwork.

Shé:kon Gallery is currently hosting Matrilineal Memory, an exhibition showcasing the work of Juliet Mackie. She is a visual artist from Métis origins, currently residing in Montreal. Through her beadings and paintings, she embraces her heritage and pays tribute to the women of her lineage. 

Mackie is a PhD candidate in the iIndividualized iProgram at Concordia University as well as a holder of a BFA in painting and drawing. The exhibition’s curator, Alexandra Nordstrom, is a PhD student in the inter-university doctoral program in art history at Concordia University. Nordstrom and Mackie have previously collaborated on another exhibition, Braiding our Stories, at VAV Gallery.

Juliet Mackie, Kineweskwêw, 2023. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of Shé:Kon Gallery. Photo by Michael Patten.

Matrilineal Memory is hosted at Shé:kon Gallery, which belongs to the Contemporary Native Art Biennial (BACA). BACA is a non-profit organization launched in 2012 which promotes Indigenous artists’ artwork. The Gallery was opened in 2021 and is in function all year-round, and is described as a “space dedicated to emerging Indigenous artists and curators from Quebec.”

Juliet Mackie, Jaymie, 2023. Beadwork on felt. Courtesy of Shé:Kon Gallery. Photo by Michael Patten.

Starting with her great-great-great-grandmother and ending with her mother, Mackie has recounted the lives of her female ancestors. The women in the portrait collection share unequivocal family resemblances, such as dark hair and large brown eyes, as well as beadings of floral figures, which both represent Mackie’s connection to nature and embody femininity.

Juliet Mackie, Greta, 2023. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of Shé:Kon Gallery. Photo by Michael Patten.

The portraits and beadings are vividly colourful. In the paintings, some women are pictured in traditional Indigenous clothing, whereas others are painted wearing  dresses and pearls. There is a family portrait called Trapline Girls where a woman wearing furs is seen smiling accompanied by three children, presumably girls, which might be the representation of tradition being passed down from generation to generation. 

Juliet Mackie, Trapline Girls, 2023. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of Shé:Kon Gallery. Photo by Michael Patten.

Another painting, Granny Oak, shows an elderly woman holding a young girl in her arms, surrounded by pink flowers. This portrait particularly exudes maternal love and feminine energy. The background of some paintings includes flowers, trees and eagles—yet another reminder of the artist’s love of nature as well as the Métis’ connection to fauna and flora. 

Juliet Mackie, Granny Oak, 2023. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of Shé:Kon Gallery. Photo by Michael Patten.

The artist’s great-grandmother, Evelyn Oak, is a central figure of the display. She was a Métis woman from the community of Fort Chipewyan, in Alberta. She, as well as her daughter Greta, inspired the artist through their journey of self-acceptance, resilience and courage as Indigenous women during the 20th century. As she embraces her family history, Mackie also embraces her own identity, reconnects with her origins, and celebrates tradition. Unapologetically feminist, Matrilineal Memory is an intimate encounter between the artist and the women who shaped her way of being.  

Juliet Mackie, Evelyn of the North, 2023. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of Shé:Kon Gallery. Photo by Michael Patten.

Matrilineal Memory will be on view until Dec. 22.

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Arts Arts and Culture Community

Bar Milton-Parc hosts their second film screening in solidarity with Gaza

Screening of films by Palestinian women at Bar Milton-Parc. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian.

Less than a day following Cinéma du Parc’s abrupt cancellation of their film screening event, BMP presented five films by Palestinian women to a full house.

This fall, Bar Milton-Parc (BMP) Co-op has hosted two Palestinian film screening fundraisers for Gaza. Most recently, on Nov. 7, they collaborated with Another Gaze Journal and Another Screen to present a selection of experimental films directed by Palestinian women. The proceeds were divided between Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) and local organizational efforts, including mutual aid for a Palestinian refugee living in Montréal who is in need of stable housing. The space was filled with supportive attendees—the venue notably ran out of chairs. 

This event was less than 24 hours after Cinéma du Parc’s abrupt and controversial cancellation of their participation in Regards Palestiniens and Hors Champ’s Gaza solidarity fundraiser screening series, From the River to the Sea, which was scheduled to take place on Nov. 6. According to a joint statement from ten cultural organizations in Montréal, the decision was made to cancel the event due to “security concerns” and the “political nature of the screening.” 

The joint statement explains: “We learned from our own research that these issues were the result of a petition claiming to represent the Montréal and Canada Jewish Community, falsely accusing the title of the screening series of being antisemitic. We see this deliberate conflation between anti-Zionism and antisemitism everywhere in Canada and in the West in general, and we’re unfazed by it. These false accusations are launched at Palestinian Solidarity events regardless of the content of the event, with the objective of suppressing any expression of solidarity with Palestine.” Read the full joint statement here. 

On Nov. 14, Cinéma du Parc issued a statement on their instagram story, stating that “the meaning of the slogan used for the title of the event, From the River to the Sea, varies amongst communities, bringing a sense of insecurity for some, while being a call for liberation to others.” The statement continued; “We were worried for the security of the participants, our clients, and our employees. We would like to apologize for cancelling the event without conferring with the organizers, and for the lack of communication with our public once our decision was made.” 

From the River to the Sea fundraiser screenings have continued to be held at other venues. The next few will be held at Cinéma Public on Nov. 28, 29,  30, and Dec. 3.

BMP’s screening event began with Layaly Badr’s 1985 animation The Road to Palestine, which centres the experience of a young girl whose father is killed in an air raid. This heart-wrenching short film imagines a free Palestine through the hopeful eyes of a child living in a refugee camp. This was followed by Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind’s eerie science fiction film In the Future, They Ate from the Finest Porcelain (2015), which speaks to the role of archeology in the construction of national identity.

After a brief intermission, BMP screened Your Father Was Born 100 Years Old, and So Was the Nakba (2018), directed by Razan AlSalah of Concordia University’s communication studies department. This liminal film captures the invisible protagonist’s meanderings through the city of Haifa via Google Street View. Her disembodied voice cries out for a loved one who may have been inside one of the buildings shown in the street view—buildings that no longer exist.

Basma Alsharif’s artful and layered 2009 film We Began by Measuring Distance and Larissa Sansour’s surreal Nation Estate (2013) drew the evening to a close. 

The popularity of the event makes it likely that more screenings will be held in the near future. Learn about these films and more by Palestinian women at Another Screen’s website here. Stay tuned for more of Bar Milton-Parc Co-op’s programming on their instagram.

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Arts Arts and Culture Exhibit

Vendu-Sold: Concordia highlights

Projet Casa Façade, Vendu-Sold VIP opening night. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian.

Bilingual contemporary art magazine ESSE’s 14th annual benefit auction, Vendu-Sold, was recently on view at Projet Casa from Nov. 9 through Nov. 19. The opening event was attended by ESSE’s director, Concordia alumnus Sylvette Babin, along with many other ESSE administrators and several of the artists. Here is a list of all the works produced by Concordia alumni that were included in the auction—be sure to check them out and support their work!

ESSE’s director, Concordia alumnus Sylvette Babin, speaking at Projet Casa. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian.

Having earned her BFA in photography at Concordia, Clara Lacasse balances the industrial with the ethereal in her bright and airy work, Trame, 2020.

Clara Lacasse’s piece Trame, 2020 at Projet Casa. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian.

Trevor Baird, who earned his BFA in ceramics at Concordia, is showing his work The Gates of Ishtar, 2021. This curious work blends the new and the old, incorporating graphic design elements into a ceramic facade. 

Lorna Bauer is currently Concordia’s studio arts program’s artist in residence. Her hand-blown glass work Sítio Bottle (Millefiori) #2, 2021, is one of a series of over fifty individual pieces that she began in 2018.

Ari Bayuaji studied fine arts at Concordia after moving to Canada from Indonesia in 2005. His woven plastic work The Rock Islands, 2022, speaks to the relationship between community and the environment. 

Concordia’s MFA graduate program director in studio arts Kelly Jazvac’s work Time Scale (Granite #1), 2022, makes use of manufactured materials in order to comment on the longevity of humanity’s environmental footprint.     

Jeanette Johns holds an MFA in print media from Concordia. Her work Plain Hunt on Four: 1234, 2023, combines the hand-made with the digital to create vibrating imagery that challenges our perception of space.

Élise Lafontaine earned her BFA from Concordia in 2015 before going on to complete her master’s at UQÁM. Her synesthetic work Rib of Sound, 2022, seeks to mystically translate sound itself into a visible gesture. 

Jean-Michel Leclerc holds an MFA in fine arts from Concordia. His untitled work is part of a series that examines the crisis of the 1930s—rearticulating found imagery through analog photographic processes and digital fragmentation. 

Staff writer Shaghayegh Naderolasli observing Jean-Michel Leclerc’s work at Projet Casa. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian.

Former Concordia professor François Morelli’s rosy and surreal work Les aurevoirs, 2022, offers an illustrative and dynamic scene of sensual figures entangled in space.

Bea Parsons is a full-time professor at Concordia who previously studied fine arts at the university. Her monotype print Sun Dog, 2023, has a soothing, painterly quality that demonstrates how the possibilities of printmaking techniques can illustrate incredible natural phenomenons.

Alexandre Pépin earned his BFA in studio arts from Concordia in 2018 before recently receiving his MFA from the University of Texas in Austin. In Fish, 2021, employs a textured blend of painting and drawing techniques with a pastel colour palette to render the image of a fish out of water. 

Multidisciplinary artist Fatine-Violette Sabiri holds a BFA in studio arts from Concordia. Her work Majdouline, 2019, draws its visual language from her Moroccan heritage. 

Eve Tagny earned a BFA in film production from Concordia in 2011. Her xerox impression Poppies field print, 2022, is a dark and mysterious image of a poppy field that captures a moment which speaks to humanity’s desire to capture nature.

Lan “Florence” Yee’s bright and self-aware oil painting Cantonese Still Life, 2018, is a commentary on the dominance of European traditions within the art historical canon as defined by “Western” academia. Yee earned her BFA from Concordia and her MFA from OCAD University.

Visit ESSE’s website here to see all of these artworks and more!

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Arts Arts and Culture Student Life

Opportunities for fine arts students!

Graphic by Carleen Loney @shloneys

Looking to start building up your CV? Check out these upcoming opportunities for emerging artists, including callouts, job listings, networking events and more!

Open Calls 

On Dec. 7, Design Arts Student Alliance (DASA) will be holding their Something Wavy art market, and they are looking for participants who wish to sell their work! Students can submit photos of artworks or projects they wish to sell at the event before Nov. 22. For more information, check out the link in their Instagram bio.  

The Painting and Drawing Student Association (PDSA) is looking for works by artists for their upcoming Fall 2023 project exhibition in collaboration with Atelier Galerie 2112! The exhibit will be juried and curated by PDSA coordinators. To submit, go to this google form and add in your personal information, a 250 word artist statement, a 100 word biography, and two images (with descriptions) of your work. The deadline to apply is Nov. 28, and selected participants will be notified by email by Dec. 3. The show will be up from Dec. 11 through Dec. 17, and the vernissage will be held on Dec. 14! Learn more on Instagram. 

The Jano Lapin gallery is accepting applications for artists-in-residence. Eight contemporary visual artists are welcome to apply for a six-month residency that will provide mentorship, networking opportunities, feedback on their work and an exhibition. The deadline to apply is Nov. 23 for the January-June 2024 season, and Feb. 15 for the July-December 2024 season. Learn more on Instagram or on their website.

Concordia’s Fine Arts Student Alliance (FASA) has issued a callout for six Black graphic designers to work on their Black History Month programming! The deadline to apply is Dec. 11, and the link is in FASA’s Instagram bio.

Headlight, an anthology of poetry, fiction and nonfiction, is currently accepting submissions for issue #25 until Nov. 30. Submit between 1-4 poems (8 pages maximum) or up to 4,000 word fiction or creative nonfiction works. BIPOC+ and 2SLGBTQIA+ writers are strongly encouraged! Learn more and submit here. 

Conferences

Ever dreamed of giving a Ted Talk? TedX Concordia is recruiting speakers! Propose a talk at the link in their Instagram bio (@tedxconcordia_club) by Dec. 1!

Grants and Scholarships

MyMa’s November edition of their unrestricted artist grant—worth $500—is open for submissions! This month’s juror, Jamel Robinson, is a New York-based multidisciplinary artist whose work involves everything from poetry and performance to abstract painting and sculpture. The free application is available at their website here.

Networking

The Milieux Institute’s open house is coming up on Nov. 22 from 12 p.m. to-2 p.m. in Concordia’s downtown EV building, room 11.455. Take a tour through their studio lab spaces, meet their current students and learn about what the institute has to offer! 

Celebrate Concordia’s Fine Arts Reading Room’s  (FARR) publication grant recipients’ work at the Fall 2023 vernissage on Nov. 23! The event will be held in FARR space at Concordia’s downtown EV building, room 2.785 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. There will be food!  

Book and zine lovers, you do not want to miss Expozine 2023! Over 250 publishers will gather on Dec. 2 through Dec. 3 at Église Saint-Arsène (1025 Bélanger) from 11h-18h for a free event full of new literature from comics to novels to zines! 

Discover artist Julia Thibault’s photography at the opening reception of her show La chambre à dormir dehors at Arprim gallery on Nov. 24 at 5 p.m. 

Take part in an online discussion between artist Séamus Gallagher and Morris Fox about Gallagher’s show Mother, Memory, Cellophane, currently on view at the McCord museum as a part of MOMENTA Biennale de l’image. The conversation and public discussion will be held in English on Nov. 22 from 1 p.m.  to 2 p.m. Register at the McCord museum’s website here. 

Contribute to The Concordian!

Last but not least, don’t forget to contribute to The Concordian! The Arts & Culture section is always looking for new writers and graphic designers. Email us at artsculture@theconcordian.com to inquire. We would love to work with you! 

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Arts Arts and Culture

Caitlin Dix captures tender moments in their monumental paintings

Caitlin Dix, detail of Tender Gardens, VAV Gallery. Photo by Shaghayegh Naderolasli.

Recently shown in Concordia’s VAV Gallery’s temporary exhibition Cycles of Existence, Dix shared their process and inspiration.

From Oct. 23 to Nov. 2, the Cycles of Existence exhibition at the VAV Gallery featured a number of Concordia’s Fine Arts students who explore the mysterious cycles and patterns of history in their work. 

“Growth, the seasons, emotions, our bodies, strife in the world, breathing, everything we know seems to exist in a cycle,” stated the VAV Gallery on their Instagram. “Cycles of Existence explores exactly this—the cyclical nature of life, either in the subconscious, the physical, or the abstract.”

Caitlin Dix currently studies at the undergraduate level of the Concordia visual arts program. The Concordian spoke with the artist at the VAV’s opening reception for Cycles of Existence about their own installation, Tender Gardens.

Dix described their work as the display of archived family moments that captures their deep connection with nature through gardening, food preparation and sharing food with their family. Dix’s artistic practice encapsulates their childhood nostalgia, family heritage and generational practices. The ritualistic relationship that food has to family and nature emerges as a central theme in Tender Gardens. 

In this exhibition, they represent the women of their family, particularly their grandmother and mother, as modern-day gatherers—the active sustainers of the community and their family. Dix said that appreciating and caring for nature is inseparable from their family’s traditions. 

The installation involved three larger-than-life unstretched canvases, suspended from the ceiling. Broad strokes of bright colors—greens, blues and purples with the occasional orange or red detail—draw the viewer into a scene of Dix’s family members in a garden. The inviting work is meant to be fully immersive, where the viewer becomes a part of the scene in front of them—Dix’s grandmother smiles at them. 

Caitlin Dix, detail of Tender Gardens, VAV Gallery. Photo by Shaghayegh Naderolasli.

An interesting experience awaits viewers as they navigate through the installation. When standing in front of the pieces, viewers encounter a clear image of the scene and are invited to imagine themselves standing in the garden before them. The use of fiber materials to create textural illusions is incorporated into all three paintings, offering a multi-sensorial experience with objects, nature, and figures. 

Moving around to the reverse side of the canvas, the image becomes murky—a ghostly impression of the paint seeping through the canvas. This blurry version of the scene appears almost like a memory, creating a temporal distance between the viewer and the subject of the painting. The relationship between the two sides of the installation speaks to the passage of time; the time between witnessing a moment and seeking to remember it months or perhaps years later.

Caitlin Dix, detail of the reverse side of Tender Gardens, VAV Gallery. Photo by Shaghayegh Naderolasli.

See more of Caitlin Dix’s work on their Instagram account: @caitlin_dix_art.

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Arts Arts and Culture Exhibit

Strange memory

Kuh del Rosario, detail of “invocation na babayin itim,” 2023, in Summoning Black Beach, Centre Clark. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian.

From the mechanical to the organic, Concordia MFA students Émilie Allard and Kuh Del Rosario’s curious sculptural works draw uncanny connections between the familiar and the strange.

Émilie Allard’s cold and metallic readymades—a manufactured object repurposed as a work of art, think Marcel Duchamp—in Point of Irony, Point of Organ stand in stark contrast to Kuh Del Rosario’s viscerally organic sculptures in Summoning Black Beach. However, the adjacent exhibits, currently occupying the two distinct gallery spaces in the Mile End’s Centre Clark, create a curious dialogue when approached as a pair. 

View of the gallery. Émilie Allard, Point of Irony, Point of Organ, Centre Clark. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian.

Both galleries are sparsely peppered with the artists’ works that stand out against the cold white walls and concrete floors. Any didactics or titles to accompany the works on display have been excluded from the installation space, which encourages the viewer to approach the body of work as a cohesive whole, rather than a collection of individual pieces. 

View of the gallery. Kuh del Rosario, Summoning Black Beach, Centre Clark. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian.

Each artist employs a strikingly unique visual language to engage with the familiarly unfamiliar. In other words, whether it is a set of reconfigured aluminium chair legs turned upside down and strung up with bells (Allard, “Le rêve et l’argent”) or an oozing pool of grimy water and salty, porous rocks (Del Rosario, “invocation na babayin itim”), both artists use recognizable materials to create unrecognisable, abstracted forms that call into question our ability to materialise that which only exists in our minds.  

Installed high-up on the gallery wall of Allard’s exhibit, something between a photograph and a sculpture resembles a fleshy pair of ears, but they are abstracted beyond immediate recognition—it takes a moment for the viewer to grasp what they are looking at. The manipulated organs appear to be poised to listen to the hypothetical music of the stone xylophone below them, yet the room remains positively silent. 

Émilie Allard, “Morse,” 2023, in Point of Irony, Point of Organ, Centre Clark. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian.

The works seem to speak to the fallibility of memory—try remembering what a pair of ears looks like if you aren’t looking at one, or try remembering what a xylophone sounds like. What do you see in your mind’s eye? What do you hear? Is it, perhaps, an imperfect, abstracted version of the real thing? Allard’s work seems to seek out what is revealed to us when our minds attempt to piece together what something looks, feels or sounds like when we cannot immediately access it.

Similarly, Del Rosario’s sculptures harken back to the artist’s abstracted memories of her homeland of Batan in the Philippines. In a statement that accompanies the exhibit, Marissa Largo asks: “How does one return to a place that no longer exists?” This recalls the artist’s memory of a journey taken with her late father to a beach that she has not been able to locate since his passing. “Summoning Black Beach proposes an alternative way to return and to reconnect with that which has been lost,” Largo wrote.

Both Point of Irony, Point of Organ and Summoning Black Beach will be on view at Centre Clark through Nov. 25. A closing reception will be held on Nov. 21 at 6 pm, which will feature readings from the artists. 

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Arts Arts and Culture Culture Student Life

November films: What you may have missed and what’s coming up

Graphic by Caro DeFrias.

Did you manage to catch all the films screening on campus this month?

Many exciting films were screened on campus this month. Cinema Politica’s Montreal chapter, founded in 2004 at Concordia University, screened Labor (dir. Trove Pils, 2023), a Swedish film which explores sex work, sexual exploration and self discovery as protagonist Hanna moves to San Francisco on Nov. 6, and La bataille de La Plaine (The Battle of La Plaine, dir. Sandra Ach, Nicolas Burlaud and Thomas Hakenholz., 2021), a French documentary which follows the gentrification and resistance efforts of the district of La Plaine in Marseille, France, on Nov. 13. 

Concordia’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema screened Geographies of Solitude (dir. Jacquelyn Mills, 2022) on Nov. 10. Mills graduated from Concordia’s BFA program in 2008. Her film is a documentary about Sable Island and Zoe Lucas, the woman who has spent a large part of her life studying and documenting everything about it. Mill’s film is an immersion into this life and its landscapes.

One screening remains for November: The Society of the Spectacle (dir. Roxy Farhat and Göran Hugo Olsson, 2023). On Monday, Nov. 27 at 7 p.m., Cinema Politica will host the Montréal premiere the latest film from acclaimed Swedish director Göran Hugo Olsson and acclaimed artist Roxy Farhat. The film is an adaptation of Guy Debord’s prophetic 1967 essay La Société du Spectacle (translated as The Society of Spectacle), which is an indictment of the image-saturated consumer culture of his time. 

In this essay, Debord argues that representation has replaced authentic experience and interaction. The text analyses the concept of “spectacle,” which is Debord’s term for the everyday manifestation of capitalist-driven phenomena, which includes advertising, television, film and celebrity. Debord describes how spectacle functions to obfuscate the past and future into an undifferentiated mass, creating something of a hyper and perpetual present. Here, the spectacle is a social phenomenon where life recedes into a representation, which Debord describes as a “a separate pseudo-world that can only be looked at.” 

Six decades later, Olsson and Farhat utilise found footage, contemporary images and original scenes to examine and illustrate Debord’s indictment of consumerism and the ways the unending circulation of images impacts how we see ourselves and interact with each other. Images of the climate crisis and selfies are in dialogue with renowned scholars, as Olsson and Farhat unpack the society of the spectacle. 

Visit the Cinema Politica on Nov. 27 to witness Olsson and Farhat’s attempt at the daunting challenge of creating a film tackling a complex theory that critiques the notion of image itself. Cinema Politica asks that audiences wear a mask to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. 

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This article marks the start of a regular column at The Concordian, where I will round up films screening at and around Concordia. Stay tuned for December films coming in our next print issue.

Categories
Arts Arts and Culture Exhibit

The inimitable artwork of Marisol

Hans Namuth (1915-1990), Marisol, about 1960s. Marisol Papers, Buffalo AKG Art Museum. © 1991 Hans Namuth Estate. Courtesy of the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona

From her uncanny, colorful drawings to her abstract wooden sculptures, Marisol’s retrospective at the MMFA features the full breadth of the artist’s prolific career.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is currently hosting a retrospective exhibition on the life and work of artist Marisol Escobar, commonly known as Marisol. She was an important figure of the Pop Art movement in the 1960s. She was also a close friend and collaborator of Andy Warhol. 

Her nomadic lifestyle might explain why her work is so diversified. Born in Paris to Venezuelan parents, Marisol lived in New York for most of her life and traveled to various corners of the world—each new destination giving her art a new breath. She experimented with all types of mediums; her portfolio includes drawings, paintings, photography, and film, but her sculptures are her most distinguishable creations.  

John D. Schiff (1907-1976), Marisol with Dinner Date, 1963. Marisol Papers, Buffalo AKG Art Museum. © John D. Schiff, courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York

As a politically engaged feminist, Marisol’s art strongly reflected her convictions. In a similar manner as Frida Kahlo, Marisol often integrated her own face and body parts into her abstract wooden sculptures. Some recurrent themes in Marisol’s artwork are family, maternity, women’s place in society, political conflicts and even gender nonconformity, which was a cutting-edge topic for an artist born in 1930. 

Marisol (1930-2016), Thé pour trois, 1960. Buffalo AKG Art Museum, bequest of Marisol, 2016, 2018:16a-d. © Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum

The retrospective is separated into six galleries, each representing a phase in Marisol’s chronological artistic development. The entrance gallery displays her earlier work starting in the 1950s: mostly colorful drawings and paintings, some bronze sculptures and some small wooden sculptures. This period was during her twenties, when she was making connections with other young New York artists and experimenting with drugs, which is evident in the psychedelic appearance of many of the pieces she created at that time. 

View of the exhibition Marisol: A Retrospective. © Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo MMFA, Denis Farley.
Marisol (1930-2016), Face Behind a Mask, 1961. Abrams Family Collection. © Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo Bill Jacobson Studio

Moving into the second gallery, the viewers encounter more drawings and paintings that line the periphery of the space which is otherwise filled with popular sculptures Marisol made in the 1960s. Most are made of wood and stand taller than the average human. The collection includes two gigantic babies with wooden bodies and pencil-drawn faces, a boy sitting on a chair wearing Andy Warhol’s shoes, two naked cyclists and much more.

View of the exhibition Marisol: A Retrospective. © Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo MMFA, Denis Farley
Marisol (1930-2016), Baby Girl, 1963. Buffalo AKG Art Museum, gift of Seymour H. Knox, Jr., 1964, K1964:8. © Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum

The third gallery hosts some of Marisol’s most ambitious works, such as her piece The Party, which is made up of 15 life-size figures all dressed in gowns, a reflection of New York’s social scene in the mid-twentieth century. The works in this gallery also largely reflect Marisol’s concerns with the multifaceted nature of identity, as can be recognized in the many faces of her self-portraits.

View of the exhibition Marisol: A Retrospective. © Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo MMFA, Denis Farley
Marisol (1930-2016), The Party, 1965-1966. Toledo Museum of Art. Museum Purchase Fund, by exchange, 2005.42A-P. © Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Marisol (1930-2016), Self-Portrait, 1961-1962. Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, gift of Joseph and Jory Shapiro, 1992.66. © Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo © MCA Chicago, Nathan Keay

The fourth gallery displays Marisol’s work in the 1970s, when her popularity peaked. She started to take intensive diving lessons which inspired her to create pieces related to the underwater world and the ocean environment such as films, paintings of seascapes and a sculpture of a real-size fish-man. 

The Louis Falco Dance Company’s performance of Caviar, 1970. Décor and costumes by Marisol. Marisol Papers, Buffalo AKG Art Museum
View of the exhibition Marisol: A Retrospective. © Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo MMFA, Denis Farley

Moving on to the fifth gallery, the space is filled with creations Marisol made using different parts of her body: there is a painting she created by pressing herself onto the paper while soaked in ink, as well as some clay hands, arms, feet and faces. There is a shift here between her usual approach of abstracting the female body through wooden sculpture to abstracting it through impressions.

View of the exhibition Marisol: A Retrospective. © Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo MMFA, Denis Farley
Marisol (1930-2016), Diptych, 1971. Buffalo AKG Art Museum, gift of Mrs. George A. Forman, by exchange, 2022, 2022:4a-b. © Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Naturally, the final gallery features the work Marisol made toward the end of her life. In the 1980s and 90s, she continued to make political pieces. She created public monuments, which are mostly in Venezuela. 

Marisol (1930-2016), American Merchant Mariners’ Memorial, 1991. The Battery, Manhattan, New York. Colour photograph, from the Marisol Papers, Buffalo AKG Art Museum. © Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

She also met a shaman around that time and was deeply affected by this encounter, which inspired some paintings and sculptures that have a distinctly mystical quality to them. In the 2010s, she went back to colorful drawings, bringing her artistic journey full circle. She died in 2016, at age 86.

View of the exhibition Marisol: A Retrospective. © Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo MMFA, Denis Farley

Marisol’s retrospective will be on view at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts through Jan. 21, 2024.

Categories
Arts Arts and Culture Culture Student Life

Morocco and feminism embodied in a card game        

Donia Zahir of Darone working. Photo by Serena Abouljoud.

Two Moroccan artists share their journey through the production of a card game that transmits their culture and values.

This interview features the creators of Darone, Safae Mounsif, also known as, Sfiya, and Donia Zahir, discussing their production of a card game that offers a glimpse of Morocco through a feminist lens. The cards can be used to play any game, but they were originally inspired by the game Ronda. Learn more about their work at their website here or on their Instagram @darone.art.        

Serena Abouljoud: Let’s start from the beginning. How did the two of you meet? What made you want to start this project together?

Sfiya: So, I’m a visual artist and Donia is a web designer. We wanted to use our two skills to make a project from the beginning to the end and to share this experience together. We wanted to create a medium that will be different from a painting, something that will be more accessible to the user. In visual arts, you always have this distance between you and the artwork. You can’t always touch it or understand it. We wanted to remove this distance and use a medium that people can touch and that will create a kind of socialization. This is why we thought of a card game. People can touch it, use it, and play with it.

Donia Zahir: Before Darone, we worked a lot together, mainly on Sfiya’s projects. We worked a lot on her exposition “H’RIRA,” which was around the theme of Morocco, and one of her projects was a card from the card game Ronda. When I saw it, I felt something there, I had this image of when I was young and playing Ronda. Then at that moment, we were like, we should do a card game that represents the people from Morocco.

SA: Can you tell me more about the aspects of Morocco and the concepts that inspired this card game?

Sfiya: We got directly inspired by Ronda, which is very popular among Moroccans. Playing Ronda with the family and neighbors is something very important in our culture. In Morocco, you can’t just go karting or bowling, you have to create these activities within the house, and so cards are amazing for that since you have endless game options. We liked the idea of connecting this memory of us playing cards and revisiting it.

DZ: Ronda is actually a Spanish game, so there are a lot of white men and for me, that did not really represent our country or culture. We felt it was important to reproduce this card game using our own images of Morocco.

Sfiya: We kept the same symbols, but we replaced the old Spanish characters with Moroccan ones. We made a few changes to fit our values too. For example, this is a feminist card game—the most powerful card of the game is the queen. Our kings are babies, the children of the queens. All our knights are women with motorcycles. In Morocco, the only city where you see women riding motorcycles is Marrakesh. Each time we go there, we are just so fascinated. All these women were riding motorcycles, while still wearing their Djellabas and Kaftans. This is all coming from our version of Moroccan feminism.

DZ: We added symbols that would fit the concept of our collection too. The knives for example, are from Morocco. Our queens are also dancers. We wanted the cards to represent how we see our country every day and the power of feminists from Morocco. 

Sfiya: In Morocco, it’s called “shikhat” and up to now, they are very controversial figures because they were the first women to have a free relationship with their bodies. The first to think about politics, love, relationships and sexuality. They would sing and dance in front of a mixed audience, and they were often related to prostitution because of their relationship with their bodies. For us, they were icons, Moroccan feminists, which is why we wanted to have them as the queens of the game.

SA: Is there a piece that you are particularly proud of or that holds a lot of significance to you?

DZ: I feel like mine is the warrior on the bike with a knife, where she’s almost screaming. It’s a beautiful and powerful card. I think it’s one of our best ones.

Sfiya: For me, it’s the queen with the tea being poured on her. She looks very happy. Some people see something very sexual in it, but I don’t. When I was drawing it, I felt it represented freedom, the ability to dance and be a bit provocative. 

SA: How did you combine your artistic skills for this project?

DZ: At first, we disagreed about the style. Sfiya wanted something that looked like a painting, and I wanted something cleaner, more numeric, and refined. It was challenging for me to adapt to her style.

Sfiya: Yeah. For me, it was good exercise to try and get out of my comfort zone. Donia is also a graphic designer, so when she tells me that these colors won’t work, or comments on anything technical, I trust her opinion. We trust each other.

DZ: We did a lot of compromising as well. The first drawing Sfiya made, I redid it in a more comic-like style. I defined the lines a bit more, but she insisted I keep using painting brushes, so I tried following her style. It was hard not to have something completely clean. 

SA: Are your drawings mainly digital or did you implement other styles and techniques as well?

Sfiya: It’s all digital, but it somehow looks like a painting because I’m a painter. It was not even done on purpose, it’s just my way of doing digital art. We also wanted to make these cards different from other types of cards. We wanted them to be simple and clean, but also artsy so it won’t look too rigid as a drawing. I think the artistic brushes are what makes them unique.

Serena Abouljoud: What did the production process look like?

Sfiya: The process of creating the cards was very long. We went through two different phases. At first, Donia was waiting for me to finish the drawings, then I was waiting for her to finish the graphic design work, which is taking my drawings, framing them, and doing all the regulations.

DZ: I was in charge of the more technical aspects and printing related things. Our first tries were completely different from what we ended up producing. We changed the colors a lot. We started with lighter ones, then we decided to go with more powerful shades. It was difficult to find balance but once we found it, we immediately moved on to the production.

Sfiya: One of the most challenging parts of the production was trying to find a place to print the cards. We wanted to be ethical about it because it’s a project that meant a lot to us, we had many of our values injected into it, and so we wanted to be proud of not just our creation, but also the way we produced it.

DZ: After months and months of looking, we finally found someone. Our deck turned out a bit different because we did not use classic paper. We used a type of paper that does not exist in Canada but has much better quality.  

Sfiya: Yes, it’s better because it’s waterproof and you can’t tear it apart. We wanted it to be sustainable so that people can have it for years, and for kids to be able to play with it and manipulate it without being worried. We could have printed them in some place much cheaper, but we wanted to make sure we do it here to help local and family businesses, and with people we like and share the same values with.

SA: What is the meaning behind the name of your business?

DZ: We thought about it a lot. We wanted a name that is meaningful and shows that we are a feminist company. Darone is basically Ronda, the game we got inspired by, but in reverse. Darone is also a powerful way to say “the mother” in French: the mother of a family, a group, the boss of the house.

Sfiya: When you use the word “Darone,” it does not necessarily relate to having a child—it’s about being a powerful yet caring woman. In our card game, the queen is the most powerful figure, and the king is the child of the queen, which makes her a Darone.   

DZ: We talked about it a lot and in the end, we thought this was obviously the best name for the company and the concept in general. 

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