MONTREAL.- The Musée will be literally electrified this fall by the exhibition Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967. Montréal will be the only Canadian stop for the show, which will run from October 10, 2008 to January 11, 2009.
Organized by Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Sympathy for the Devil examines the history of the relationship between avant-garde art and rock music over the past forty years. From Andy Warhol’s legendary involvement with The Velvet Underground in New York to its London equivalent with Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton and The Beatles, and culminating in new works by artists such as Douglas Gordon, Jim Lambie, Robert Longo, Christian Marclay, Jason Rhoades, Pipilotti Rist and Rirkrit Tiravanija, Sympathy for the Devil is the most comprehensive presentation of work arising from the intersection of these two cultural entities. The exhibition comprises over 100 works (installations, sculptures, paintings, drawings, videos, photographs) created by sixty artists and groups, subdivided into six themes corresponding to the music scenes in New York, the U.K., Continental Europe, the West Coast (particularly Los Angeles), the U.S. Midwest and the rest of the world. The title is borrowed from the eponymous Rolling Stones song.
Also coming this fall is the exhibition Lynne Marsh, organized by the Musée d’art contemporain and the Musée régional de Rimouski, and scheduled to run from November 6, 2008 to February 8, 2009. The show features three major video installations by this Canadian artist who divides her time between London and Berlin: Camera Opera (2008), Stadium (2008) and Ballroom (2004). The three works form a highly coherent grouping that explores the inscription of the body in strictly codified architectural environments, and of the feminine within theatrical and performative spaces, as well as the blurred boundaries between real and virtual, physical and fantastic.
The Collection will be highlighted in a new theme-based exhibition devoted to landscape, which will open November 6, 2008 and continue through to January 4, 2009. Entitled Ideas of Landscape/Landscape of Ideas 2 and containing over twenty works—paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs and installations—by Patrick Coutu, Jérôme Fortin, Pierre Dorion, Charles Gagnon, Christiane Gauthier, Laurie Walker, General Idea, Stephen Schofield, Guillermo Kuitca, Jack Goldstein and Daniel Buren, among others, the exhibition explores the figurative or abstract landscape, the passage of time and the cycle of life.
In addition, from October 9 to 19, 2008, the Musée will host an exhibition of the works of semi-finalists and winners in the 10th Annual RBC Canadian Painting Competition. The main objective of this competition is to encourage emerging Canadian talents and highlight the contributions made by promising painters to our society’s cultural vitality.
The Projections Series will provide the first Canadian showcase for the work of Mariana Vassileva from October 24, 2008 to January 11, 2009. It will present recent videos, including Jumping Man, Tango and Toro, in which Vassileva looks at solitude as a phenomenon. Employing a minimalist approach and simple, poetic images, she draws viewers into a meditative state. The Bulgarian-born artist lives and works in Berlin.
Finally, the Musée Nocturnes resume on Friday, September 5 with the group Beast, an experimental union between the powerful, sensual voice of Béatrice Bonifassi (the unforgettable Betty of Les Triplettes de Belleville) and the music of legendary drummer/composer Jean-Phi Goncalves. The first Friday of every month, the museum is open for this unique Montréal event: entertaining evenings, from 5 to 9 p.m., with live music performances, bar service and visits to all the exhibition galleries.
