Week 19: February 10th
A February road trip, my undying love for the Concordia art programs, and Bois Magique #2
Welcome to Community Service, a biweekly newsletter featuring a curated selection of art and design events in Montreal. I hope everybody had fun at art week and that your sunburns aren’t too extreme (I’m endlessly jealous of you). We’re back to our regularly scheduled programming: this edition covers events happening during the middle of February.
Vernissage: I Am Really Alive
February 13th (6-9pm) - Espace Maurice
I Am Really Alive is a duo show featuring new works by Frances Williams and Jodi Heartz. I don’t have full details yet, but it will probably be weird in the best way.
Vernissage: Archives
February 14th (6-10pm) - L’Imagier (Gatineau)
I’m taking you on a Valentine’s road trip! L’Imagier is hosting its first edition of Archives, a recurring group show. The artworks displayed in the gallery space are anonymous, unsigned, and unidentified. Most of them are exhibited without the artists having the opportunity to modify or even view the final result. In other cases, they were selected directly from the participants' personal archives, revealing often unseen facets of daily life: intimate moments, instances of studio creation, travel memories, or simple urban wanderings.
The exhibition creates a reflective space where personal interpretations replace conventional contextualization, encouraging an aesthetic experience that is both intimate and collective.
Vernissage: Structures
February 14th (6-10pm) - L’Imagier (Gatineau)
While you’re there, be sure to check out Structures, a second show from Joss D’Alton, Leo Grenier, Charles Lebrun, and Vincent Roy, the artists behind last summer’s Motif, shown at Espace Loulou. Taking its name from the Primary Structures (1966) exhibition, the title of this show subtly rejects the primary aspect invoked by this seminal Minimal Art exhibition. Building upon the formal preoccupations developed in Motif, the artists’ work takes on a sculptural dimension, working through seriality and geometry to present a lyrical, even expressive, ensemble.
Launch: Pastiche
February 15th (7pm) - The Emerald
Pastiche is a new bilingual print publication publishing one story per issue. To celebrate their first issue, they’re bringing us to the Emerald for a night of jazz and readings featuring Kat Mulligan and Maïka Hebert (this edition’s published author). I love watching as the Montreal literary community grows <3
Open Studios: Concordia MFA
February 19th (6-9pm) - VA Building
It’s that time of the year again… Concordia MFA Open Studios! Head to the VA building to check out the works-in-progress of MA students in Fibres and Material Practices, Photography, Print Media, Sculpture and Ceramics, Painting and Drawing, and Intermedia. It’s also a great opportunity to ask them about their practice and research.
Finissage: Manifesting Gardens
February 20th (5-7pm) - Fofa Gallery
Manifesting Gardens is this year’s edition of USE, the annual Undergraduate Student Exhibition. The interdepartmental undertaking celebrates the talents of numerous creatives: visual artists, writers, designers and contemporary dancers. This year, the theme seeks to care for the voices and seeds of those digging out, imagining, manifesting, planting, and standing up for thriving futurities and freedoms. This exhibition is a reflection of our current times and our community and a platform for our students to cultivate their expression, their positions, their experiences, and hopes. It is fertile ground, a vehement ecosystem of voices, a garden to tend to and listen to.
Vernissage: Shtetl in the Sun
February 20th - The Museum of Jewish Montreal
Shtetl in the Sun lovingly captures the ferocious strangeness of this South Beach, Miami through the eyes of Andy Sweet, one of the most dynamic young American photographers of the late 1970s. Photographed between 1977 and 1980, Sweet’s work showcases a distinct aesthetic and cultural moment in South Beach.
The Museum of Jewish Montreal has put Shtetl in the Sun in conversation with the tongue-in-cheek sculptures of Canadian contemporary ceramicist Jonah Strub. Irreverent, extravagant, and kitsch, Strub’s figures appear to be taken straight from the candy-coloured scenes caught on film by Sweet. Together, the works highlight an emblematic and instantly recognizable North American Jewish phenomenon and figure – the Snowbird – whose vibrancy resonates across time, regions, and generations.
Vernissage: Being Constructiv
February 20th (5pm) - Galerie ERGA
Barry Allikas, Demetrios Papakostas, Bridgitte Radecki, and John Drew Monroe come together in “Being Constructiv”. Each imbues their work with deep conceptual realities through shape and colour. These works form a distinct visual narrative strengthened by the community in which these artists work. The constructivist and collaborative process of abstract art is alive and well, reinforcing the essentiality of community.
Vernissage: Bois Magique #2
February 22-23 (10am-10pm) - Espace Transmission
The second edition of Bois Magique is upon us! This time we’re at Espace Transmission with an impressive selection of works by 36 Montreal artists. The list is too long for me to write down, but you can find all their information on their instagram page. I can guarantee you won’t want to miss it.
If you have an art or design-related event you would like to include in future editions of the newsletter, you can send us an email at communityservmag@gmail.com
See you around.