Week 29: July 14th
Hot summer nights, mid July...
Welcome to Community Service, a biweekly newsletter featuring a curated selection of art and design events in Montreal. It’s officially the time of year that our lord and saviour Lana Del Rey sings about; “hot summer nights, mid July…” so enjoy it, go to the shows written about below, stay young, stay beautiful, be cringe on the internet. This edition covers events happening mid-July.
Vernissage: Fools for Truth
July 17th (4-7pm) - Pangée
Prompted by Hélène Cixous’ essay on drawing entitled Without end, no, State of Drawingness, no, rather: The Executioner’s Taking off, curators Delphine Hennelly and Grace Kalyta gathered artists whose work, though spanning multiple disciplines, operates through a model of drawing. Like sketches in flux, each contribution reflects a cyclical sense of time; perpetual, fluid and frenetic, yet, non-linear, resolute in frenzy. These are works that stand as monuments to survival: to the self that emerges at daybreak – unhinged, not unscathed, laid bare in the aftermath. Drawing here is both a material gesture and a conceptual anchor. Movement across the page becomes the key to what escapes us, allowing us to elude the contours that define us, the mark a navigational tool for coping with that which breaks us, torments us, and ultimately frees us from the paralysis of ineptitude.
Vernissage: Aujourd'hui je pleure parce que
July 17th (4-7pm) - Pangée
Curated by Jézabel Plamondon, Aujourd’hui je pleure parce que features 12 works ranging from sculpture, drawing, in situ installation to photography. The exhibition explores the distances that emerge when we question the act of crying: the distance between the person crying and the reason for their tears; the distance between the one who cries and the one who offers comfort; the distance between who we are in the midst of tears and who we are after the breakdown. The distance between the tears and what we make of them, the distance between the absent and their absence. The distance between the last tears and the next.
Event: Place Publique / Bodies at Play I
July 17th (4-10pm) - Fonderie Darling
The first evening of Place Publique kicks off the Bodies at Play performance series with an intervention-performance followed by a walk and an invitation to peel oranges with karen elaine spencer, as well as the launch of Private Life by Frances Adair McKenzie, published by Copy Shop Books.
The evening continues with performances by Alex Tatarsky and Gui B.B., who explore states of transformation of body and identity through clown procession, mutant drag, and swamp poetry — before concluding with an electrifying DJ set by Pretty Privilege.
Publication Launch: Needlebound Volume 2
July 17th (5-9pm) - Bar Wills
Needlebound is an independent publication about the online fibre arts community. The celebration for the launch of Volume 2 includes a pop up market featuring garments for sale by local artists and donuts by Beigne Habitude.
Vernissage: Open House
July 18th (6pm) - Carmine’s Room
Open House is a duo exhibition of new works by Paula McLean and Elise Boudreau Graham. The show explores the double act of staging, referring both to preparation of a home for viewing and the setting of a stage for theatre. The works borrow from domestic materials and postures to reflect on how living spaces might be orchestrated under the logics of speculation.
Vernissage: Nourrir la nostalgie
July 19th (3-5:30pm) - Galerie Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain
Bringing together the work of seven emerging artists, Nourrir la nostalgie explores the intimate connections between food, memory, and identity through the lenses of immigration, hospitality, and practices of care. It features a selection of works — ceramics, textile installations, photographs, and works on paper — that examines the emotional and political power of food in shaping personal and collective narratives.
During the opening on July 19, a buffet created by artist Madison Strizic will be served. Blending installation and performance, the act of preparing and sharing food becomes a concrete embodiment of the exhibition’s central themes.
Publication Launch: Carte Blanche Issue 51
July 22nd (6:30-9pm) - Rocket Science Room
Carte Blanche is releasing their 51st issue! To celebrate, head to the Rocket Science Room for an artist talk by Jem Woolidge as well as readings by Neil Smith, Maude Abouche, Willow Little, Jean-Guy Forget, D. M. Bradford and Dominique Russell.
Vernissage: Tangible
July 24th (5-8pm) - Galerie Erga
To give form is to question the way we inhabit our ideas. What remains abstract sometimes demands an anchor point: a surface to settle on, a density to experience, a space in which to become still. Matter then becomes that fragile place where gesture extends thought and the invisible takes shape. Tangible is the attempt to suspend the instant before it tips over, to fix movement in porous material, to hold on to what, by nature, slips away and unravels. A way to petrify momentum, to contain the ephemeral. Tangible is the echo of the inner stories of six ceramicists. Shattered landscapes, fragmented figures, pieces of memory trying to find structure. Six ceramicists give the invisible a form that can be touched. Tangible, finally, is the pleasure of the gesture, of forms that burst forth, twist, and escape. It is the contained impulse, the pulse of the living that we try, for a moment, to capture.
If you have an art or design-related event you would like to include in future editions of the newsletter, you can fill out this form or send us an email at communityservmag@gmail.com
Submissions for events happening between July 28th and August 10th are due no later than July 25th. Please note that we are now charging $25 for late submissions.
See you around.