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Catherine Bolduc?s South Talpatti en l?vitation au-dessus des Sundarbans, digital print and paints. (Courtesy of Galerie SAS)
MONTREAL - It?s an art exhibition without images or objects, or even explanatory texts on the wall. What the Mus?e d?art contemporain is showing in its entry hall and in a small gallery upstairs are human interactions, one of them a soundless choreography of slow-motion kisses from art history and the other a salon in which ideas are explored by a group of academics and thinkers.
Tino Sehgal, a British artist with a background in dance and political economics, sees the art museum as complicit in the excessive proliferation of goods in our society.
?The question of my generation,? writes the artist, who was born in 1976, ?is that the way we produce nowadays ... is not going to be able to persist, and we are going to be measured against the question of how we are able to adjust to that.?
The salon, called The Situation, takes place in a bare-walls gallery. Six casually dressed academics ? philosophers, historians of science or literature ? are positioned around the edges of the room so that visitors entering the room are immediately part of the group. They interrupt their conversation to greet each visitor in unison: ?Welcome to The Situation.?
Then, one will say in English, ?In 1670 (or another date), somebody said ... ? and quote a passage from the writings of, for example, John Locke. There is a pause, and somebody will comment. The discussion continues, with pauses between speakers. They speak in English and French, adjusting to what they perceive as the language of the visitors, and at some point, one will ask a visitor, ?What do you think?? It?s all very civilized and respectful, the exact opposite of arguing from defended positions.
When one discussion ends, the academics move to new positions, taking up new poses: some stand, some sit on the floor; one or two will stretch out as if in a park. It draws from the tradition of philosophy clubs and salons, curator Lesley Johnstone said.
It goes back to ancient Athens, added Asad Raza, who described himself as Sehgal?s producer. But it?s not a performance. ?There?s no script,? he said in an interview. ?It?s an attempt to put an intelligent conversation on display, instead of a recording of one.?
Visitors are part of the work and their participation can fundamentally alter it, Reza said.
The museum acquired the work for its permanent collection in an oral negotiation that ended with handshakes. Lawyers took notes, but there was no written contract.
?The work exists as an archive of human relationships between human beings,? Reza said. It needs just one person involved in a previous exhibition to put it on again. It could last forever, ?but if it doesn?t get used, the piece will disappear.?
?We want to represent the work to keep it alive,? Johnstone hastened to add. ?We will think of ways to keep it alive as an oral tradition.?
So what is one to think about art that consists of people talking? Johnstone writes that The Situation is ?a crystallization of the art experience, which for Sehgal entails a direct engagement between visitors and ?players? in carefully choreographed situations.?
It?s exciting to think of art as basic to daily life. The best artists today engage with the world and spark insights into how to address the challenges that humanity faces. Sehgal has reinvented the Greek school to include everyone.
Tino Sehgal continues until April 28 at the Mus?e d?art contemporain de Montr?al, 185 Ste. Catherine St. W. Information: macm.org
Somewhere between the world of ideas and the material one is the world that is virtual until a printer churns it into the physical world. Pierre-Yves Girard?s genius is to make material objects ? oil paintings ? that look like creations of the virtual world of digital rendering. His paintings are now on display at Galerie D?Este. Many of them are abstract, but the ones that hint at landscape seem more solid.
Girard thins his oil paints to the consistency of ink and then manipulates them on the canvas with tools ranging from compressed air to squeegees and neon tubes. Many digital images contain replicated forms, and Girard is obsessive with his repetitions.
Pierre-Yves Girard: Le palabre des lames continues to April 14 at Galerie D?Este, 1329 Greene Ave. Information: galeriedeste.com
There are only a few more days to catch an engrossing exhibition of works that refer to landscape as ?elsewhere.? Catherine Bolduc curated Ailleurs, choosing five artists who approach landscape as a space open to all possibilities. The artists she chose ?have a distinct manner to transport the person willing to take the trip to elsewhere,? she writes.
Bolduc?s own contribution is an installation about an island that disappeared, perhaps because climate change is raising ocean levels, but its disappearance removed a piece of land contested by India and Bangladesh.
Ailleurs continues to Thursday at Galerie SAS, Suite 416, 373 Ste. Catherine St. W. Information: galeriesas.com
john.o.pohl@gmail.com
? Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
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