The Contemporary Art Galleries Association (AGAC) will hold the 12^th Papier Art Fair from April 25 to 28, 2019 at the Port of Montréal’s Grand Quay. This new location will accommodate a greater number of visitors. For the first time, Papier will not be an exclusively on-paper exhibit. The fair is branching out into other mediums to pursue its mission to democratize contemporary art. TV host Vanessa Pilon, a contemporary art lover, is proud to be a spokesperson for the event once again this year. We met with her.

Why did you agree to become a spokesperson for Papier?

I have been a big contemporary art lover for several years after a friend introduced me to it. I loved going to museums when I was travelling, but I felt like I couldn’t fully understand the works. When I went to Papier a few years ago, I realized that contemporary art is more accessible than I thought. My confidence grew, and I started going back every year. Then I bought my first piece, within my budget. Since then, my interest has only grown.

What is unique about this 12^th edition?

This year, Papier is being held at the Port of Montréal’s Grand Quay. It is full of light and much bigger than previous locations. It is also ideally located in the heart of Montréal. This means the fair will reach both local art lovers and visitors. This year, the event will show mediums other than paper (paintings, sculptures, installations and more), although works on paper will still be the focus. This will provide an overview of what is happening in contemporary art in Canada and help the fair achieve its mission, which is to make contemporary art accessible to as many people as possible.

Workshops will be offered for adults and for children. Can you tell us more?

Papier attracts a lot of families because of its friendly atmosphere. That’s why Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, co-spokesperson for Papier, used his foundation to develop fun workshops that introduce children to art. There are also expert-led round tables for adults. All of these activities are included in the admission fee ($10) but it’s best to reserve for the children’s workshops, because space is limited.

Tell us about your collection. Which artists speak to you?

Without naming names, I would say that I’m particularly fond of female artists with a strong message. A collection is a way to express your values and show what issues matter to you. By gathering works in my home, I feel like I’m building a family. The pieces speak to each other, and they can give us a sense of the personality of the person who brought them together.

April 26 to 28, 2019 at the Port of Montréal’s Grand Quay, 200 de la Commune St. W.

www.papiermontreal.com

Text: Diane Stehle
Photos: © Émilie Hébert – © Jean-Michael Seminaro

The Ballets Jazz de Montréal (BJM) returns to the stage at Théâtre Maisonneuve with six performances of the show inspired by the remarkable music of Leonard Cohen: Dance Me. A co-presentation with Danse Danse, the show runs from March 14 to 23, 2019. Since it premiered in December 2017 at Place des Arts, Dance Me has been a resounding success wherever it has been performed. It will be performed 80 times in Canada, the United States, Europe and China by the end of the season. A conversation with François Vaqué, president of the BJM Board of Directors.

Approved by Leonard Cohen before his death, and under the artistic direction of Louis Robitaille and the dramaturgy and stage direction of Eric Jean, Dance Me/Leonard Cohen combines modern dance, music, videos and lights to pay homage to one of Montréal’s greatest singer-songwriters. “With this show, BJM presents choreography worthy of the world’s biggest theatres. We will perform in more than 80 prestigious theatres, including the Théâtre desChamps-Élysées in Paris,” François Vaqué proudly explains.

Three internationally renowned choreographers were entrusted with interpreting Leonard Cohen’s music: Andonis Foniadakis, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Ihsan Rustem. They have created a deep and powerful universe reflective of Cohen’s work, brought to life by 14 of the company’s performing artists. “Dance Me/Leonard Cohen is accessible to everyone, from ballet jazz aficionados to those who are new to dance,” adds François Vaqué.

The show will also be broadcast on screens in performance and movie theatres in more than 40 cities across Quebec on Sunday, March 24.

Revival for the BJM

With Dance Me/Leonard Cohen, the BJM has begun a transition that François Vaqué hopes to pursue. “In the future, we hope to continue developing promising projects like this one that democratize dance and draw larger audiences. We have another show in the works, which will be revealed shortly.”He adds, “Just a few years ago, we were reliant on government subsidies for about 70% of our funding. Today, we’re moving toward a financial model that relies on around 70% independent funding; the rest is from private financing and government subsidies. Our shows are more expensive, but they are building blocks. This is how we will make our major projects happen,” he concludes.

Text: Diane Stehle
Photos: Céline Cassone and Alexander Hille © Marc Montplaisir – All artists © Thierry Du Bois – Cosmos Image

Gerri Davis is a painter, but NASA could almost have used her as a scientist. Her paintings are incredibly cool and challenging; they are pushing the boundaries in their field. An afternoon in the studio, going over the works for her upcoming show at Le Salon H, led to an interesting discussion.

Your work features amazing close-ups, where things are dramatically enlarged. But you also paint epic compositions, where things are actually smaller than in reality. Could you talk about your relationship to scale?

The world you see around this magazine that you are holding: the room, the lights, your body, a table perhaps, is actually an enormous view. I’m interested in squeezing that enormity into the confines of the rectangular, two-dimensional frame of a painting. Maximizing the relationship in scale between two things can cause one thing to feel much closer and the other much farther away, so it’s a natural by-product of my attempts to compress more into the frame than should logically fit into the confines of a little square on the wall.

Your paintings often seem to subvert gravity; how did you arrive at that way of looking at the world?

I grew up in a NASA neighbourhood filled with astronauts, so gravity was never something I took for granted. Later, I trained as an architect. The systems of representation used in that field allow points of view to be anywhere from underneath to overhead—underground to aerial. This caused me to become acclimated to abnormal vantages. In my work, being a pair of eyes 5’2” above the floor is not a given.

It seems that you pick up the exploration of the laws of optics where the Renaissance masters left off. Your paintings explore playfully and very daringly the meaning of these laws when it comes to representing the world we see.

As a way of exploring the fullness of perception, I devise ways to paint time that often upend the optical rules. This hopefully incites new ways of seeing that we may take with us into the world and that heighten our appreciation for temporal aspects of our biological field of view we might sometimes take for granted.

You experiment with all sorts of approaches to portrayal, by painting… yourself! Are you your easiest model?

I suppose anytime a painter prepares to paint, there is also a model preparing to be mostly motionless for some extended time. When painter and model are combined, there is a synchronized dedication between subject and artist. Additionally, the depiction of a face absorbed in the act of study invokes an unselfconscious expression. The blankness with which we approach our phones reminds me of that openness. I’m working on a series of paintings that explore that ubiquitous blank stare into a glowing monitor.

Regarding self-portraiture, what really interests me about painting my reflection is the juxtaposition of various iterations of a face over time—how each portrait represents the intersection of a complex relationship between internal psychological and external physical landscape, and the interpretive mechanism driving the experience of making the painting. This varying interplay produces a series of paintings of one person that appear as if they could be many people. It’s possible our identities are not as easily defined as we like to think.

www.gerridavis.net

Text: Barbara Stehle
Photos: Wetted Desert, 2018. Oil on linen, 127 x 190.5 cm. Private collection, Beverly Hills, CA. © Courtesy of the artist
Portrait in the Studio in front of The Dance (in progress). © Claudia Hehr, 2012
Bather II, 2015. Oil on canvas, 152.4 x 168 cm. Private collection, Milan, Italy. © Courtesy of the artist