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May 6, 2009

Montreal Biennale celebrates 'Open Culture'

By STEVEN HOWELL

MONTREAL — Endless artists. Six venues. Two years. One Biennale.

The artistic month of May belongs to the sixth Montreal Biennale. Since 1998, the event has provided an eclectic array of fun artistic endeavors. With creative displays of film, photographs, installations and music, this year is no exception.

The main site hosting the event, Ecole Bourget — a former public city school in the middle of downtown — makes for an inspirational space of playful artistic learning. There are a dozen-plus works distributed among three floors of classrooms.

Employing a theme called "Open Culture" in this elementary classroom setting, the Montreal Biennale could equally be dubbed "share and share alike."

"The 'Open Culture' theme evolves as everyone uses it and contributes to it," said cultural mediator/guide Louis Versailles.

The concept, he said, is particularly prolific in this age of digital software sharing.

"It's the idea that everyone has access to it as long as it's put back into the community for all to use."

SCREENED SIDE BY SIDE
A number of installations strongly support the "Open Culture" concept.

In "Soundscapes," curated by Claudio Marzano and Scott Clyke, a painting inspires a composer, who in turn inspires other artists and even more composers to add to the original work of art. Got it?

The painting is Rick Leong's mystical abstract "Dancing Serpent in Dawn's Quiet," a 2006 oil that is part of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts permanent collection. With that inspiration, composer David Ryshpan created a soundtrack using open software-style music compositions available free over the Internet. In turn, more composers were invited to add to the original composition. The remixes can be heard online, and it all will culminate with a CD launch and evening of DJ performances at Sala Rossa May 23.

Meanwhile, video artist Perry Bard invites Internet users to co-edit "Man with a Movie Camera: The Global Remake," her installation based on the 1929 Russian documentary film masterpiece "Man with a Movie Camera" by Dziga Vertov. The original documentary is paired with the newer edited creations, which are then screened side by side. You can add your own cinematic collaboration at http://dziga.perrybard.net.

OBSESSIVE ART
Artist Daniel Jolliffe asks guests to leave a 60-second message of whatever they wish on an answering machine. You can eavesdrop to hear what has already been left — everything from May Day well wishes to a lover's lament to Molly. But Jolliffe also occasionally rides about town and plays back the messages to the community at large on a contraption that combines bicycle, mini-trailer and speaker. Add your own message at www.onefreeminute.net.

Artist Stefan Stagmeister employed student artists to convey his message of obsession. His mantra is: "Obsessions are helpful professionally and inane privately." The artists use a variety of objects to interpret their own obsessions and spell out the aforementioned sentence using ladies lingerie, human hair, signs placed on escalator steps and bamboo skewers and toothpicks — 15,500 skewers and 73,600 toothpicks in all.

"Shopdropping" aims to add a little art to the monotony of grocery shopping while portraying the antithesis of shoplifting. Here, artists attach miniature works of art, placing them directly over existing product labels on a variety of canned goods. The Montreal market seems to enjoy an affinity for Clark brand maple-flavored baked beans, but any product will do. Organizers encourage comments if you find a shopdropped product at www.shopdroppingmontreal.org.

IMPROVISATION
Then Brazilian artist Cao Guimaraes shows how folks make do with found items to create, fix or improvise on an existing object. His "Gambiarras" photo series depicts the likes of a napkin- and newspaper-turned sunshade, a slice of red and blue electrical tape that tells a bathroom user which faucet is hot and which cold, and PVC piping and what looks like a wooden spatula that are magically transformed into a toilet-paper holder.

Other venues, including Sala Rossa, Maison de la Culture Marie-Uguay and Cinematheque Quebecoise, host a number of special events such as seminars, music performances, film screenings and other artist projects.

The Montreal Biennale continues through May 31.

Ecole Bourget is at 1230 Rue de la Montagne, downtown (metro stations Peel or Guy-Concordia). Admission costs $5 for adults and is free for children 12 and under. Hours are daily from noon to 6 p.m. For more information, a full schedule of activities and other venue addresses, call (514) 288-0811 or visit www.biennalemontreal.org.

E-mail Steven Howell at: writeonbetty@sympatico.ca

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