particles of reality at dhc-art

At DHC-ART, the space is beautiful, entry is free, and the work high quality and thought-provoking. The current expo, Particles of Reality, by Israeli artist Michal Rovner, combines video, installation and sculpture.

I found the show beautiful, mysterious, intricately designed and socially relevant - a curious combination of abstract and real.

The first installation, Data Zone, consists of three large white tables imbedded with Petri dishes. The “cultures” are actually videos, where dark human figures, reduced and stripped of physical characteristics, resemble strings of bacteria. The figures/strings move in intricate patterns across an illuminated white field.

Each dish seemed to contain a kind of modern dance where I reveled in the beauty of the movement, and searched in vain for a narrative. Rovner is a trained dancer, and the choreography of her “data” is both mind-boggling (the complexity of the patterns suggest that they are created by computer programs) and meditative.

The human forms at the foundation of Rovner’s work are part of the exhibit. I was struck by the amount of humanity the anonymous figures retain when reduced from real life men and women with identifying characteristics.

These figures are superimposed (and always exquisitely lit) on stone sculpture, canvas, notebooks, and four floor-to-ceiling screens. While we don’t see people, the installations feel personal. The line between real and abstract is not clear.

The show also contains continuous screenings of Rovner’s more overtly political works, in which she creates large-scale installations, one on the border of Israel and Lebanon, and the other using 60 tons of white building stone from the remains of Palestinian and Israeli homes.

Particles of Reality ends this weekend. Hurry to see it before it goes.

Have you seen the show? Tell us what you think!

If you go…

451 Rue St-Jean, at St-Sacrement, M: Place d’Armes
Open W-F noon-7pm, Sat and Sun 11am-6pm

galerie maison kasini opens with installation

Art is food. Feed the people. This weekend, Galerie Maison Kasini, Montreal’s newest contemporary art gallery, gives sustenance to body, mind, and spirit at their grand opening in the Belgo Building.

Working backward:
Reception, Saturday 4-7pm in their new fourth floor space. Meet writer, artist, and gallery owner Ric Kasini Kadour and participating artists. Eat real food: fruit, chocolate, cheese, wine.

Get your aural fix, Saturday 3pm. Nicolas Dion, a.k.a. Darcin, will perform “X” - a sound performance that focuses on the manipulations of one toy instrument by one person and one computer.

Graze, Saturday 2pm. “Commencement” expo and ARTSHOP open. Visual artists include wood sculptor Clement Yeh, collage artist Karen Geiger, jazz-inspired abstract painter Lois Eby.  ARTSHOP sells monographs, chapbooks, small one-of-a-kind works, multiples, and other creative endeavors by contemporary working artists.

Saturday, noon. Feast on the gallery’s temporary proportions, newly wrapped in brown paper by performance artist Emma Waltraud Howes.

Friday 11am-6pm, watch Howes, an interdisciplinary artist who has performed and exhibited internationally, as she stretches and affixes brown paper throughout the gallery to create new walls and redefine the space.

If you go:
372 Ste Catherine Ouest, Suite 408

muvbox - a design-friendly, affordable lunch spot

Leave it to design-friendly Montreal to combine green technology with scenic vistas and affordable food.

Muvbox, a new take-out restaurant in Vieux Montreal, is a 20-foot shipping container by night and a solar powered boîte serving clam chowder, pizza, and lobster from the Magdalen Islands by day.

I arrived just before noon on a Wed, at the recommendation of a friend - knowing nothing about the design, but eager to try a lobster roll that cost less than $10.

It was a sunny day with a delicious breeze coming off the water, and the place was hopping: the shaded deck was full, half a dozen people waited in line on the building’s north side, and red-aproned staff moved quickly and efficiently at the heart of the miniscule space.

My lobster roll came in a paper box, in keeping with the box theme. The split hot dog roll was nicely toasted, making a warm shell for chunks of claw meat with slivers of celery and bound by a little mayo. The most popular meal was the special - clam chowder, lobster roll, chips and a drink for $14.95.

My friend pronounced the Margherita Pizza ($5.95) delicious and a good value. (The resto’s founder, Daniel Noiseux, brought the wood-fired oven to Montreal 25 years ago.)

Located on the quai next to La Maison des Eclusiers, the minimalist structure looks onto a gorgeous view. And at night, the restaurant itself adds to the scenery. Painted black, white and red, with giant lobsters on the end, the box has awnings that retract and sides that fold up to enclose kitchen and deck.

If you go:
Muvbox is located at the corner of McGill and rue de la Commune
Open from 11:30 am to 7:30 pm, weather permitting

old books for new times at l’insoumise

What I liked most at L’Insoumise, the Latin Quarter anarchist bookstore, was at the back. An Emma Goldman poster the size of a decent TV screen said: “I want freedom, the right to self-expression; everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things.”

Nearby, a mother defined anarchism to her teen-aged daughter. “It’s craziness! Chaos! Everybody running around with their hands in the air!”

So which is it - freedom or lawlessness? utopia or disorder?

L’Insoumise, an anarchist bookstore, library and independent media center, does a great job addressing the topic’s two sides. The mission of this sliver of a space (L’Insoumise means unsubdued, or rebellious) is to make anarchist information available.

The shop’s most popular section is Marxist writings. Art and fiction, with Camus and Orwell among the favorites, is also much visited. Half of the books are in French, half in English, most are used.

There are sections dedicated to classics, poetry, drama, theater, contemporary anarchists, the history of anarchism, feminism, green architecture, animal liberation, Chomsky on foreign policy, surrealism, psychology, children.

They sell pamplets, magazines and newspapers, as well.

Booksellers are friendly and knowledgeable - and impeccably organized. Not far from the mother/daughter duo, an employee made his way through the section on the Spanish Civil war - lining the book spines up evenly with the edge of the wooden shelf.

Have you been to L’Insoumise?  Purchased books or attended events there?  Share your experience.

If you go:
2033 Blvd St-Laurent
(514) 313-3489