Beauty plus pity

Thursday night: a bazillion degrees below zero and hot hot hot for contemporary art in Montreal.

First, I took a quick peek in on the Duke and Battersby talk at the VAV Gallery. The couple introduced their latest work, screening a video from their recent installation at Toronto's Power Plant. The video was about God and how he's going a little crazy and that the animal world are really pissed off at him and maybe we should be too. Aside from the artists I saw no one I needed to know there, unless I need a keffiyeh wrapping lesson from one of the Urban Outfitters frequent flyers in the primarily student audience.


Around the corner at one of Concordia University's 'other' galleries was Hair Follies curated by Leisure Projects. The vernissage was filled to the brim with the rosy cheeked anglophone half of the arts scene. The Leisure ladies, Meredith Carruthers and Susannah Wesley, stylish as always, floated through their exhibition, a tangle of hair related works of art. I spotted the towering Jon Knowles peering down at the fab stylings of Bernard Perreault a late-mid-century stylist that would make any earth girl swoon. MACM curator (and Leisure beau) Marc Lancot was there, off hours of course with a bit of vino in hand. The exhibition also features the dreamy AGAC director and exhibiting artist Mathieu Gauvin. The visiting members of the Icelandic Love Corporation were spotted taking in the whole hairy mess of it all.

Hair today gone tomorrow! I slipped out, down to the metro and across down to the Wim ' The Belgium Stallion' Delvoye vernissage at Gallery UQAM. Famished and hearing that there was a feast prepared by artists Valérie Blass + Anthony Burnham, Sylvie Cotton, and Stephen Schofield, I bounced past Olivia Boudreau's show in the second space and down into the carpeted sub-basement of UQAM. The food in front of me was delectable, yet when I reached towards one of Sylive Cotton's loafs, a gallery assistant slapped my hand away, the food was not for the guests it was for the host – Delvoye's caca producing Cloaca machine. No worries I was handed an invitation to the private reception. If the gilded caca god was paid such respect, a social of my standing would surely be dinning like Antoinette. I arrived at the small bar around the corner (size is proportionate to exclusivity, the smaller the better in this case), not letting the fact that I had to hang my own coat up ruin my night, I headed to the bar for my free drink, upon receiving my wine I was asked to pay! I had a bill to break any way, but take note Montreal - in this little girl's world a ticket entails a drink or two. To the end of the room I spotted the spread... à-la-provigo, black plastic trays with tuna on crackers, I guess we the scene (it only takes one) are playing second fiddle to the shit machine tonight. Really, the most delicious thing there was Delvoye's girlfriend's Chanel purse. Here I was immersed in the other side of Montreal, the UQAM scene. Esse magazine subscribers abound. I did see the bigger is better dealer Donald Browne surveying the room. Another vertically gifted member of the scene Thierry Marceau was seated most of the time. Painter Wil Murray was there, skull, cross bones, and hair (Wil we missed you at the Hair Folies show!). Our favorite snob Adrian Norvid humored the whole fiasco. Marc-Antoine K. Phaneuf, the Martin Picard of contemporary art, had no problem paying for his wine. Despite a few culinary and beverage misteps, UQAM Gallery curator Louise Dery, if you're reading this: you are an absolutely fab host!!!


Rumor had it that the studly DHC/ART tech crew, were throwing a little “power drill” of their own that night. Suitably motivated I put heel to ice and headed north of the 60th parallel (Ave. Van Horne) to the untamed industrial hinterland of Beaubien Village.

Much mmmmMuah!!!
Mandy Bubbles