Monday, April 25, 2011

Papier 11 in Pictures (Plus a Few Just MTL-Related Snaps)

My Papier 11 roundup last week compiled some of my thoughts on the annual Montreal works-on-paper fair. (In a nutshell: I'd love to see Toronto adopt some of Papier's strategies, like free admission, a nice tent setup and an outdoor kiosk component. But is this actually possible, like ever? Given Toronto's general citywide prediliction to unaffordability? Dunno.)

Anyway, to flesh that out a bit, I'm posting some images of some things I enjoyed at Papier 11—this is a far from comprehensive attempt, but hopefully helpful to those who didn't get to drop by at all. Also included at the end are some things I found interesting in Montreal beyond of the fair. So without further ado:

Here's some of the outdoor kiosks that were out on the sidewalk in advance of and during the fair. They featured reproductions of select works at the fair. I would love to see something like this at a Toronto fair reaching out to a public audience.



More outdoor kiosks. It's worth noting they could be a bit better constructed; bottom edges were cracking apart by Sunday.


A view of the fair's tent from the kiosks.


One entrance to the tent (there were two in total). I liked the reinforcement of the paper theme in the entrance design.


This was in my last post: part of Adrian Norvid's large drawing at Galerie Joyce Yahouda. Apparently it is to be part of an upcoming public art project in Montreal called Metro Lines, curated by Renee Baert.


The Papirmasse wall at Maison Kasini's booth. If you subscribe to Papirmasse, you get art like this in the mail for just $5 a month.


Jon Rafman's Matisse David - this isn't the exact image that was printed for the fair, but you get the idea: one sculptural or architectural icon wrapped in the "wallpaper" of another iconic artist or graphic. All done digitally as part of his Brand New Paint Job project. At Art 45's booth.


Patrick Lundeen's faces made out of Mad-Magazine back-page fold-ins at Galerie Push.


I should know what these are/who made them/where they were, but I don't. Feel free to chime in! They are basically lotus flowers that look like they're floating in cardboard boxes.


Unique foldout books of drawings by Mauricio Limon at Laroche/Joncas.


One of many spraypaint-on-art-poster works by Mathieu Lefevre at Galerie Division's booth.


A very small, 3-inch-wide drawing by Kelly Wallace at Michael Gibson Gallery. He had a lot of big drawings with similar themes, but I really preferred the small ones.


Self-explanatory... well, almost: Micah Lexier's I Am the Only Micah Lexier at Birch Libralato's booth. The formula for this one was that the word for row 1 could only be 1 letter long, the word for row 2, 2 letters, etc.


Some members of the group En Masse continue their collaborative drawings on canvas at Galerie Pangée's booth.


And... the official Papier 11 washroom trailer!

Like I said previously, this a far from comprehensive look at the fair. I also really enjoyed Marion Wagschal at Battat Contemporary, Nadia Myre's beadwork photos at Art Mur, and Landon MacKenzie's watercolours at Art 45, the Chih-Chien Wang focus at Pierre-Francois Ouellette, Shuvinai Ashoona at Feheley Fine Arts, Stephen Andrews' prints at Paul Petro, Nadia Moss' Balint Zsako-esque drawings at Galerie Push, Jocelyn Philibert's photos at Galerie [SAS], Maclean's ART/ARRET interventions and Michael Merrill's drawings at Galerie Roger Bellemare, the big print names like Karel Appel at Jean-Claude Bergeron, Mark Igloliorte's diptychs and Jerome Ruby's crazy drawings at Galerie Donald Browne, Jamie Angelopoulos' big drawings, Susi Brister's photos and Valerie Blass' collaborative collages at Parisian Laundry, the Carl Beam–dedicated booth at Art Kanata, and last but not least Michel Campeau's darkroom photos and book at Galerie Simon Blais. I couldn't believe I had never seen the Campeaus before.

On a purely Montreal note, here's a few more pictures from my visit to the city:

A Bill 101 protest at the McGill campus gates. I was surprised such a protest still existed given it's been some 34 years since the bill was passed.

Military/paramilitary folks kitty corner to the Bill 101 protest. (There was also a long line of police cars at the ready, which is what attracted my attention in the first place.)


What's a better advertisement for a jazz bar than... a somewhat grubby Panda Band diorama? I can't think of one.

Only in Montreal? Fromage graffiti.

Finally, a little public-art witticism. This Duchampian bicycle wheel contraption was locked up to various bike-rack-type environs during the couple of days I was in La Belle Ville.

4 comments:

eunicebee said...

Very Well written. I have worked for Papier 10 last year and I enjoyed being hands-on at that event. Nice Montreal highlights; as a pure Montrealer I sometimes overlook these details!

Leah Sandals said...

Thanks Eunice! Now I'm wondering what you did at Papier 10 and what you enjoyed about it.

(On the Montreal details I hear you... I tend not to see things particular to my own city after a while...)

James Fowler Art said...

Great coverage Leah! I must retweet. love the Duchamp lockup. Made me smile. I'm enticed to go next year. Cheers!

Leah Sandals said...

Thanks James! I'm interested to see what they do next year too.