In Of Montreal, Robert Everett-Green writes weekly about the people, places and events that make Montreal a distinctive cultural capital.
Belgian curator Philippe Pirotte is fond of happy accidents, as he said more than once during a lunch presentation on Wednesday about his concept for the forthcoming Biennale de Montreal. One such lucky break was the room in which he spoke, in a striking new centre for art that will be ready to open to the public on the Biennale’s first day of activity, Oct. 19.
The private, not-for-profit centre is called Le Livart, and it occupies a disused presbytery and convent next to the former shrine of the Saint Jude Oratory, on St. Denis Street. The Livart buildings, like the church itself, were sold by the Dominicans in 2007, and have been redeveloped as places for making, displaying and learning about art.
The presbytery’s severe and elegant stone front, as well as much of the interior structure, are still close to what was designed for the site in 1933 by Edward J. Turcotte, whose main clients were religious orders.
The entire main floor, however, has been converted by the young Montreal architectural firm La Shed into a white box of many compartments, joined by doorways lined with mirrors. Almost everything, from floor to ceiling, has been painted chalk white, including some of the original wooden panelling. One series of small rooms bisected by a row of doorways even includes what was obviously a tiled bathroom, where a soap dish and toilet-paper dispenser are still inset into the walls.
The result is a tabula rasa that is also a memory space, filled with clues to the building’s original role as an intimate functional retreat from the big devotional space next door. Linking the main-floor spaces with open passageways was part of La Shed’s response to its clients’ desire for a facility that would open itself to all.
Cindy Tessier-Trudeau and Marc O’Brien-Miro, a couple in life as well as partners in this Livart project, say they were steered toward the idea of an art centre in part by their encounters with painter Sylvain Tremblay, who began using the space as a studio four years ago. The energy of his process, they say, showed them the potential for a space animated by creation and community, on a street that some feel has lost its identity.
“We want people to feel welcome here,” Tessier-Trudeau said. “If they want to sit on the terrace and drink coffee, that’s okay.”
The basement houses a kitchen and another white room where art classes have already begun, as well as a large, multi-purpose black box. At the rear of the main floor, a lofty display hall leads to an interior court suitable for fair-weather film screenings. The 13 artists’ studios are located upstairs and in the connected monastery, designed in 1964 in utilitarian fashion by Yves Bélanger, who also created an imposing centre for the Dominicans in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges district.
The Dominicans’ plan for the St. Jude church and presbytery, once they could no longer maintain it, was to sell the complex for demolition and new development – a scheme that was rejected by heritage authorities. I can’t imagine that the friars are happy about the accidents of fate that transformed their shrine into a hedonistic spa and fitness centre (designed in 2013 by Thomas Balaban), where the building’s original purpose is referenced by cross-shaped benches in the changing rooms.
This year’s Biennale, the second under executive and artistic director Sylvie Fortin, bears the thematic subtitle The Grand Balcony. Curator Pirotte related the theme to Jean Genet’s play The Balcony, and its “playful and fatalistic” view of the desire for power, pleasure and truth. It would be difficult for any Montrealer not to see the title also as a sly reference to Montreal’s identity as a city of balconies – most of them low-rise, well-used and far from grand. Pirotte said his Biennale will be a partly unforeseeable event “where things can go astray,” though presumably not in such a way as to defeat the detailed coordination required to present the work of 55 artists and collectives over 75 days, along with ancilliary talks and presentations.
Most Biennale activity will take place at the Musée d’art contemporain, with shows and events in least six other Montreal locations. Eight artists will display their works at Le Livart, including Franco-American film artist Eric Baudelaire, whose latest opus recreates the itinerary of a French citizen who travels to Syria and allegedly joins the Islamic State.
Prominent Canadians on the list include Moyra Davey, who will present her new film Hemlock Forest; Jacob Wren, who premieres a series of events called Every Song I’ve Ever Written; Valérie Blass, who will show a suite of eight new sculptures; and Janice Kerbel, whose operatic DOUG will reprise a work that was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2015. Leading American painter Kerry James Marshall and Belgian artist Luc Tuymans will also have significant works on display.
Perhaps because its central concept is related to a play, this Biennale is unusually rich in performance pieces, including another operatic work by German artist Anne Imhof, and a piece by Lebanese-American artist and DJ Joe Namy, who will use the computer-linked sound systems of several pimped-up cars for an automotive DJ set. That piece will take place at a prototype gas station on l’Île-des-Soeurs, designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1966 and repurposed as a youth and seniors’ activity centre in 2011.
Some of this could be spectacular, though Pirotte said, “We’re not looking for ‘aha’ moments.” A sustained, serious and pleasure-seeking connection with art and artists is what he’s after, involving as many Montrealers as possible.