ARTH 375 Issues in the Montreal Art Milieu

• Instructor: Dr. Charles Gagnon

For this course the city of Montreal will be considered as material through various sites from which artists establish their work. Taking into consideration the city’s current state of transformation, or urban renewal, we will examine artworks, and exhibitions that make use of this state, harnessing the street, new constructions as well as abandoned or forgotten sites for/as artworks. Starting from the 1976 Montreal Olympics up to the present, some of the artists we will examine are Melvin Charney, including his censored project Corrid’Art, the collaborative work of Lyne Lapointe and Martha Fleming, the unbuilt parc de la langue française of Rober Racine, the early locations occupied by Dare-Dare gallery, and a few exhibitions that occured at the now defunct Vie D’Ange gallery in Little Italy.

The primary objective of the course is to extend our understanding of art by acknowledging its relationship to a geographical area and the various social, economical, and environmental phenomenon that appear within this geography, that is the relationship between art making and milieu. My aim is to emphasize material qualities as to demonstrate their influence on our perception and understanding of artworks. The class will encourage close scrutiny of art works, allowing them to produce their own meaning.