It’s not easy to forget the immense amount of young and exciting talent that all of the Concordia Fine Arts programs harbour within their walls. With the naturally artistic and inspiring winds of Montreal at their backs, these students create impressive work, without an air of amateurism, that is not to be ignored. That’s why a festival was created 12 years ago to showcase such talents and spread the broader message that yes, art matters.
Art Matters is a student-created and student-run art festival put on each year to help promote these young emerging talents and connect them with the Montreal art scene. Groups of students come together with local galleries and other artistic venues to put on various exhibitions, allowing the city to appreciate what they create.
These shows celebrate Concordia’s multidisciplinary environment and therefore welcome all mediums and are not language exclusive. Works of photography, painting, drawing, dance, video, music, design and more are all put on display and enjoyed by many.
Over its two-week span, there are not only the shows to enjoy but also artist discussions, vernissages and a kick off party that is highly anticipated each year (this year’s successful event welcomed local band SUUNS). It is through the diversity, talent and message of Art Matters that it has gained such vastly positive recognition.
Below I have provided a list of four shows that are certainly not to be missed during the 2012 Art Matters festival:
My Pregnant Preteen Birthday Vacation With Dad
Cutator: Nafisa Kap Location: Les Territoires, 372 St. Catherine O. #572 Vernissage: March 7, 18:00-21:00 Open House: March 10, 17:00-17:45
My Pregnant Preteen Birthday Vacation With Dad focuses on how passing time can alter how a moment from the past is reflected upon. Nine artists consider moments from their younger years and how they feel about them at an older age, creating a multidisciplinary show that suggests a feeling of nostalgia and longing for the past.
From That Time
Curator: Linnea Gwiazda & Carolann Shea Location: Studio 303, 372 St. Catherine O. Show 1: March 10, 19:30 Show 2: March 11, 16:00 Open House: March 10, 18:00-18:45
From That Time presents a diverse array of mediums conversing in space to bring together individual moments of past times and experiences. Thirteen artists who are represented through performance, painting, video, installation, photography and sculpture come together in collaboration between mediums to create a dynamic exhibit dealing with the fragments of past that influence one’s life.
Block Party
Curator: Aditi Ohri Vernissage: March 8, 17:00–19:00 – Annex Vintage (56 Rue St. Viateur O.) & General 54 (54 St. Viateur O.) Open House: March 11 (Van Horn & Parc) 13:00-14:00, 15:00 Monastiraki Reception (5476 St. Laurent) Finissage: March 16, 17:00-19:00 – Phonopolis (207 Bernard O.)
Taking place in various beautiful Mile End locations, Black Party exhibits 13 talented artists who have created a show that exists within both the retail and public locations of the neighbourhood. The collective works of these artists comment on our identity and behaviours as consumers in society and the effects it has on restoration and decay.
Citation
Curator: Clinton Glenn Location: Gallery AB (372 St. Catherine O. #313) Vernissage: March 7, 18:00-21:00 Open House: March 10, 16:00-16:45
Citation pulls together a group of seven artists to promote a question of sexuality, gender and the body and the effect they all have on how personal identity is viewed by others. Through both direct and indirect interpretations, each artist depicts the complications that accompany creating one’s identity exclusively through visual characteristics.
