Rodin, Adad Hannah, & Denys Arcand at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art

As summer dwindles to a close you pretty much have to go to a museum if you want to see a contemporary art exhibition in Montreal. With very few exceptions, everything else is closed. So this week I checked out Metamorphoses: In Rodin’s Studio at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Not only does the exhibition contain a treasure trove of Rodin sculptures and drawings, it also features Rodin-themed works by contemporary Canadian artist Adad Hannah and filmmaker Denys Arcand.



Denys Arcand & Adad Hannah, The Burghers of Vancouver

As someone with a background in studio art and art history, and a continued engagement with both, I find the idea of mashing up historical and contemporary art works compelling, albeit potentially complicated. I admire the desire to bring Rodin into the present and illustrate how his work resonates with artists today. However, in this case I found the contemporary room, as a curatorial strategy, to be merely tacked on. If it had stood separately, elsewhere in the museum, as a Hannah show that happened to compliment the Metamorphoses exhibition, it would have been stronger. But stuck at the end, next to an interactive “touchy feely” room of plaster replicas and, ultimately, the gift store, this inclusion just felt like it was checking off another box to make the show a zingier ride for the viewers.

Also, as is often the case in these scenarios, contemporary work by mid-tier artists falls flat next to the work of art historical masters. I was mildly surprised that Hannah’s work stood up as well as it does. The documentary-style approach taken in different ways by both The Burghers of Vancouver (his collaboration with Arcand) and Unwrapping Rodin mitigates some of this fall-out.


Montreal Museum of Fine Arts: http://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/
Metamorphoses: In Rodin’s Studio continues until October 18.


Susannah Wesley is an artist and curator living in Montreal. She has been a member of the collaborative duo Leisure since 2004 and from 1997-2000 was part of the notorious British art collective the Leeds13. Formerly Director at Battat Contemporary in Montreal, she holds an MFA from the Glasgow School of Art and an MA in Art History from Concordia University. She is Akimblog's Montreal correspondent and can be followed @susannahwesley1 on Twitter.