Motion. Montreal/Geneva at Galerie de l'UQAM

Before this week’s winter vortex hit Montreal, spring was in the air: bikes were being pulled out, thawed parks rediscovered, running shoes dusted off, paused friendships rekindled. And so, with a bounce in my step, I headed off to see Motion. Montreal/Geneva, a collaboration between host gallery Galerie de l'UQAM and HEAD-Genève (Geneva University of Art and Design) co-curated by La Fabrique d’exposion (Montreal) and LiveInYourHead (Geneva). The curatorial collective from Montreal proposed a series of videos by Quebec artists with the conceptual theme of “motion” – what “activates” and “motivates” individuals as they engage with the world around them. In response, LiveInYourHead selected video documentation from a 2014 project Performance Proletarians, led by artists Lili Reynaud Dewar and Benjamin Valenza, featuring private performances by artists and students.



Verena Dengler, Performance Proletarians, 2014

I love the idea of creating an international exchange of ideas and aesthetics between art schools – not just solitary students embarking on a term away (which can also have impressive and far reaching results) – but a broader scoop into the local community. It would be great to see more of this at UQAM and Concordia. Motion. Montreal/Geneva is, at this point in the dialogue, a slightly asymmetrical exhibition. The Montreal contingent consists of well-established mid-career Quebec artists (Patrick Bernatchez, BGL, Myriam Laplante, Michel de Broin, Nadia Myre, etc.) and their videos are finished works. Whereas the video from Geneva is documentation of performance work, so it has a very different feel. Although there are performances by established artists (e.g., Reynaud-Dewar has an international profile), it also includes a lot of student work, which is refreshing and apropos. It made me want to see work by the UQAM student community included. Another iteration of Motion will be presented in Geneva this May, so perhaps some of our local students’ work will be featured there. Surely by then spring will have sprung, limbs will have stretched, and Montreal will be ready to travel.


Galerie de l’UQAM: https://galerie.uqam.ca/en/home.html
Motion. Montreal/Geneva continues until April 9.


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.