Bad Urban Design and Public Art Installation: the MMFA's Homogeneous Plastic Yellow Poles and Night Guard Protect Their Failed Sidewalk

Last month the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts opened a new building, a new curatorial plan for its Canadian collection and a new sidewalk/sculpture garden (which, as the press release happily stresses makes it "one of the largest collection of public art in Montreal" - Montreal being really well known for its public art this is really thrilling).

Hence to enlarge its sculpture garden and create spaces to reflect and observe it, the Museum commissioned marble steps, platforms, columns and benches for its main sidewalks - on avenue du Musée and rue Sherbrooke. As the images show, today these designs are angular, of different hight and slanted (not totally unlike the ideal skatepark) and are meant to "create a high-quality urban environment for the Museum complex that is both distinctive and homogeneous, [as well as] improve the comfort and aesthetics of the outdoor spaces, integrate public artworks, [and] improve pedestrian safety in the vicinity of the Museum."

Well it seems like the Museum has been caught off guard by how much Montrealers have found these new urban props comfortable and safe. Skatboarders, in particular. But sadly these types of pedestrians are deemed unwelcome by the Museum and so the institution has hired a night guard to make sure only their ideal art lovers come enjoy their sculptures (with their eyes only). But this wasn't enough to deter the normal human pedestrian from touching and interacting with these public installations so the MMFA has added extra yellow plastic sticks to most marble corners making sure no one ever goes near their "high-quality urban environment". (I'm guessing this yellow plastic repetition is to maintain the aesthetic homogeneity mentioned in the press release.)

It seems obvious that the Museum and its favoring of what they wish their backyard looked like rather than what the reality of urban space is, are the only ones to blame for the sidewalks' current absurdity. And as a pedestrian it's hard not be saddened about 33 million dollars that were put into what the field of yellow poles is trying to protect, in particular while budgets in the arts throughout the country are being cut.

Update of 26/11/11: After the night-guard and the plastic yellow polls, the MMFA has now invested in the panoptican power of the surveillance camera to insure the peacefulness they intended for their newly developed sculpture park. Brilliant. 

The Lack of Subtlety, the Art of Making Things Banal and Provincial Masturbation

I went to the "Denis Gagnon Shows All" exhibition at the Musée des Beaux Arts de Montréal yesterday. 

Gagnon is a fashion designer - sorry "couturier" - well known for his thick glasses and recent use of zippers. The exhibition was designed by another of Québec's creative force, "famous architect from Montreal" (quote Nathalie Bondil) Gilles Saucier. Gilles and Denis must have agreed that Denis was a gift to the province - sorry the world (of fashion) - and his talents of universal artistic value and that consequently everything would be done to dramatically aestheticize not only his dresses but also the man - sorry couturier - and his sales. 

The dresses, which seem to have been selected for their geometrical proportions and high contrasts, are presented on plastic white models hanging from the ceiling and lit with led lights to project heavy shadows on the costumes and the floor. Since Denis' talent and the outcome of it is as atemporal as it is universal there are no tags with dates or material used for the objects shown - you just have to look to feel their value. If the shadows don't make you feel enough the dramatic music blasting in the background can help. It accompanies a geometrical three screen projection on the ceiling with Denis and his glasses in slow motion during a fashion show. The film plays on repeat just in case you didn't notice it the first twenty times around. It gave me a head ache and seems to purposefully distract you from the dresses.

Honestly some of the dresses aren't uncreative, but since all selected pieces are from his fall/winter 2010 or Spring/Summer 2011 collections, the curator monitoring the show should have put commercial tags straight up. Besides the moment you are out of the store - sorry museum - you can head to Holt and Renfrew a block away and buy your own. I know a lot of stores like to think of their windows as curated - fine -  I'm more curious as to why a museum would want a fashion window in its institution. 

Fashion is far from being a simple banality. More than art, it is key in how we construct our everyday selves for ourselves as well as for and through others, and because of this, like art, it deserves an essential place in public debate. Some fascinating fashion exhibits have been curated in exhibition spaces: at the Barbican Art Gallery in London with Viktor and Rolf or at the FIT on costume and American nationalism. So instead of just presenting two pretty tacky collections by a local designer with the most unsubtle presentation possible, why not use the collection to analyze the role of nudity in culture (a key aspect in his dresses), think about the influence of local vs. multinational trends, the presence of decay in contemporary high fashion, the evolution and relation of craft and fast fashion - in other words making it interesting and more than a boutique showcase.

The real pompom  was that - while the close up images of his dresses (horse hair and zippers) stuck to the walls looked like advertisementss, the music sounded like an Operette from an all-inclusive in Santo Domingo, the shadows contrived and the dresses overall tacky - the promotion material for the exhibit presented a glass-less Denis nude staring in our eyes. Again very subtle. I think you are suppose to read something along the lines of Denis Gagnon: an icon unveiled. Not only is the photoshop poorly done but not even for their Yves St Laurent retrospective - an icon whose influence is seriously difficult to question - was there no image of the couturier.

and that is called provincial masturbation.