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Canadian Centre for Architecture
1920, rue Baile
514-939-7026
Montréal
Some Ideas on Living in London and Tokyo by Stephen Taylor and Ryue Nishizawa
May 14-
October 26, 2008

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) presents an exhibition featuring recent architectural projects by Stephen Taylor in London and Ryue Nishizawa in Tokyo that propose new approaches to living in urban environments. Some Ideas on Living in London and Tokyo by Stephen Taylor and Ryue Nishizawa marks the first North American presentation of residential projects by Taylor and Nishizawa and reveals their distinctive solutions to the challenges of building homes in existing dense urban fabrics. The exhibition is organised by CCA Curator for Contemporary Architecture Giovanna Borasi in active collaboration with the architects.

London and Tokyo provide particularly relevant ground for case studies not only due to the scale and complexity of their respective built environments, but especially for the way in which their increasing densities call for a redefinition of urban living. While facing similar issues related to growth, the two cities occupy cultural contexts in which themes of proximity, privacy, community, and public space take on different meanings and require distinct solutions. Stephen Taylor and Ryue Nishizawa have developed new ideas for living borne of their respective cultures. Their innovative residential designs challenge conventional norms and offer approaches that simultaneously shape the life of the resident and the face of the city.

The exhibition is conceived in collaboration with Nishizawa and Taylor, who designed their components of the installation with original display furniture and new large-scale models. The architects’ projects are each presented in three galleries, adjacent and open to one another in order to establish relationships among respective works and between the two. On view are original drawings, large-scale renderings, models, books, and prints by established photographers. Nishizawa’s built projects were captured by Takashi Homma, Hisao Suzuki, and Ken'ichi Suzuki, and Taylor’s work by Simon Lewis, David Grandorge and Ioana Marinescu.

Stephen Taylor has developed his ideas for residential building on a range of scales, from individual houses integrated into inner city streetscapes to multi-units and a master plan for a district of London that mixes new buildings with existing structures. By establishing subtle relationships to the surrounding urban texture, his buildings are grounded on the street with simple but distinct façades separating public and private space. The exhibition presents a series of houses designed in London’s East End, as well as a new urban project mixing housing typologies near a redeveloped train station in Rainham Village, London.

Taylor’s work is characterised by the idea that residential projects shape, in his words, “the body of our city.” His individual homes and larger projects aim to define a place, realising their role as part of the public realm in shaping streets and communities. London’s increasing residential densities and political emphasis on “intensification” lead to Taylor’s interest in using urban surroundings to redefine proximity and privacy in his organisation of interior spaces.

The exhibition presents Taylor’s work through wall-mounted photographs, drawings, and posters, as well as models and objects on three large tables custom-designed by the architect for the CCA. Placed one per gallery, the specific design and orientation of the tables as well as the juxtaposition of models upon them establish a dialogue that reflects the interrelationship of issues in Taylor’s projects on a range of scales. His spatial arrangements of interior rooms influence the way he conceives external relationships between house and street. In his larger urban projects, Taylor builds neighbourhoods of mixed residences through clearly articulated volumes with subtle passages between them.

Ryue Nishizawa’s projects express his belief that the house should establish a close relationship between interior and exterior space, linking the two environments and creating an atmosphere within the house by bringing the city inside. Rather than providing a shelter from the city, the house is grounded within it, simultaneously absorbing and shaping the character of its surroundings. The complexity and density of the city informs the interior organisation of the house while its resident becomes a visible part of the city. Through this mutual exchange, Nishizawa contributes to the vitality of the streetscape and offers new ideas on how space inside the house is simultaneously space inside a neighbourhood.

Nishizawa describes his interest in creating buildings with “a new sense of values” to reflect and capture the character of the current digital age. The need to develop architectural models appropriate for a new, contemporary way of living within the city is captured in his houses that challenge traditional ideas of privacy and the organisation of space. The exhibition presents three of Nishizawa’s Tokyo houses, dedicating one gallery each to the Moriyama House, House A, and the unbuilt Garden and House.

Nishizawa approaches his work on two fundamental levels — how the building is to be used within, and what type of exterior environment the building will create. Moriyama House resembles a village, forming a independent cluster rooms connected by terraces and exterior courtyards open to the street. Similarly, the floor plan for House A is not defined by a cohesive exterior volume but by the sequential arrangement of differently scaled rooms. The close connection between resident and neighbourhood, and the radical challenge to traditional notions of privacy is at the core of Nishizawa’s new ideas for contemporary urban life.

A French/English catalogue accompanies the exhibition, featuring an essay by curator Giovanna Borasi as well as individual and collective contributions by Stephen Taylor and Ryue Nishizawa. The volume also includes an essay by Peter Allison, Professor, London South Bank University, and a preface by CCA Director Mirko Zardini. The exhibition’s projects and installation are presented through approximately 150 colour reproductions on over 170 pages. Co-published by the CCA and Lars Müller, the catalogue will be available in June for $29.90 through the CCA Bookstore (www.cca.qc.ca/
bookstore).

A dynamic website interface at www.someideasonliving.
org hosted by the CCA accompanies the exhibition. Conceived as a platform for the exchange of ideas, the site gives local and international users the opportunity to both access and actively contribute content related to the themes of the exhibition. The site presents CCA research and material from the exhibition and catalogue while soliciting independent video, audio, images, and writing extending the exhibition’s scope. The user-contributed content may address aspects of the work of Stephen Taylor and Ryue Nishizawa or broader observations on the theme of “living in London and Tokyo.” Scheduled for launch in early May 2008, the website will evolve with continually added content beyond the duration of the exhibition.

British architect Stephen Taylor is Founding Director of Stephen Taylor Architects, and was previously partner at Houlton Taylor Architects established in 1993. Stephen Taylor Architects has realised commercial and private projects throughout Europe based on a commitment to sustainable construction and research in new technologies to ensure environmental responsibility. Taylor holds a master’s degree in architecture from the Royal College of Art in London, and has been a visiting critic at such institutions as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ), London South Bank University, and the Architectural Association in London. He is a consultant to the London Development Agency as a member of their Design Advisors Panel and a member of the Newham Design Review Panel. Taylor’s work has been featured in exhibitions at the Architecture Foundation and the Royal Institute for British Architecture (RIBA) in London, and the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, among others. Some Ideas on Living in London and Tokyo at the CCA marks the first presentation of his work in North America.

Japanese architect Ryue Nishizawa is founding partner, with Kazuyo Sejima, of SANAA, established in 1995, and he has maintained a parallel independent office since 1997. SANAA is recognised for international institutional projects such as the Zollverein School of Management and Design in Essen, Germany; the Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion in Toledo, Ohio; and most recently, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City. Nishizawa’s independent practice is focused primarily on projects in Japan that develop new models for urban living. He holds a master’s degree in architecture from Yokohama National University in Tokyo, and has been a visiting professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Princeton University, University of Southern California, Yokohama National University, and others. He has received numerous awards including the Kunstpreis Berlin (2007) and a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale (2004). SANAA’s work is the subject of exhibitions at the Henry Art Gallery, Washington State University (2007), and the New Museum (2008). Some Ideas on Living in London and Tokyo at the CCA marks the first presentation of work by Ryue Nishizawa’s office in North America.

House A, Tokyo, 2006, Office of Ryue Nishizawa, Takashi Homma, photographer, © Takashi Homma.

Moriyama House, Tokyo, 2005, Office of Ryue Nishizawa, Takashi Homma, photographer, © Takashi Homma.

House A, Tokyo, 2006, Office of Ryue Nishizawa, Takashi Homma, photographer, © Takashi Homma.

House on Charlotte Road, London, 2008, Stephen Taylor, architect, David Grandorge, photographer, © David Grandorge.

House on Charlotte Road, London, 2008, Stephen Taylor, architect, David Grandorge, photographer, © David Grandorge.

House on Charlotte Road, London, 2008, Stephen Taylor, architect, Simon Lewis, photographer, © Simon Lewis.

Three Small Houses on Chance Street, London, 2007, Stephen Taylor, architect, Ioana Marinescu, photographer, © Ioana Marinescu.

Montreal Museum
of Fine Arts
1380 Sherbrooke West
514-285-2000
Montreal
Jean-Noël
Desmarais Pavilion
Warhol Live
September 25, 2008-
January 18, 2009

For the first time in the historiography of Andy Warhol (1928-1987), the exhibition-event Warhol Live, explores the all-pervading and fundamental role of music and dance in the artist’s work and life. Music is an essential narrative element that is present throughout the exhibition and will guide visitors as they rediscover Warhol’s work. From this unusual angle, viewers will be treated to a chronological and thematic reading, from the film music Warhol discovered in his youth to the disco scene at Studio 54, the legendary nightclub that opened in 1977, where he was one of the most famous regulars. The exhibition will bring together some 640 works and objects, paintings, silkscreens, photographs, works on paper, installations, films, videos, album covers, as well as objects and documents from the artist’s personal archives. It will juxtapose Warhol’s major emblematic works (Elvis, Marilyn, Liza Minnelli, Grace Jones, Mick Jagger, Debbie Harry, the Self-portraits and the Campbell's Soup Cans) with other, lesser-known works (album covers, illustrations, photos and Polaroids). There are also the artist’s films, including Sleep and Empire, as well as the Screen Tests of the musicians of the famous Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol’s TV and video clips produced for groups like The Cars and Curiosity Killed the Cat. The exhibition Warhol Live is produced by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in partnership with The Andy Warhol Museum, one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

The works come from The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and from leading public and private collections in Europe and North America. A collection of some fifty album covers belonging to Montreal collector Paul Maréchal will be presented together for the first time. It includes The Velvet Underground & Nico, Sticky Fingers (Rolling Stones), Love You Live (Rolling Stones), Silk Electric (Diana Ross), Aretha (Aretha Franklin) and Rockbird (Debbie Harry).

While Warhol’s interest in music comes across highly anecdotally and briefly in his Journal and his numerous interviews, music and its representation in his work is remarkable and predominant: it is an invisible yet essential component.

From a drawing in 1948 for the cover of Cano — the student magazine at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, which depicts an orchestra in the “blotted line” technique — to the celebrity portraits of Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli and Prince, Warhol created dozens of portraits of twentieth-century pop icons, from Elvis to the Rolling Stones, from the Beatles to Michael Jackson, throughout his career. From 1949, the year he arrived in New York, to 1987, the last year of his life, he also illustrated some fifty album covers, from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake to Aretha Franklin, Count Basie, Artie Shaw, the Velvet Underground, the Rolling Stones, Diana Ross and Blondie. Attesting to Warhol’s changing commissions and affinities, the thread that runs through this iconography reads like a history of postwar American musical tastes, from classical to jazz, rock, pop and soul, disco and hip-hop.

In Warhol’s world, music goes far beyond mere iconography. Warhol orchestrated the “All Tomorrow's Parties” at the Silver Factory, providing an ideal, ephemeral stage for Edie Sedgwick, his moving muse and first alter ego; he served as a producer for the Velvet Underground; he made an artistic contribution to Merce Cunningham’s choreography Rain Forest; he turned Studio 54 into an extension of his studio. Set to music, the invisible art that animates bodies and situates beings in space and in their time, he imagined the entire work of art that was Exploding Plastic Inevitable. He imagined himself in Sculpture Invisible. He used music in his films and filmed concerts. He produced music videos and met with musicians, notably for Interview, the magazine he founded in 1969. And above all, through the play of mirrors and osmosis he projected on his contemporaries, he himself became a rock star equal to Mick Jagger or Debbie Harry, his final inspiration.

Guillaume de Fontenay’s exhibition design evokes highlights in this relationship between art and music through reconstitutions that, while not exact re-creations like “period rooms,” provide a closer look at the Silver Factory, with a mise en scène by photographer Billy Name, the multimedia show Exploding Plastic Inevitable to music by the Velvet Underground, Silver Clouds created for Merce Cunningham’s choreography Rain Forest to music by David Tudor, and the musical ambience of Studio 54, a veritable extension of Warhol’s studio from the 1970s to the end of his life.

For the first time, two publications will address music’s influence on Warhol’s work. A lavishly illustrated exhibition catalogue (288 pages and approximately 450 illustrations), overseen by Stéphane Aquin, includes essays by numerous Warhol specialists, as well as first-person accounts (such as a conversation with Glenn O’Brien, Director of Interview) and unpublished writings. At the same time, a critical catalogue raisonné of the record covers designed by Warhol has been written by Paul Maréchal, the collector of this body of work (240 pages and approximately 250 illustrations). These works are published in English and French by the Museum’s Publishing Department and distributed by Prestel.

The exhibition is curated by Stéphane Aquin, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Emma Lavigne, curator at the Musée national d’art moderne/CCI, Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Matt Wrbican, archivist at The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Greg Pierce, assistant curator, The Andy Warhol Museum, put together the exhibition’s film and video programming.

Montreal Museum
of Fine Arts
1380 Sherbrooke West
514-285-2000
Montreal
Jean-Noël
Desmarais Pavilion
Refus global:
60 Years Later, Recent Acquisitions of Works by the Automatistes
June 19-
December 7, 2008

Refus global: 60 Years Later celebrates a momentous event in our history. It also highlights works by the Automatistes acquired by the Museum over the past ten years, thus paying tribute to the kind generosity of our benefactors, upon whom the Museum greatly relies to expand its collections. The exhibition features a selection of 34 paintings and drawings by Marcel Barbeau, Paul-Émile Borduas, Claude Gauvreau, Marcelle Ferron, Fernand Leduc, Jean-Paul Mousseau and Jean-Paul Riopelle, as well as photographs of Françoise Sullivan taken by Maurice Perron, all of whom were signatories of the manifesto’s infamous preface. Visitors will also have the opportunity to view examples of the artists’ later works and thus witness the formal evolution toward non-referential abstraction.

Several works are of particular historical importance, including recent acquisitions like 14.48 or Glorious Cemetery (1948) by Paul-Émile Borduas, a painting that was reproduced in the manifesto Refus global; Untitled (1946) by Jean-Paul Riopelle is a work the artist created at the start of his career, one year after he joined the Automatistes; Pierre Gauvreau’s Warning to the “Pauèzes” (1947) is his own very personal interpretation of Automatisme; while Fernand Leduc’s Binary Colouring, Blue-Red (1964) is a painting that reveals the artist’s development in the period following Automatisme, when he sought to restore a sense of control in painting through hard-edged abstraction.

Three recent acquisitions of works by Jean-Paul Riopelle are included in the exhibition, and others are on view in the gallery dedicated to the artist. To give visitors a greater appreciation of the oeuvre of certain artists, some works that the Museum acquired previously are also presented in the exhibition.

Presented at Librairie Henri Tranquille in Montreal on August 9, 1948, the Refus global was a collective project by the Automatistes, a multidisciplinary group of 16 artists who would soon become renowned in the fields of painting, dance, poetry and theatre. As leader of the Automatiste movement and a teacher at the École du Meuble, Paul-Émile Borduas played a pivotal role within the group. Inspired by his discovery of André Breton and Surrealism, Borduas encouraged artists to adopt the automatic impulse inherent in Breton’s writing and to work spontaneously, without any preconceived idea. Appealing to the sensibility of those striving for innovation, Borduas had a tremendous impact on individuals who were attracted to modern art and searching for alternatives to traditional academic painting.

The texts, plays, photographs (of the group) and illustrations in the Refus global make it evident that Borduas’s liberal views had implications on all the arts, but his influence reached beyond this scope, into the realm of politics and religion. His proclamations were radical and scandalous at the time, as he denounced the two ideologies that reigned supreme in Quebec during the 1940s, namely the religious regime of Catholicism and the conservatism of Maurice Duplessis’s Union Nationale party. It was a cry for liberation from these oppressive authorities and an appeal for an opening-up to the world. Considered to be vital to Quebec’s modernity, the Refus global triggered change. As people became aware of their isolation and were drawn to the new possibilities offered by Borduas’s suggestions, they caught up with current social and cultural international
trends.

Iris Amizlev, art historian, is guest curator of the exhibition.

Musée d’art contemporain
de Montréal
Place-des-Arts metro
185 Sainte-Catherine
Street West
514-847-6226
Montréal
Sympathy for the Devil:
Art and Rock and Roll
Since 1967
October 10, 2008-
January 11, 2009

Sympathy for the Devil examines the history of the relationship between avant-garde art and rock music over the past forty years. From Andy Warhol’s legendary involvement with The Velvet Underground in New York in 1967 to the dazzling 2007 installation Pinball Wizard and The Byrds (Love in a Void) by British artist Jim Lambie, Sympathy for the Devil is the most comprehensive presentation ever — including artworks, album cover design, music videos and other materials — of work that has emerged from the intersection of these two cultures.

The exhibition comprises over 100 works (installations, sculptures, paintings, drawings, videos, photographs) produced by sixty artists and collectives, subdivided into six themes corresponding to the music scenes in New York, the U.K., continental Europe, the West Coast (particularly Los Angeles), the U.S. Midwest and the rest of the world.

New York
From the early 1960s on, New York was in the forefront of the convergence of art and rock music. Andy Warhol’s studio, known as The Factory, became a hub of the city’s underground cultural scene in the late sixties. Warhol collaborated with artists working well outside the mainstream of current pop music, and offered them heightened visibility and a way to merge art and rock. His Screen Tests films, with Lou Reed, Maureen Tucker, John Cale and others, are part of the exhibition. Later, in the following decade, punk, New Wave and No Wave musicians shared stages and gallery spaces with visual artists who were often performers as well.

Among the New York artists featured are Rita Ackermann, Robert Longo, Richard Prince, Christian Marclay, Adam Pendleton, Mika Tajima and Jack Pierson. A group of portrait photographs by Richard Prince depicts such legendary art and music figures as Brian Eno, David Byrne, Dee Dee Ramone, Tina Weymouth, Adele Bertei, Kate Pierson, Cindy Wilson and Laurie Anderson. Also on display are photographs from Richard Kern’s New York Girls series and stills from his film Submit to Me Now, as well as Christian Marclay’s Untitled (1987-2007), made up of vinyl LP albums spread over a gallery floor.

United Kingdom
In the U.K., art schools were hotbeds of highly creative exchanges between avant-garde art and rock music. Artists in this section include Richard Hamilton, Jeremy Deller, Steven Claydon, Scott King and Douglas Gordon. Ephemera documenting the activities of the collective Throbbing Gristle are also presented. Jim Lambie — artist, DJ and ex-member of the band The Boy Hairdressers (which became Teenage Fanclub) — skilfully captures the energy and spirit of rock music with his spectacular new sculptural installation.

Continental Europe
In continental Europe, the crossover between the visual arts and rock and roll was fostered by the overlapping of the artistic and musical avant-gardes and an awareness of industrial culture. The scene in Germany in the 1980s and 1990s, with artists such as Martin Kippenberger, Kai Althoff and Thomas Zipp, was especially active in this regard. Among the other European artists featured in the exhibition are Jutta Koether and Pipilotti Rist.

West Coast
On the U.S. West Coast, the connection between art and rock was more geographically dispersed and loosely defined than in New York. The West Coast art scene encompassed San Francisco’s psychedelic culture of the 1960s and anti-establishment figures based in Los Angeles. Included in this section are Raymond Pettibon’s drawings for flyers and album covers, Jason Rhoades’ neon sign installation Velvet Underground/Perfect World, and works by Mark Flores, Thaddeus Strode, Dave Muller and Mungo Thomson.

In Canada, Vancouver artist Rodney Graham explored installation, photography and film, as well as music with the Rodney Graham Band. Graham’s Awakening, previously seen at the Musée in the solo exhibition devoted to this artist in 2006, is presented here.

U.S. Midwest
Among the Midwest artists are Ed Paschke, Karl Wirsum (Chicago Imagists) and Pedro Bell, along with newer Chicago artists like Melanie Schiff and Tony Tasset, whose works arise out of vintage rock and roll culture.

World
From the drawings of Japanese neo-Pop artist Yoshimoto Nara and Daniel Guzmán’s noir rock-themed drawings to Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija’s recording studio and the large-scale graphic collages of the Brazilian collective assume vivid astro focus, many other countries also explore and celebrate the fusion of art and rock music.

Punctuating this journey through the exhibition are stunning video installations such as Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable by Ronald Nameth; Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore by Mark Leckey; Douglas Gordon’s Bootleg series; Tony Oursler’s Sound Digressions in Seven Colors; Aïda Ruilova’s Untitled; and Slater Bradley’s The Year of the Doppelganger. Yet other videos will be shown on monitors: Rock My Religion by Dan Graham and Synesthesia by Tony Oursler. Finally, a video program will be presented, including works by Art & Language and The Red Krayola, Judith Barry, Richard Kern and Sonic Youth, Stephen Parrino, and The Residents.

Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 was organized by MCA Chicago,and curated by MCA Chicago curator Dominic Molon. The Montréal presentation was coordinated by Paulette Gagnon, Chief Curator at the Musée d’art contemporain, with François LeTourneux, associate curator, and Marjolaine Labelle, curatorial assistant.