The Art Newspaper

Montréal biennale takes a chance

Seventh edition takes its cue from Stéphane Mallarmé poem

By The Art Newspaper. Web only
Published online: 29 April 2011

Jean Dubois and Philippe Jean, "Radicaux Libres", 2006, installation in the Grande Bibliotheque du Quebec, Montreal (Photo: Jean Dubois)

montreal. A mix of painting, photography and video will occupy the former Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Montréal this month for the seventh edition of La Biennale de Montréal (1-31 May). Works by around 40 artists from Canada, Europe and the US will go on display across the building's 2,500 sq. m space, with established names including Canadian abstract painter Guido Molinari (1933-2004) and Swiss artist Daniel Spoerri joining emerging practitioners such as Los Angeles-based photographer Walead Beshty. The biennale will also feature internet artists such as Mark Amerika, who will work on a special edition e-magazine in conjunction with the Centre International d'Art Contemporain de Montréal (CIAC) the biennale's organisers.

CIAC was founded in 1983 by Claude Gosselin, who is co-curating this year's biennale alongside David Liss, the artistic director at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MoCCA) in Toronto. The team chose “chance” as the biennale's theme, inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé's 1897 poem “A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance”. Gosselin also stressed the curators' mixed approach to this year's biennale with its incorporation of traditional and electronic media.

The biennale has a budget of CA$1.5m (US$1.54m) and is sponsored by the provincial and federal governments, the city and tourist office of Montreal and private and corporate partners.

Eliza Apperly