Before the price of coffee skyrocketed and the death of third spaces; before the tyrannical reign of Ticketmaster and the monopolization of the music industry; before we slipped into antisocial seclusion and let blue light mollify our beautiful brains, there was once an invaluable institution, home to art, community, and[Read More…]
Tag: Art
Live long and prosper, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce
It can be easy to drift toward the known hotspots of Montreal’s art scene; if you are looking for an artist, throw a stone in Little Burgundy, Griffintown, or Little Portugal, and you’ll hit 10 of them. As international students, it’s also way too easy to stay within the McGill[Read More…]
Face it!
I saw my mom for the first time this summer. Sitting alone in the busy Toronto Pearson Airport, I waited for my flight to Edmonton to join my family on a trip. I was armed with a couple of pencil crayons, a sharpener, and an Above Ground sketchbook bought from[Read More…]
Sixty years of song and community celebrated at the Marvin Duchow Music Library
Since its inception 60 years ago, the Marvin Duchow Music Library has seen McGill students through the good, the bad, and the never-ending tears that accompany late-night cramming sessions. Wandering the aisles for the first time, I passed towering shelves lined with scores of music I doubt I will ever[Read More…]
Learning to live and love through art
I cannot count the number of times I’ve remarked, “That changed my life.” It’s an exorbitant phrase, one that apparently—so I’ve been told—shouldn’t be used so casually when discussing art. I toss it around with nonchalance, proclaiming it at any mention of works that I adore. Accusations of recency bias[Read More…]
Music as a medium for change: Political voices resonate through sound
Pop culture has changed drastically over the years. Many argue that the era of monoculture—when people shared the same cultural experiences, listened to the same songs, watched the same shows, and followed the same celebrities—is behind us. Audiences are now scattered across various playlists, social media platforms, and niche subcultures.[Read More…]
Breaking ground at new creative collective’s defiant art-expo and rave
I was whisked into Concrete Breaks’ Communal Art-Expo and Rave on Oct. 23 by heavy bass thrumming under my feet and a crush of people bottlenecking behind me. Once through the doors, bright projections of cityscapes flashed to my right while a diverse array of prints and poetry lined the[Read More…]
Kent Monkman’s ‘History is Painted by the Victors’ tackles colonialist mythmaking
In a world where history is painted by the victor, Kent Monkman takes on a personal challenge to tell an equally biased history, one painted by his subversive, heel-clad, hypersexual alter-ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle. Monkman, a world-renowned queer and two-spirit artist from the Fisher River Cree Nation in Manitoba,[Read More…]
Faith in art over profit with ‘Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde’
In a corner of the exhibition’s second room, Émilie Charmy’s Still Life with Pomegranates sits beside Jacqueline Marval’s self-portrait Minerva. The scenes in oil are classical: Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, condemned to the underworld for six months for eating six pomegranate seeds, resurfacing in the spring only to descend[Read More…]
Romancing Medievalism in the modern world
Candlelight contours and illuminates the deep reds of opalescent stained glass, the candle’s bearer traversing the vacuous shadows of the castle’s towering walls. Its gothic portals and stone arcades stand overgrown in twirling vinery and moss. Inside hangs a pastoral tapestry of enchanting animals: Unicorns, leopards, and quails. Dress fabric[Read More…]