A Night Not to be Missed: Nuit Blanche 2012 Preview

So that’s why this Saturday FTBers will be out in full force all night long (which honestly isn’t that much of a stretch for most of us) reporting on the annual Nuit Blanche, aka the closing night of the Montreal en Lumiere festival. Beginning in Paris in 1984 the idea of turning a city into an all night art gallery has since spread to 34 cities, Montreal being one of three in Canada…

FTB Profile: Eric Santerre

Last Thursday I got a chance to meet Eric Santerre, a very sweet and humble man who is on the verge of exploding on the international art scene. Eric invited me to see his work, which is currently on display at the Apollo loft in the Old Port. While there, we chatted about his new book, life in the Montreal art scene and what the future holds…

2011 Year in Review: Arts

From infringing on corporate culture in Montreal and Buffalo, venue hoping in Toronto during Canadian Music Week, catching experimental music in Brooklyn and hanging with bonafide rock stars at Osheaga, 2011 proved to be yet another exciting year for the arts section at Forget the Box…

Indie Painter Ray Nylund is Not a Quitter

History is witness to the gross underestimation of brilliant artists. A century after Van Gogh’s demise, Don McLean sings praises of Starry Starry night, a view from Van Gogh’s asylum window. Not much has changed in the past century. What sets a mainstream artist apart from an indie artist is exposure and lets face it, we know little about the indie painters in our own backyard…

Have You Heard? The Papirmasse Postcard Issue is Coming!

For those of you who don’t know, Papirmasse is locally run art collective run by Kirsten McCrea. The goal of the collective is to bring unique and affordable art to the masses. Papirmasse is also heavily involved in the Montreal art community as we have showcased with their appearances at Puces POP and Montreal Nuit Blanche. Papirmasse’s mission being to bring cheap art to everyone operates a subscription service that for 5$/month delivers a new and unique piece of art by a local artist directly to your door. The program has feature great artists…

Being Broke

So a creditor has put their hand directly into my bank account without permission or authorization of any kind. True I owe them money, but resorting to illegal acts like that isn’t exactly fair, either. I’m almost surprised they didn’t send thugs to beat me up, break my legs and burn down my apartment building with me and all my neighbours trapped inside or something like that, as they do in the movies. The fact that they stole the money I was saving to pay rent was both bad timing and genuinely evil. At least the telephonic campaign of daily harassment over the payments I’m too strapped to make seems to have stopped for a while…

Ctrllab: A Place to Play, A Space to Create

Yep, you know it Montreal’s got an art gallery around every corner with a bar on either side. It’s got an abundance of artistic talent and plenty of galleries to showcase it. But what about art spaces? Places where ideas are incited and projects are created? In the heart of Montreal’s artistic mecca, Ctrllab is pleased to fulfill this need. Located on St. Laurent at Prince Arthur, Ctrllab (“control lab”) is a multi-purpose art space that, unlike a gallery, fosters artistic growth and advocates community involvement…

The Spiritually Enlightening Artistic Journey of Katerine Darveau

Born in Sept-Iles and raised in Quebec, local Verdun artist Katerine Darveau uses her limitless imagination, engineering experience, and natural talent to create some of the most fascinating tableau sculptures and naturally beautifying jewellery imaginable. Spending her teenage years in solitude, Katerine learned to develop an elaborate imagination, finding refuge in her dreams and spirit, and allowing her to surpass the borders of the average world. Creation has always been an insatiable need for Katerine. Her fascination with science and energy led her…

An Infringement virgin’s cherry popping

Of all the festivals happening this Spring/Summer, it was the Fringe festival which was top of my hit list. Ireland, being relatively close to Scotland, made word of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival pretty common place. The idea of an anti-establishment and reactionary festival was somewhat enchanting to somebody with no Fringe experience. So it was much to my surprise and disappointment when I learned a little about the commercial aspect of Montréal’s Fringe TM…but I need not have feared…

The Chainsaw Girl: Invading Your Urban Lifestyle, One Drop of Ink at a Time

The Inkvasion has begun! Local Verdun graphic artist Carolyne Trudeau (aka Chainsaw Girl) is invading our urban style one drop of ink at a time, under the guise of her newly founded company Urban Inkvasion. Using innocent T-shirts as her method of distribution of her dark and macabre, touching, blood-spattered artwork…

Defacing Art at VAV Gallery

It was another rain drenched evening. A small ocean of acidic slush formed between me and everywhere I needed to go, while threatening to spill into my impractical ankle high boots at every wrong step. With an hour until the gallery closed, I waded through Rene Levesque towards VAV Gallery to check out the last night of DEFACED…

Montreal Nuit Blanche!

So much going on, so much to do, what’s a boy to do? Well here are some suggestions. There’s a lot going on in Montreal this evening a lot of big things. It’s Nuit Blanche, as well as the MONTRÉAL EN LUMIÈRE festival, Smoke N’ Mirrors, The 13TH FLOOR with Daniel Bell, the WAWA show… and the list goes on. Every year I try to go out and check out some of the most exciting & interesting…

Smoke n’ Mirrors

Those who want to kick off their Nuit Blanche debauchery with a bit of thinking while being entertained, might want to check out Smoke n’ Mirrors. This special edition of the now monthly mutli-media experiment in reality and consciousness will be hosted by Jay Lemieux and feature an original performance of Tatiana Koroleva’s Loving Strangers. For those familiar with Koroleva…

Yshia Wallace’s Things You Won’t Remember exhibit is touching, insightful, and memorable

Things You Won’t Remember is a collection of oil paintings housed at Les Territoires until mid-February that explores the universal desire to collect and conserve memories. The exhibit, created by artist Yshia Wallace, also examines the impact of the media through which memories are portrayed and the fascination we have with our “recorded” selves. Inevitably, Things You Won’t Remember engages the viewer in unexpectedly intimate ways. The paintings are based on printed images of a damaged VHS tape of Wallace and her family. The artist digitized the VHS footage, which was originally filmed in the 80s, and reproduced the digital stills down to the finest details.

I Guess We’re Strange Photography exhibit @ Galerie-Espace

Starting this Friday night at Galerie-Espace (4844 Blv St Laurent), visual artist Steve Walls will be showcasing his photography work. Photos range from Montreal’s Glam Gam burlesque toupe, rave kids who make their own clothing to New Dandy’s and “the occasional mom turned tattooed blogging model queen.”

Steve Walls moved to Montreal after a decade of nomadic travels—”London, Singapore, Sydney, New York, Detroit, bits of Spain and Korea, even a spell in Vanuatu. I thought that I knew cities, but this one felt different,” says Walls. “Montreal lives in the dusk and the dawn, in conversations that happen in the moments between light and dark. Yet it’s a city that’s built on the people that it rewards and recognizes the least.”

We’ve artistically undressed you 2010 Arts & Theatrics year in review

What the fuck is up with our Arts & Theatrics section? We’ve given you reviews of half-naked people dancing around various stages via our Burlesque coverage. We’ve attended art and theatre shows that focus on breaking the glass ceiling by portraying women as silicone objects and transvestite grand-mamas?