Surrealism, positioning, design – how Montreal Museum of Fine Arts educates and provokes viewers
In this photo essay series from Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts, we showcase a range of art exhibits through the ages.
Launched in 2014, PhotoSparks is a weekly feature from YourStory, with photographs that celebrate the spirit of creativity and innovation. In the earlier 885 posts, we featured an art festival, cartoon gallery. world music festival, telecom expo, millets fair, climate change expo, wildlife conference, startup festival, Diwali rangoli, and jazz festival.
Founded in 1860, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is a major cultural attraction and community hub. With a strong belief in the transformative power of art, it aims to conserve, interpret and present significant works of art from around the world (see our earlier coverage of its exhibitions from 2018 onwards here.)
In this photo essay, we share highlights from its extensive collections as well as four ongoing exhibitions. They showcase unusual art forms, early masters, social imagery, and creative design.
An outstanding exhibition is titled Worlds of Wonder: The Surrealist Journey of Alan Glass. It features the artworks of Montreal-born artist Alan Glass, who lived most of his life in Mexico and passed away in 2023.
It showcases the artist’s unique exploration of surrealism across mixed media, and includes drawings as well as astonishing juxtapositions of ordinary objects. The boxed items show how seemingly mundane objects can be redesigned into eye-catching surreal displays.
The artist’s works have also been displayed at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), and the Museo de Arte Moderno (Mexico).
“The exhibition shines a light on the creations of an outstanding artist who never ceased to find wonder in the world around him,” explains Elisabeth Otto, Assistant Curator of Quebec and Canadian Art at the MMFA, and curator of the exhibition.
Another exhibition features the work of French gallerist Berthe Weill. She is acknowledged as the first woman to focus largely on championing young painters just as they were starting their careers.
"Over the course of her career, Berthe Weill championed artists who are now considered pillars of Modernism, among them Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, and Suzanne Valadon," MMFA director Stéphane Aquin explains in the curatorial notes.
The artworks also include sculptures, drawings, prints, jewellery pieces, and archival documents. The curator notes highlight Weill's creativity, vision and sense of humour.
Another provocative exhibition is titled Bad Girls Only: Women and the Seven Deadly Sins. It features prints and drawings of European depictions of sin and gender, and questions why women were unfairly associated with sin.
The Seven Deadly Sins are defined as pride, sloth, wrath, envy, avarice, gluttony, and lust. The exhibition concludes with an interactive wall featuring question cards that invite viewers to reflect on how imagery around sin show up in our daily lives.
"The exhibition helps us better understand the codes and conventions that shape the way we navigate the world around us," says Marie-Dailey Desmaris, Chief Curator at MMFA.
The fourth exhibition titled Two by Two, Together features recent additions to the MMFA’s collection. Acquired over the last five years, the artworks are displayed in creative groupings that create a dialogue between the works through their subject, form and function.
Now what have you done today to pause in your busy schedule and harness your creative side for a better world?
(All photographs were taken by Madanmohan Rao on location at MMFA.)