The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' New Pavilion of Quebec & Canadian Art

Written by David Slingsby Saturday, 07 January 2012 22:36

Montreal.- The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), which celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2010, opened its new 59,000-gsf. Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion of Quebec and Canadian Art and Concert Hall. Increasing the MMFA’s total exhibition space by 20%, the new Pavilion features 18,953 nsf. of gallery space, which doubles the previous display area dedicated for the presentation of the Museum’s collection of historical and contemporary Quebec and Canadian art. In this new award-winning building (recipient of the 2010 Canadian Architect Awards of Merit and the 2011 Award of Excellence from the Urban Development Institute of Quebec), the Museum will present a more coherent and comprehensive examination of the history of Quebec and Canadian art. Continuing the MMFA’s policy of offering free admission to its permanent collection, the new Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion will provide thousands of visitors, school groups, families, and tourists with the opportunity to learn more about Canada’s rich cultural heritage.

In order to foster a new dialogue between the visual arts and music, the Museum’s expansion includes the restoration, and conversion of the nave of the former Erskine and American church (1894) into a 444-seat concert hall. The new 8,095-nsf. Bourgie Concert Hall will host a full range of music performances along with a variety of museum-related public programs. Access to the Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion and Bourgie Concert Hall is provided via a shared new main entrance clad in the same marble found in the Museum’s existing pavilions, while an underground gallery also links the two structures to the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion.

Some 600 works of Canadian art will now be on display, including recently restored works and many major acquisitions that were part of the Museum’s 150th anniversary campaign. The installation conceived by Jacques Des Rochers, curator of Quebec and Canadian Art, in conjunction with curators Anne Grace (Modern Art) and Stéphane Aquin (Contemporary Art), will display works chronically on six levels. A critical aspect of this unprecedented effort by the Museum to study, exhibit, and promote its historic collection involved the restoration of one hundred works led by Richard Gagnier, head of the MMFA’s Conservation Department. The over 600 works from the Museum’s Collection of Quebec and Canadian Art are arranged from top to bottom in the new Pavilion with Inuit art on level 4, Colonial Period (1700s to 1870s) art associated with the origins of Canadian art and the emergence of a national school of landscape painting on level 3, "The Era of Annual Exhibitions" (1880s to 1920s) associated with such artists as William Brymner, Maurice Cullen, and Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté on level 2 and "Towards Modernism" (1920s to 1930s), featuring depictions of Quebec cityscapes and rural landscapes by the Beaver Hall Group, Montreal’s earliest group of modern artists and Toronto’s Group of Seven, best known for framing a national identity through their depictions of the Canadian wilderness on level 1. There will also be a special gallery space devoted to Marc-Aurèle Fortin on level 1.

The Sherbrooke Street level (S1) will present "The Age of the Manifesto" (1940s to 1960s) featuring works by artists who signed the Prismes d’Yeux, Refus global and Manifeste des Plasticiens including exceptional selections by leading figures of these movements including Alfred Pellan, Paul-Émile Borduas and Jean-Paul Riopelle. Organized around the theme of "Expanding Fields" (1960s to1970s), the underground Mountain Gallery (Level S2) links the new Pavilion to the Galleries of International Contemporary Art located in the JeanNoël Desmarais Pavilion. In this vast, 148-foot long gallery, visitors will discover works by Louis Archambault, Greg Curnoe, Jean McEwen, Guido Molinari, Michael Snow and Claude Tousignant, and such monumental works as Jean-Paul Riopelle’s Ice Canoe (1992), among others.

Dating back to 2002, the Museum’s sculpture garden has been expanded to house one of the largest collections of public art in Montreal. Over twenty works are currently being installed including new works by artists Jim Dine, Dominique Blain, and David Altmedj, as well as César, Aaron Curry, Barry Flanagan, FrançoisXavier Lalanne, Fernand Léger, Jaume Plensa and Colleen Wolstenholme, among others. New commissions that are also part of the Museum’s recent expansion include Montreal-artist Dominique Blain’s Mirabilia (2011). For the outdoor terrace on Level 3 of the new Pavilion, Blain was commissioned to create a series of glass blocks, lit from within, resting on a bed of stones. When viewed from the third floor, they resemble the topography of a city and from the fourth floor; they appear more like ghostly imprints. The total cost for the project was $42.4 million CAD and includes $34.1 million for the construction, with $19.4 million in financing from the Quebec government and $13.5 million from the Canadian government. Contributions from the private sector include $8.3 million for the purchase of the church, restoration of the stained glass windows, and acquisition of the equipment for the Pavilion and Concert Hall.


The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has one of the highest attendance rates among Canadian museums. Every year, its 600,000 visitors enjoy its encyclopedic collection, unique in Canada and free to all, and its original temporary exhibitions, which combine artistic disciplines (fine arts, music, film, fashion, design) and feature innovative exhibition design. The Museum designs, produces and circulates many of its exhibitions in Europe and North America. It is also one of Canada’s leading publishers of bilingual art books, which are distributed worldwide. More than 100,000 families and schoolchildren take part in its educational, cultural and community programmes every year. Music is now an integral part of the Museum, providing another perspective on the visual arts, through musical audioguides and other innovative activities organized in co-operation with the new Arte Musica Foundation. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is a private, non-profit institution that must generate the funds for nearly 50% of its annual operating budget and nearly 100% of the acquisition of works for its collection. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.mmfa.qc.ca

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