Montreal Gazette: “No Boring Art”

Artists (from left) Billy Mavreas, Jack Dylan, Lisa Ceccarelli, Tyler Rauman and Todd Stewart show off their posters that will be on display at Art Pop, the visual arts element of Pop Montreal. — Pierre Obendrauf / The GazetteArt Pop’s pledge: “No boring art”

Natasha Aimee Hall, Special to the Gazette

Published: Wednesday, October 03

Three years ago when Shawn Petsche griped to Pop Montreal creative director Dan Seligman that the visual arts component of the indie music festival left something to be desired, he didn’t expect to be handed the job of Art Pop director. That’s what you get for complaining.

“Two days later I was in their offices organizing art shows,” Petsche said. “It was like, ‘You don’t like it, you fix it.’ ”

The art aspect had been there since the very inception of Pop Montreal six years ago but it was getting lost in the shuffle of a burgeoning music festival on the brink of becoming huge. Artists displayed their work here and there, but there was a lack of cohesive direction.

“They had the music part figured out,” Petsche, 25, said, “but were missing the point on how the music and art communities are so closely tied.”

Petsche himself is a case in point. He’s currently completing a master’s degree in Art History at Concordia and he plays guitar in the band The Adam Brown. (Oh, and he’s the director of Art Pop, of course.)

Under Petsche’s command, Art Pop presents a curated visual arts program of a dozen or so exhibitions, performances and public art projects each year for the five days of chaos and joy that is Pop Montreal.
This year’s edition asks the question: Art Pop – Art or arse? Clearly, these Art Popists don’t take themselves very seriously. According to Petsche, the only rule is “no boring art.”

Vibrant tableaus, vivid silk screen prints, raucous live performance art, album art, videos, sculptures, photographs, objets, paper cuttings – there is no shortage of candy for the eye, ear and heart at Art Pop.

“I’ve tried to keep a good balance of those sorts of inevitable exhibitions, the kind that arise so organically from the music side of things, with some more intellectually pointed exhibitions, examining those same kind of organic links,” Petsche said. “Basically, so that the art section, like the music section, is just a big celebration of interesting art.”

It is not a commercial affair. Posters sell for as low as $5, while some paintings are priced in the thousands. But no commission is paid to organizers and some works are not even for sale: They are just there to be seen. “It’s about bringing art to people,” Petsche said. “If we can line an artist’s pockets or help someone pay their rent – that’s the cherry on top.”

Artists range from the renowned to the unknown. Joseph Arthur, whose work is being shown at Le Kop Shop at 77 Pine Ave., was nominated for a Grammy award for the album art for his 1999 release, Vacancy, and has his own gallery in Brooklyn. Tyler Rauman, of the Montreal band Telefauna, got into the art scene by doing posters for local bands, including his own. His intricate silk screen poster for Patrick Watson and the Polaris Music Prize, which Watson won last week, is on display alongside nine other posters for Polaris nominees at Notman House, 51 Sherbrooke St. W.

“Audiences are more enthusiastic about music than art,” said artist Jack Dylan, whose poster for Miracle Fortress is also showing at the same exhibit.

“That’s why it’s good to tie them together,” Rauman agreed. “One leads to the other, they go hand-in-hand.”
“I see it as music giving visual arts a leg up,” said Billy Mavreas, the artist behind the Arcade Fire poster that’s also being exhibited at Notman House.

While the name Art Pop might suggest that this is a pop-art exhibit and conjures up images of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, it’s more than that. Many of the works are indeed linked to pop culture, but the festival is not limited to what people normally think of as pop art. “Pop art didn’t start and end with Andy Warhol,” Petsche said. “We’re out to challenge as many boundaries as possible.”

In keeping with the underground, DIY spirit of Pop Montreal, Art Pop deliberately groups unusual art with unusual venues, such as the Portuguese Association of Canada at 4170 St. Urbain St.

As Petsche put it, “It’s all about launching into it headfirst, maybe being naive about it but making it happen anyway you can.”

Pop Montreal continues until Sunday, but many Art Pop exhibits will run for longer. Go to popmontreal.com/art/en for details. Poster art will be sold at Puces Pop, the fest’s annual flea market, Saturday and Sunday at the Canadian Grenadier Guards Armoury, 4171 Esplanade Ave.