Music Video V

Montréal, July 7, 2010 — Every summer for the past five years, the Musée d’art contemporain has presented Music Video, a program dedicated to the directors who have reinvented the video clip and, in so doing, expanded the scope of contemporary art. This year, the spotlight is on a selection of international visual artists for whom music is embedded in the DNA of their work and who have drawn on the pop aesthetic for the inspiration behind their creations. The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal will screen Music Video V from July 14 to September 29, 2010, in BWR Hall, as part of its Projections series.

2010 Edition

Artists making music, musicians venturing into the visual arts: the two are so closely intertwined that, in both cases, they can simply be described as multidisciplinary artists. Works may be commissioned from an artist by a rock star, or result from an artistic practice suffused with rock culture, as in the concert given by the Rodney Graham Band in 2006 for the opening of that artist’s exhibition at the museum.

Music Video V features visual artists whose interest in music forms an important component of their work. The program consists of a dozen titles from as many video makers prominent on the international music scene – Doug Aitken (United States), Johanna Billing (Sweden), Aleesa Cohene (Canada), Patrick Daughters and Marcel Dzama (Canada), Rineke Dijkstra (Netherlands), Rodney Graham (Canada), Pascal Grandmaison (Québec), Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay (Québec), Pipilotti Rist (Switzerland) and Dominique T. Skoltz (Québec) – to music by Félicia Atkinson, the Backstreet Boys, Department of Eagles, Roky Erickson, Chris Isaak, LCD Soundsystem, Madonna, Jérôme Minière and Patrick Watson. It runs in a continuous one-hour loop.

Rodney Graham presents the video A Little Thought (2000), from his second album, The Bed-Bug. In I’m a Victim of This Song, Pipilotti Rist, who was shown at the MMFA and is part of the group Les Reines Prochaines, reinterprets Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game.” In Annemiek (1997), by Rineke Dijkstra, a teenage girl lip-synchs “I Wanna Be With You” by the Backstreet Boys. Johanna Billing has turned Roky Erickson’s “You Don’t Love Me Yet” into a musical project involving a performance of 20 interpretations of the song, and a film in which the participants reprise the performance all together in a studio. DislocK_, by Dominique T. Skoltz, depicts a man and a woman in a series of choreographic tableaux. Patrick Watson’s “Wooden Arms” and Félicia Atkinson’s “No Wedding” are referenced in this montage based on the artist’s musical preferences. In Live to Tell (2002), Benny Nemerofsky Ramsey offers a choral rendition, before an audience of surveillance cameras, of the Madonna song of the same name. In The Same Problem, he and Aleesa Cohene explore an intriguing call and response between a man and the ocean. Finally, four music videos presented here are true “clips” in the sense of promoting an album. They are Someone Great by Doug Aitken for LCD Soundsystem, No One Does It Like You by Patrick Daughters and Marcel Dzama for Department of Eagles, Les yeux tout autour de la tête by Pascal Grandmaison for Jérôme Minière, and Elton John: I Want Love, with Robert Downey Jr. by Sam Taylor Wood for Elton John.

Organization

Louise Simard, head of multimedia events, organized the Music Video program.

The Musée d’art contemporain is located at 185 Sainte-Catherine Street West, Place-des-Arts metro. Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Wednesdays until 9 p.m. Admission: Adults: $10, students $6. Information: 514 847-6226. Website: www.macm.org

Acknowledgements

The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal is a provincially owned corporation funded by the Ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition féminine du Québec. It receives additional funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council for the Arts.