An artist, writer and curator, Andrew Hunter has produced exhibitions, site projects, publications and writings for institutions across Canada including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Vancouver Art Gallery. His approach is one that places a strong emphasis on popular narratives that complexify mainstream history and test received ideas. At the core of Hunter’s work has been the exploration of the holdings of public institutions (museums, art galleries, libraries and archives) as well as private collections, engaging these in various forms of narrative play. In the words of Hunter, This is Montréal! “… reflects an engagement with a desire to move beyond didactic or academic articulations of a collection to explore the failure of memory, embrace the creative possibilities of getting it wrong and accept that our ideas of the “real” are largely constructed and imaginary.”

Andrew Hunter is currently the Director of RENDER, a unique arts-based research, teaching and presentation center, located at the University of Waterloo.

As a child, growing up in an average and modest 1950s suburb in Hamilton, Ontario, my idea of Montréal was formed largely through images (and a very narrow and contradictory selection of images at that). The sources of these images, as best as I can recall and based on what I still have at hand of the few remaining artefacts of my childhood, were the following:

1. The Official Souvenir Book for Expo 67 and an accompanying Tell me about Expo children’s booklet.
2. National Geographic, (volume 131, No. 5, May 1967).
3. Two Andy O’Brien books on the Montréal Canadiens.
4. A Murray Hill Taxis Ltd. Montréal Tours Brochure (circa 1950).
5. The NFB film La Lutte (Wrestling) co-directed by Michel Brault, Marcel Carrière, Claude Fournier and Claude Jutra, 1961.

What was my idea of Montréal? Basically, that it was big, extremely modern and way more connected to the world (and the future) than my hometown. The fact that Montréal (at that time) was bigger than Toronto really appealed to me, and it was obviously more sophisticated too. Even Montréal’s hockey team seemed more sophisticated, faster and more progressive than the local franchise my friends all cheered for and my father derided as the Maple “Laughs.” Through the elements listed above, fleeting glimpses on the CBC and the rare opportunities I had to see the Canadiens on Hockey Night in Canada, I constructed a personal vision of a nearly utopian environment, the residue of which still lingers.

My first true experience of the city of Montréal came in the early 1970s when my family paid a brief visit to my “Aunt” Marilyn (actually a close friend of my parents, not really an aunt). The visit may have only lasted a day, maybe an afternoon, but I know it was brief. We visited the remains of Expo 67, went out for dinner (somewhere close to McGill) and spent time at her apartment, a place I still recall being very modern because of the paintings and wall hangings, Swedish furniture and thick shag carpeting. This fleeting visit only served to confirm my vision of the city.

The intention of This is Montréal! is to map the Montréal of my childhood dreams, to piece together a fragmentary picture of a city I have never truly known. Working with a blurred model of the modern-design museum, the trade-fair display and World Fair, I have tried to construct a blatantly flawed, yet hopefully convincing, articulation of an idea of a place seen and imagined by an outsider (equal parts naïve and deceiving, in the latter case echoing Marco Polo’s narration of Italo Calvino’s book Invisible Cities). The title of the project is drawn from tourism publications of the 1960s.

The works that I have selected from the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery collection capture both my general memories and ideas of the “modern,” which I associated with Montréal (this is particularly true of works by such artists as Denis Juneau, Yves Gaucher and Gerald Gladstone) as well as very specific connections to individuals and events. I have also included in this exhibition a rather problematic work, Robert Guy’s untitled abstraction, which is not in the gallery’s collection but has been housed in the vault for several years. Of uncertain provenance, the work is slightly damaged and in an unstable state. It captures the spirit of my project, and embodies the same blurring of personal resonance and fading ideals as the snapshot images of Expo 67 included in this exhibition.

The flawed, often troubled figure that exists on the fringes of a society or who looks in from the outside through fragments and the thoughts of others has been a consistent feature of my work for some time. Furthermore, This is Montréal! reflects my interest in modernist fixations on utopian planning and industry and the ideas of truth within the museum environment and the historical process. The distinct curatorial strategy applied here reflects an engagement with a desire to move beyond didactic or academic articulations of a collection to explore the failure of memory, embrace the creative possibilities of getting it wrong and accept that our ideas of the “real” are largely constructed and imaginary.

Richard Lacroix
Pointe à diamant III, 1968, screenprint

Rita Letendre
In Space, 1969, screenprint

Guido Molinari
untitled, 1965, screenprint

Robert Savoie
Perforation 0.2, 1969, screenprint

Gordon Appelbe Smith
Orange Square, 1964, screenprint

Philip Henry Surrey
Spec’s Grill, 1945, watercolour, pencil and ink on paper

Philip Henry Surrey
Hotel Russell, vers 1945, watercolour, Conte pencil and pastel on paper

Katie Von Der Ohe
Circle Round About, 1969, screenprint

Marcel Barbeau
Rétine prétentieuse, 1965, acrylic on canvas

Yves Gaucher
Danse carrée / Il était un carré, 1965, oil on canvas

Denis Juneau
Des bleus, 1963, oil on canvas

Serge Lemoyne
Pointe d’étoile, 1972, oil on canvas

Jean McEwen
La folie conduisant l’amour #2, 1967, acrylic on canvas

John Miller
No. 5, n. d., acrylic on hardboard

Guido Molinari
Espace bleu No. 2, 1962, oil on canvas

Claude Tousignant
Stocastique VxBxMxR, 1965, oil on canvas

Zbigniew Blazeje
Structural 65 #12, 1966, acrylic on canvas with Plexiglas, wood

Gerald Gladstone
Hanging Form No. 3, 1963, steel

Nancy Herbert
untitled, vers 1972, wool and synthetic fibres

Henry Saxe
Blue-Orange, 1969, vinyl and steel

Gord Smith
Rising Form, 1964, bronze

Françoise Sullivan
untitled, vers 1973, acrylic

Walter Yarwood
Hidden Place, 1963, bronze

Baldissera, Lisa. Afterword. Peake’s Folly. By Andrew T. Hunter. Victoria: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 2002.

Billard, Jules B. “Montreal Greets the World.” National Geographic. May 1967: 600 -621.

Expo 67 Man and His World, Library and Archives Canada, http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/expo/05330213_e.html

Hunter, Andrew. David Poolman: Long Gone Lonesome Blues. London: Museum London, 2005.

Hunter, Andrew T. The Donnelly Project / Le projet Donnelly. London: Museum London; Charlottetown: Confederation Centre Art Gallery and Museum, 2002.

Hunter, Andrew T. Peake’s Folly. Victoria: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 2002.

Hunter, Andrew. Speaking of Billy. The Edge of Everything: Reflections on Curatorial Practice. Ed. Catherine Thomas. Banff: The Banff Centre Press, 2002.

Hunter, Andrew. Up jumped the Devil. Kitchener: Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, 2005.

O’Brien, Andy. Fire-Wagon Hockey. Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1967.

O’Brien, Andy. Rocket Richard. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1961.

Render, University of Waterloo, Official Web site, http://render.uwaterloo.ca/

Steichen, Edward. The Family of Man. New York: Maco Publishing Co Inc., 1955.

THE FAMILY OF MAN Museum, Clervaux, Luxembourg, Official Web site, http://www.family-of-man.public.lu/

Thomas, Catherine, ed. The Edge of Everything: Reflections on Curatorial Practice. Banff: The Banff Centre Press, 2002.

Vandenplas, Jean, and Jacqueline Vandenplas. Tell me about Expo. Montreal: Le Centre d’Animation Pastorale – Expo 67, 1963.