Masquerades: Drawn to Metamorphosis

MOMENTA Biennale de l’image is delighted to announce the complete list of artists and exhibition venues participating in its 18th edition, from September 7 to October 22, 2023. Designed by curator Ji-Yoon Han, Masquerades: Drawn to Metamorphosis aims to explore the dynamics of visibility and invisibility that shape representations of the self and the other from the metamorphic potentials of mimicry. The exhibitions, the publication, and the public programs will be organized around this theme. Like a parade, the exhibitions form a sequence of surprising scenarios: humans who converse through mimicking parrots; a cephalopod that sways to the music of Whitney Houston; people with a complex about singing who form a choir; a scorpion, a bat, and a snake who unite their voices in a satirical musical comedy; and more.

Deployed in fifteen locations across the city, the Biennial program will bring together 23 artists from abroad, representing 15 countries, and from 4 provinces and 4 Indigenous nations of Canada. From one exhibition to the next, processes of transformation, mimicry, and mutation will be activated, questioning the functions of the image, between representation and metamorphosis.

Artists and exhibition partners
–Centre CLARK: Kristina Norman (Estonia)
–daphne: Meky Ottawa
–Dazibao: Anette Rose (Germany), Carey Young (United Kingdom/United States)
–Diagonale: Bianca Baldi (South Africa)
–FOFA Gallery: Mara Eagle (United States)
–Fonderie Darling: Valérie Blass (Canada), Jeannette Ehlers (Denmark/Trinidad and Tobago)
–Galerie B-312: Michèle Pearson Clarke (Trinidad and Tobago)***
–Galerie de l’UQAM: Marion Lessard (Canada)*, Émilie Pitoiset (France), Naomi Rincón Gallardo (Mexico)
–Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery: siren eun young jung (South Korea)
–McCord Stewart Museum: Séamus Gallagher (Canada)*
–Montreal Museum of Fine Arts: Lynn Hershman Leeson (United States)
–Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal: Hito Steyerl (Germany)
–Occurrence: Chris Curreri (Canada), Maya Watanabe (Peru/Netherlands)
–OPTICA: Bianca Shonee Arroyo-Kreimes (Costa Rica/Canada)*, Lindsay Katsitsakatste Delaronde (Kahnawà:ke, Canada)**
–VOX, centre de l’image contemporaine: Rémi Belliveau (Acadia, Canada)*, Tuan Andrew Nguyen (Vietnam), Marianne Nicolson (Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw Nation)*

*Presentation of a work commissioned by MOMENTA Biennale de l’image
**Presentation of a work co-commissioned by MOMENTA Biennale de l’image and Bonavista Biennale
***Presentation of a work in collaboration with the Art Gallery of Hamilton

Governmental and institutional partners
Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Conseil des arts de Montréal, Gouvernement du Québec, Government of Canada, Ville de Montréal, Tourisme Montréal, Institut français, Consulat général de France à Québec, Flanders State of the Art, Korean Cultural Centre Canada, Danish Arts Foundation, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Institut Für Auslandsbeziehungen, Instituto Cultural de México Montreal.

About MOMENTA
Based in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal, MOMENTA has been organizing exhibitions, digital projects, public programs, creative workshops, and collaborations of all kinds for over 30 years. MOMENTA Biennale de l’image is a contemporary art dissemination and mediation platform that operates year-round with ongoing activities. The organization stands out for the position it takes and the questions it asks on the place of the image in today’s societies. Among MOMENTA’s wide range of activities, the Biennial is a flagship event presented in partnership with exhibition partners from all over the world.

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