The visual arts are taking over the underground city

Montreal, Monday, January 26, 2009 - February 28, 2009, from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m., Art Souterrain will take place as part of the 6th edition of the Montreal All-Nighter, presented within the MONTREAL HIGH LIGHTS Festival. Art Souterrain will exhibit the work of 80 contemporary artists, most of them from Quebec, in Montreal’s underground city, with the intention of transforming the space into an artistic experience. Photographs, films, installations and artistic performances will punctuate the underground trail, which will extend from Complexe Les Ailes to the Palais des congrès de Montréal. Ten exposition spaces will create a dynamic artistic itinerary throughout the trail.

Don’t miss Wayne Schoenfeld’s The circus comes alive! at the Palais des congrès, Karine Giboulo’s All you can eat installation at the Centre de commerce mondial de Montréal, Nelly Eve Rajotte’s sound ambiance at the CDP Capital, the Guillaume Simoneau’s photographic work After Prom at Square Victoria, Marie-Reine Mattera and Emmanuel Joly’s projet 24/24 at the Cité Internationale, Users’ Symphony for dot matrix printers at Place Bonaventure, Moment Factory’s large video project Nomad Circle at the Gare Centrale, Sylvaine Chassay’s Machines à rêver at Place Ville Marie, Jannick Deslauriers’s monumental installation at the Eaton Centre, or Laboratoire Créatif’s Couture Xpress at Complexe des Ailes.

Art Souterrain is first and foremost a cultural event with an educational purpose. In addition to the participating artists, there will be 160 cultural mediators, all volunteers from Montreal universities, who will encourage dialogue and interaction to create closer ties between visitors and the artworks. Furthermore, there will be comfort zones throughout the circuit to allow visitors to enjoy the artworks for as long as they wish.

The project also wishes to rethink the underground city-which currently fulfils a commercial function-and to transform it into a place of cultural transmission. In time, Art Souterrain wishes to integrate this environment more regularly and plan an annual calendar of longer-lasting exhibitions. In addition, Art Souterrain’s objective is to unite the realm of visual arts in identifying and bringing together its principal agents through each of its actions.

About Art Souterrain

Art Souterrain is a NPO whose goal is to promote and diffuse contemporary art in the underground city through a calendar of annual exhibitions. The organization wishes to change the public’s perception of new contemporary practices.

This event couldn’t see the day without the collaboration of the Montreal All-Nighter, presented as part of the MONTREAL HIGH LIGHTS Festival and the support of Ville de Montréal, the Conseil des Arts de Montréal, Tourisme Montréal, SODEC, Destination Centre-Ville, and Cirque du Soleil. The STM metro network will stay open all night to encourage and facilitate access to the underground city. Thousands of visitors are expected throughout the trail of Art Souterrain, which promises to be a memorable event for all of its participants

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