Montreal has more than 1,000 public artworks, including these hidden gems

Destination: Art is a series uncovering some of Canada’s unique, unexpected and under-the-radar art experiences. With spring in the air, adventure on the mind and many looking to explore more Canada, CBC Arts is adding some new attractions for readers who want to discover the treasures hiding in their own backyard.

Take a stroll through Montreal’s streets on a sunny afternoon and you are sure to come across numerous works of art in the urban landscape. 

While some are more visible — such as the mural by MU and the 101-year-old artist Françoise Sullivan, which covers the facade of a hotel — others are more subtle or even hidden, like Nadia Myre’s Renouée, a bronze fishing net the Algonquin artist has left to be overgrown by native plants.

The city’s public art dates back centuries. According to Art Public Montréal, which offers a comprehensive online map of the collection, there are more than 1,080 public pieces by 640 artists across the island. The oldest work in its database is from 1750.

Many were created thanks to a 1961 provincial law that required any new public building or site to incorporate a work of art. Today, the funding for new public artworks that would fall under the Per Cent for Art policy — or La politique du un pour cent — is under threat as the province has frozen the program.

With so many gems hiding in Montreal’s landscape of parks, skyscrapers, pedestrian plazas and gritty underpasses, it can be difficult to know which ones are worth seeking out. CBC Arts asked experts dedicated to bringing these projects to light for a few of their favourites.

Comme si le temps … de la rue

Where is it? Espace culturel Georges-Émile-Lapalme, Place des Arts, 175 Ste-Catherine St. W.

Pierre Granche was one of Quebec’s most prominent sculptors during the public-art boom of the 1970s. Few pieces feel as significant as Comme si le temps … de la rue (As If Time … of the Street), a Per Cent for Art commission at Place des Arts that accompanied the construction of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal in 1992.

Tucked away in the vast underground network of the downtown core, the installation is a beacon of light in the dark underbelly of the city. Inspired by Greek theatre and Egyptian iconography, it weaves those references together with Montreal’s urban topography. The surfaces of its anodized aluminum forms are resplendent in the sunlight that streams down from a skylight.

“It’s an emblematic work of Montreal that we can project ourselves into, and it also opens up onto a rich imaginary,” says Laurent Vernet, former commissioner of the city’s Public Art Bureau and current director of the Galerie de l’Université de Montréal. “We can recognize its influence in the work of many other Montreal artists that have followed in the same footsteps in their public artworks.”

Terre en vue

Where is it? Parc du Centenaire-de-Parc-Extension, St-Roch Street and Stuart Avenue

In Park Extension, a dense residential neighborhood known for its rich immigrant communities, Karine Payette‘s playful Terre en vue (Land in Sight) is a reminder that public art is for the masses — including children.

The playground structure is composed of a panda sitting on the shoulders of a polar bear, both atop a bright orange ship. Made of aluminum, it’s meant to be climbed on. It is accessible and friendly, with its Noah’s ark-like scene imagined in a palette of bright colours.

“This rereading of public art as an opportunity for a game is very skilful,” Vernet says. And yet the work also seems to evoke serious issues like climate change, the image of a polar bear stranded on a boat echoing the melting ice caps.

For Vernet, public art pieces that seamlessly integrate with their sites are the most successful. “It’s interesting to bring children to art through a proposition that has no boundaries between you and the work,” he says. “You can climb and walk all over it.” 

Dans l’attente… While Waiting

Where is it? Entrée de ville Bonaventure, between Robert-Bourassa Boulevard and Nazareth Street

Nadia’s Myre‘s Dans l’attente… While Waiting is easy to miss if you’re whizzing by in a car on your way into the city. A series of bronze silhouettes of animals and people occupies the park like a narrative drawing brought to life.

It’s perhaps one of the most important pieces in Montreal’s public art collection considering, among other reasons, the lack of Indigenous artists represented. It’s also one of the most difficult to photograph, requiring you to contemplate its beauty and visual poetry in person.

“It’s a work that is conducive to a collective conversation, evoking so much, but also leaving room for interpretation and allowing us to have our own reading,” says Lena MK, the founder of Maison Mona, a non-profit that promotes public art. 

Dans l’attente… While Waiting references the Great Peace of Montreal, a treaty signed between 39 First Nations and the settlers of New France in 1701.

When a lot of public art these days serves as fodder for social media — flashy so that it might be widely shared — Myre’s work asks us instead to be present with it. 

“This creates a certain proximity and discreetness,” MK says.

Untitled

Where is it? 147 Henri-Bourassa Blvd. E.

Montreal’s murals are so iconic there’s a festival dedicated to them every year. And the practice of transforming the city’s vertical surfaces into graphic canvasses stretches beyond the core. 

Local visual and hip-hop artist Monk.E‘s untitled mural in the residential borough of Ahuntsic-Cartierville is a perfect example, according to MK. “It’s a work that was dedicated to newly arrived immigrants, done with Carrefour d’aide aux nouveaux arrivants [an organization that assists newcomers to Montreal],” she says.

The blueish-green mural depicts the faces of two Black people, bisected by a downspout, one smiling and the other looking at the viewer. Clouds are in the background with the barely perceptible logo of the City of Montreal peeking through. 

“Murals are more accessible financially,” MK says. “They’re cheaper to make than other public art projects and they’re also, in some ways, closer to the people and inscribed in their communities.

“However, they also don’t have the same longevity. In cases where the building needs repairs, they most likely disappear.”

Neuf couleurs au vent

Where is it? Place Urbain-Baudreau-Graveline, Sherbrooke Street East and Parc-La Fontaine Avenue

Most sculptural public art in Montreal is permanent, designed to withstand the elements year-round, but Daniel Buren’s Neuf couleurs au vent (Nine Colours in the Wind) is an exception.

A series of nine vertically striped nine-metre banners in green, red, yellow, blue and black, this work by the renowned French conceptual artist was one of his first public artworks and one of the very few presented in North America. 

Installed in 1984, it’s only on display during the warmer months, making it a marker of the city’s iconic summer outdoor culture of apéro on terraces and picnics in parks.

“It’s really an important part of the Montreal identity,” Vernet says.

He also sees an important conservation issue for those tasked with its upkeep. “It has an impact on how we manage a public-art collection since the flags have to be remade when they wear down and are stored for the winter,” he says. The work challenges the need for public art to be eternal.

La réparation

Where is it? Parc Marcelin-Wilson, 11301 De l’Acadie Blvd.

Another stalwart of public art in Montreal, Francine Larivée is a sculptor whose large-scale environmental works transform the landscape. 

For Analays Alvarez Hernandez, an associate professor of art history at the University of Montreal who specializes in contemporary public art, La réparation (Reparation) is a prime example of Larivée’s work. “An Armenian landmark in the heart of the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough,” the work is dedicated to all victims of genocide in the 20th century, she says. 

“La réparation is a monument which, while profoundly commemorative, departs from tradition in both its form and its creative process,” Alvarez Hernandez says. “It takes the form of a white marble temple, split into two equal pieces. Inside the embrasure, like a wound, the names of the peoples who fell victim to the genocides of the 20th century are engraved on two red granite panels set into the marble.” 

The austerity of the site conceals the depth of the work — it’s one you might casually come upon without knowing its full weight.

Those That Pass Through, Remain, Return

Where is it? Concordia University, 1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.

This artwork is not a monument, rather it is part of an initiative challenging the idea that public art must last forever. “When we think of commemorative public art, we rarely consider the possibility for it to be in a temporary form,” Alvarez Hernandez says. 

Over the next 12 years, Concordia University will commission three temporary public artworks as part of Honouring Black Presence at Concordia to celebrate contributions by the Black community to the university and to Montreal.

“This program focuses on the strength of public art projects with a flexible timeline, allowing the works to live fully and make their mark,” Alvarez Hernandez says. “They remain relevant and charge the public space with great depth, with voices and experiences that are often obfuscated.” 

The first work, opening this spring by multidisciplinary artist Charles Campbell, will be on display in the Henry F. Hall Building for about three years. Accompanied by a sound component, the artwork will transform the building’s large windows into glowing, colourful panes of glass. 

Entitled Those That Pass Through, Remain, Return, the installation considers breath as a conduit of experience and memory. It is a response to the summer of 2020 and the final words of Eric Garner, George Floyd and others  — “I can’t breathe” — which reignited the Black Lives Matter movement.

Allegorical Columns at the Canadian Centre for Architecture garden

Where is it? Ernest Cormier Esplanade, René-Lévesque Boulevard West

Melvin Charney’s Allegorical Columns from 1988 reside in a marquee sculpture garden tucked away by busy René-Lévesque Boulevard and an expressway ramp. Charney was an architect from McGill University who worked with the codes of sculpture and visual art.

The architect’s columns, funky mix-and-match references to different built forms and materials, echo the industrial past of the Saint-Henri and Verdun neighbourhoods they overlook. 

The work honours the legacy of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, an institution founded by Phyllis Lambert, who advocated for the preservation of the city’s architecture during the 1970s and started Heritage Montreal in 1975. 

Charney’s sculptures capture the spirit of Vernet’s description of Montreal: “generous in terms of public art for artists and citizens … for each gesture posed by the artist there is a deep search for meaning.”

The images of Neuf couleurs au vent and La réparation are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. The image of Comme si le temps … de la rue is licensed under CC0 1.0.