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Brooklyn/Montréal goes stateside


 

From October to November 2012, Montreal hosted the first installment of “Montreal/Brooklyn”, initiating an exchange in visual art events between the two titled cities, thus capturing important media and audience attention towards the art scene of the Quebecois metropolis. In an interview with M-KOS, Montreal coordinators Claudine Khelil and Yann Pocreau mention their delight at all the positive feedback received in Montreal, but remain alert for the final chapter of the project that is yet to come, over to the state side of the border. As it is now Brooklyn’s turn to host the next part of this event, indicated by the reversed title (Brooklyn/Montreal), the categorical test for Montreal artists will be about how they are received by New Yorkers, their critics as much as their art enthusiasts. Will there be any buzz?
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Montréal – Brooklyn Rendez-vous

Montreal / Brooklyn is a new contemporary art initiative organized by Montreal-based artist-run centre Clark, which aims to establish a cultural exchange between the two cities, to include the participation of 16 institutions and 40 artists. Residing on either side of the US/Canada border and separated by a physical distance of approximately 600 kilometers, coordinators Claudine Khelil and Yann Pocreau have spent two years setting up a network between the different institutions in the respective cities, before turning this rendez-vous into a reality. Pocreau comments: “The main idea of this project was to create a real encounter between two cities, two galleries and artists – it’s very much a communication-based project” *
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Interview: Alain Thibault, artistic director of the International Digital Arts Biennale


Alain Thibault (Right) with artist Robert Lepage at the opening of BIAN. Courtesy of BIAN 2012. Photo: Conception

Alain Thibault is the founder and artistic director of the International Digital Arts Biennale (BIAN), inaugurating its first edition in April 2012. Unlike his sister electronic music event Elektra, BIAN focuses on digital forms of contemporary art, hosted in numerous museums, art galleries, artist-run centres and other venues throughout the city of Montreal. BIAN invited artists from Germany, Japan, France, Switzerland, Austria, The Netherlands, Turkey, USA as well as Quebec and Canada, including renowned names such as Carsten Nicolai and Ryoji Ikeda. Thibault talked to M-KOS about his motivation to take digital arts to the next level, while he enjoys the taste of success of the first edition of his biennale.

M-KOS [MKOS]: As founder for the International Digital Arts Biennale (BIAN), how would you describe your motivation to do such a festival?

Alain Thibault [AT]: In fact I started out with Elektra in 1999, which is also an international festival of digital arts. The focus with Elektra was mainly about concerts and performances, but still with a mandate of blending experimental electronic music with visuals. This could be audiovisual performance, robotic performance, but there was always a central axis on experimental electronic music combined with a visual element. So that began in ’99, and gradually we evolved out of Usine C which is our main headquarters and quite an extraordinary venue for presenting this type of show. By 2005 we started adding more and more installations to the usual performance program, and these slowly spread to other venues such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal and the Cinémathèque. In 2009 the installation program exceeded the allocated duration of the whole [Elektra] festival and that was when I said to myself I should make another event out of this, entirely devoted to the installation component. This is more or less how BIAN was born. And also this was about highlighting the idea that we arrived at a point in time where major artists were doing major works [in a digital format] and for me it was important to mark that moment.
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