VALERIE BLASS/NICOLAS BAIER at MOCCA (Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, 952 Queen West), to March 29. 416-395-0067. Rating: NNNN
Montreal’s artistic surge isn’t only a musical phenomenon. It’s happening in the visual arts, too.
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A couple of weeks ago I reviewed the work of Patrick Bernatchez, a talented young Montrealer catapulted to buzz status by the 2008 Quebec Triennial.
And emerging sculptor Valérie Blass and established photog Nicolas Baier, both also featured at the much-praised Triennial, are at MOCCA to month’s end.
Blass’s eccentric yet masterful sculptures are a must-see. Though the show is compact, the nine works speak volumes about her diverse talents.
One, an angular lightning bolt covered in neatly combed red hair, evokes a minimialist Meret Oppenheim (creator of Surrealism’s fur-lined teacup). In another, random objects like vacuum attachments and power bars are stuck into a squishy substrate, contrasting deftly with a clean, neat, wood-panelled shape placed alongside. And in the pièce de résistance, The Straw Man, a life-size green-string swamp creature sits Thinker-style with fist under chin and foot on (here’s the kicker) an Egyptian pharaoh bust.
Essentially, Blass links images and materials, from ancient Egypt to contemporary office life, from Chinatown knick-knacks to Chewbacca masks. Her material skill keeps pace with her concepts in sculptures that evoke the invisible, the glom and the glue that hold our messy, nonsensical world together.
Nicolas Baier’s large-scale photographs of water-stained paper and decaying mirrors offer a different experience. They quietly reflect the subtleties of visual life, where white walls reveal slight traces of human activity and split-open rocks contain landscapes. Though not as immediately thrilling as Blass’s zany sculptures, Baier’s work shows a seriously contemplative mind and technique at work.
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