JENNIFER ALLEYN

Born in Switzerland in 1969, Jennifer Alleyn lives and works in Montreal. At the age of twenty-two, she travelled around the world filming for the television show La course destination monde, broadcast on Radio-Canada. As a journalist, she was a contributor to Le Devoir, The Gazette, La Presse and Elle Québec for a number of years. A filmmaker with an interest in private life, she made L’atelier de mon père, sur les traces d’Edmund Alleyn (2008), an emotionally resonant first feature. In 2010 she made Dix fois Dix, a film essay on the German painter Otto Dix that deals with the subject of war and its horrors. Prize-winners at Cannes and at the Montreal International Festival of Films on Art, her films probe the mysteries of art.

NANCY HUSTON

Born in Calgary in 1953, Nancy Huston spent her teenage years on the east coast of the United States. In 1973, she went to Paris to study and decided to settle there. In 1976, she began writing in French, contributing to numerous journals and magazines. Her first novel, Les variations Goldberg, appeared in 1981. Her literary oeuvre comprises novels, essays, children’s books, scripts, plays and readings/performances. Plainsong (1993), one of her rare forays into her native tongue, marked a turning point in her career. A winner of numerous literary prizes in both France and Canada, she writes in French and English and translates her own works. Huston is also a promoter of women’s rights and a musician.

MELISSA AUF DER MAUR

Melissa Auf der Maur was born in Montreal, where she studied photography and music. From 1994 to 1999, she was a bass guitarist and songwriter with the rock group Hole. The following year she joined the Smashing Pumpkins. In 2004, she released her first solo album, Auf der Maur. In 2009, she wrote and produced Out of Our Minds (000M), a multimedia project featuring an album, a graphic novel and a short film directed by New Yorker Tony Stone. The short film met with great popular and critical success when shown at the Sundance Film Festival. It was screened at the Museum as part of the exhibition J. W. Waterhouse, an artist who has always fascinated her—as has late-nineteenth-century aesthetics.

GENEVIÈVE CADIEUX

A graduate of the Visual Arts Program of the University of Ottawa, Geneviève Cadieux has shown her work in numerous group exhibitions in, among other places, Japan, Australia, Europe, the United States and Canada since the early 1980s. In 1990, she represented Canada at the Biennale di Venizia. Her work has since been featured in many solo exhibitions throughout the world. Her monumental mosaic, La voix lactée, a close to 7-by-3-metre replica of the work that looks down from the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, has recently come to adorn the Saint-Lazare metro station in Paris.

WAJDI MOUAWAD

Born in Lebanon in 1968, Wajdi Mouawad fled the civil war along with his family at the age of eight. After a few years in Paris, they settled in Montreal. In 1991, after studying acting at the National Theatre School, he embarked on a career as an actor, author, director and artistic director. In 1990, he co-founded the Théâtre Ô Parleur. In 1997, he published Littoral (awarded a Governor General’s Literary Award in 2000), the first installment of a projected tetralogy that continued with Incendies (2003), Forêts (2006) and Ciels (2009). This entire body of work, which possesses great dramatic power, was hailed by international critics. Wajdi Mouawad has also directed a feature-length film, Littoral, based on his play of the same name. The film adaptation of Incendies, which was brought to the screen by director Denis Villeneuve, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2011.

EN MASSE

EN MASSE is a Montreal-based collaborative drawing initiative founded by Jason Botkin and Tim Barnard in 2009, with the intention of allowing emerging “Neo-Pop” artists an opportunity to explore the creation of a collective vision. With backgrounds in graphic novels, graffiti, design and the fine arts, the artists who take part in this project create highly spontaneous, site-specific and large-scale drawings in black and white. Currently directed by Botkin, Rupert Bottenberg and Fred Caron, the group has worked in partnership with urban events such as Nuit blanche (part of the Montreal High Lights Festival), Osheaga Festival, Escales improbables and Piknic Électronik, as well as for public and private organizations such as SOS Dettes, Cirque du Soleil, Simons and Sid Lee. At the same time, EN MASSE has created specific educational and mentorship programs, which are carried out in schools and workshops throughout the city. This is their first work to be shown in a museum.

CLAUDE CORMIER

Claude Cormier studied the history and theory of design at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, landscape architecture at the University of Toronto, and agronomy at the University of Guelph. Since founding his own firm in Montreal in 1995, Claude Cormier has completed numerous international projects that extend well beyond traditional landscape architecture by building bridges between urban design, public art and architecture. His firm has had the privilege of working on major public projects in Montreal and Toronto. Projects in Montreal include the restoration of Dorchester Square and Place d’Youville, installation of Pink Balls on Sainte-Catherine Street East, and development of an urban beach, which is slated to open at the Old Port’s Quai de l’Horloge in the spring of 2012. In 2009, he was made a Knight of the Ordre national du Québec in recognition of the creativity displayed in his body of work. Claude Cormier presented a retrospective of his work, entitled Colour is not a Decoration, at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design in 2010.

RENATA MORALES

Renata Morales was born in Mexico. She travelled widely as a young woman, before settling in Montreal. Her nomadic life is the source of her vision of clothing as armour, a perpetual reinvention of her identity and a form of communication. Abandoning her studies in visual art at the Cégep Lionel Groulx, she went to work in textile mills and garment factories. A multidisciplinary artist, she launched her line of clothing in 2001, while increasing her collaborations with artists of other stripes.

GILLES SAUCIER

Gilles Saucier studied architecture at Université Laval in Quebec City. In 1988, he and André Perrotte founded the firm of Saucier + Perrotte Architectes, which soon garnered many distinctions. He has since been a guest professor and critic at a number of U.S. and Canadian universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Technical University of Nova Scotia, the University of Toronto, the Université du Québec à Montréal and the universities of Calgary and Seattle. In 2009, Saucier + Perrotte Architectes received the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada’s Architectural Firm Award. The firm has also been awarded seven Governor General’s Medals in Architecture.

PIERRE LAPOINTE ET JEAN VERVILLE

A native of Lac St-Jean, Pierre Lapointe soon abandoned his studies in visual art and stage acting in order to devote himself to music. Renowned for his talent as a singer-songwriter, he drew huge crowds at the 2004 FrancoFolies and won the Félix-Leclerc Prize for his first album. In 2005, he garnered six Félix awards for his show La forêt des mal-aimés; the following year, he received three more Félix awards for the eponymous recording. His latest album, Sentiments humains (2009), together with his performances, has met with unanimous approval throughout the French-speaking world. In the last few years, Lapointe has been involved in a number of multidisciplinary artistic collaborations. In 2011, he teamed with Montreal artist David Altmejd to create Conte crépusculaire, a “sculptural device” presented at the Galerie de l’UQÀM.

Jean Verville founded his architectural firm in Montreal in 2004. Specializing in architectural design, with a practice that focuses on experimentation and exploration, he is known for his minimalist approach to both residential and commercial architecture. He received awards for three of his projects in 2010–2011: a Jurors’ Favourite Steel Design Award from the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction – Quebec; the Prix Intérieurs-Ferdie in the residential category (1600 to 3000 square feet) for the renovation of a Westmount Square residence; and the Prix de la relève Intérieurs-Ferdie 2010, for Garnier House.

MARIE CHOUINARD

In 1978, Marie Chouinard presented her first dance creation, Cristallisation, which established her as a singular artist. In 1990, she founded the Compagnie Marie Chouinard, which has since given more than 1,000 performances in major international venues. Her repertory includes The Rite of Spring (1993), 24 Preludes by Chopin (1999), bODY_rEMIX/gOLDBERG_vARIATIONS (2005), ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE (2008) and most recently, THE GOLDEN MEAN (LIVE) (2010).
In addition to choreography, Chouinard has also worked in multimedia (Cantique No. 3, with Louis Dufort, and Icônes, with Luc Courchesne) and film (bODY_rEMIX/gOLDBERG_vARIATIONS, based on the choreography of the same name). She is also the author of Chantier des extases, a collection of poetry published in 2008, and of numerous texts in the book COMPAGNIE_MARIE_CHOUINARD_COMPANY. Her work reflects profound reflections like approaching dance as a sacred art, solo performance and the invention of a different world for each new piece. Marie Chouinard was named an Officer in the Order of Canada in 2007, and has earned numerous other awards and recognition for her contributions to the world of dance and art. In 2010, she was chosen for the Arts Achievement Award from the Imperial Tobacco Foundation and the Prix du Québec Denise-Pelletier.

COLLECTIF RITA

Graduates in graphic art and industrial design from the Université du Québec à Montréal and ECAL (Lausanne, Switzerland), KarineCorbeil and Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard founded Rita in 2004. Based in Montreal and Lausanne, this structure brings together the various design projects of this creative duo. Featured in a variety of international design publications—Frame, Étapes, Experimenta, Gestalten, Victionary and Birkhäuser—their work has also been shown throughout the world, including in Washington, Paris, Milan and Seoul.

DENYS ARCAND ET ADAD HANNAH

Denys Arcand graduated from the Université de Montréal with a degree in history. In 1963, he joined the National Film Board, where he made a number of critical documentaries, including On est au coton (1970), which was censored for a number of years. In tandem with his documentary work, he developed a career as a fiction filmmaker with works that are deeply rooted in Quebec’s socio-cultural reality. In 1986, he wrote and directed The Decline of the American Empire, which received the International Critics’ Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and an Oscar nomination. The film’s 2003 sequel, The Barbarian Invasions, garnered the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the Best Screenplay Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and César Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay—a first for a Quebec film. Denys Arcand is indisputably one of Canada’s most important contemporary directors and screenwriters.

Born in New York, Adad Hannah grew up in Israel, the United Kingdom and Vancouver. Since 2001, he has been living and working in Montreal. His work has been featured in exhibitions around the world, particularly in China, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Spain, the United States and Canada. He collaborates on a regular basis with cultural institutions including, more recently, the Prado Museum, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and the National Gallery of Canada, making video and photographic pieces that question the artistic conventions specific to the fine arts. He has received numerous distinctions and grants, and his work is held in public and private collections worldwide. In 2009 he was awarded the Canada Council for the Arts’ Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award.

JEAN DEROME

In addition to being one of the most active and eclectic musicians on the Canadian creative music scene, Jean Derome is also one of the few to have obtained wide public recognition. Starting with Nébu, one of Quebec’s first avant-garde jazz groups, which he co-founded in the early 1970s, he has continued to find new inspiration for his writing and to diversify his approaches to his art. He made his mark first as a flautist and then as an innovative saxophone player in the contemporary musical avant-garde, of which he is one of the driving forces. Through his contemporary music projects, compositions, improvisations, jazz groups and scores for film, theatre and dance, he has made a name for himself on the international scene as one of the major creative figures of his generation. In 2001, he was awarded an Opus Award for his international influence.

JEANNOT PAINCHAUD

A graduate of the École nationale de cirque in Montreal, Jeannot Painchaud began his career as an acrobat, juggler, actor, and artistic cycling specialist. In 1993, he co-founded the Cirque Éloize, where he is still artistic director. Painchaud even performed for the Cirque until 1998, before devoting himself entirely to the company’s business development. The meeting of artists from different disciplines and the integration of other forms of art with acrobatics is at the core of his creative approach. In 2009, Painchaud directed iD, a performance inspired by urban dance. In 2011, Cirque Éloize received a Grand Prix du Conseil des Arts de Montréal for its artistic excellence. Jeannot Painchaud is also president of En Piste, the national circus arts network.

ROLAND POULIN

Born in 1940 in St. Thomas, Ontario, Roland Poulin and his family moved to Montreal in 1944. He enrolled in the École des beaux-arts in 1964, inspired by his discovery of The Black Star, a masterpiece by Paul-Émile Borduas that is in the Museum’s collection. Since 1970, his work has been shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Canada and abroad. The National Gallery of Canada mounted a retrospective of his work, accompanied by a catalogue raisonné, in 1994. In tandem with his work as a sculptor, Poulin has completed many major public works and has taught art, specifically at Université Laval in Quebec City, Concordia University in Montreal and the University of Ottawa. His many distinctions include the Ozias-Leduc Prize, awarded by the Fondation Émile-Nelligan in 1992, the Paul-Émile Borduas Prize (2001), and the Governor General of Canada’s Visual and Media Arts Award (2005).

MICHEL RABAGLIATI

Born in Montreal in 1961, Michel Rabagliati worked as a typographer, graphic artist and advertising illustrator before publishing his first semi-autobiographical graphic novel in 1999, which appeared in English as Paul in the Country two years later. The success of this first outing continued with a series that included the titles Paul Has A Summer Job (English edition, 2003), Paul dans le métro (2005) and Paul à Québec (2009), which won the Prix du Public at France’s Festival international de la bande dessinée d’Angoulême in 2010. In addition to English, a number of Rabagliati’s works have been translated into Italian, Dutch, Spanish, German and Croatian.

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ARTISTS