Things in life

Tags

AGCC, art., artists, Charlottetown, life, PEI, Summer

The old song says “The best things in life are free”, I wonder if many today still think this way in our hyper consumer society. This song was very popular back in the XXth century written by the songwriting team of Buddy DeSylva and Lew Brown (lyrics) and Ray Henderson (music) and published in 1927 but it continued to be popular up to the 1960’s and you can still hear it today on some radio stations, a classic you could say.

This week was the opening of the Summer show at the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre and since I am a guide there, as always I make a point of attending all the lectures with the curators and artists.

This year the theme is about life and its transitions from birth to death. The artists are all emerging young artists funded by the Royal Bank Of Canada (RBC) for the last 10 years. This program in cooperation with the Curator of the Art Gallery gives an opportunity to young artists to work with a gallery and curators in a professional setting, organize an exhibit and get exposure. In PEI  the Art Gallery is the only venue offering such an opportunity. All the art is Canadian as per the mandate of the Gallery.

The funny thing is that people are not always comfortable with the idea that we all die one day, it is the human condition can’t escape it. We have two solo shows one by Philippa Jones (Perpetual) of St-John’s, NFLD. Perpetual brings together a selection of recent work by Philippa Jones that explores ways of dealing with loss and mortality through the neutralizing effects of preservation, aesthetic arrangement, immersive ritual, and ultimately recognition of a natural continuum, the temporal cycle that encompasses all being. Catalyzed by the untimely death of close friend and collaborator, Newfoundland curator Mary MacDonald, the artist’s explorations of the processes of extraction from the everyday world, common to art and science, take on a heightened resonance.

The other solo show by Inuit artist Shuvinai Ashoona (Mapping Worlds) from Kinngait (Cape Dorset) Nunavut which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year as an Inuit territory in Canada. This gigantic area of Arctic Canada is 1500 miles North of PEI with a population of 33,000 mostly young people.

The other shows are group exhibits and explore the transitory aspect of life, Split Images: Truth and Fiction,  something that also disturbs a lot of people.  

In the concourse of the Centre is the exhibit of Ian Funke-Mackay: Serpentine Signs, an artist from Halifax, produces images and signs for a new visual field in which past energies resonate within the present. His colourful and faceted arrays and forms echo the worlds of computer-generated imaging and video-game animations, aspiring to fuse the future-oriented legacies of abstract painting.

 

I do like Philippa Jones work because it is challenging and offers a chance to listen to what our visitors have to say and see their reaction. So this is the show for this wet and cold Summer so far in Charlottetown. Let’s hope it warms up!

In closing I have added this video of a favourite singer of mine Peggy Lee with Benny Goodman sextet and the famous song On the Sunny Side of the Street. Right now we have no Sun in PEI.

 

 

485 years ago

Tags

Canada., Fête, French, Gaul, nationhood, PEI, Quebec, St-Jean

Today 24 June is the National Day of French Canada also known previously as La Saint-Jean Baptiste. A very old holiday which goes back to ancient times in Gaul, a feast day relating to the worship of the Sun. Today one tradition that remains is the huge bonfire lit at night. PEI was known before as Saint-Jean Island until the British got here.

I remember from my childhood the parades, concerts, bonfires and fireworks on 24 June in Montreal and in Quebec City, huge crowds everywhere. The French presence in Canada is 485 years old and still dominates our National politics to this day.

On this day I remember my own ancestor Nicholas Beaulieu dit Lebel who came to Canada 357 years ago on a troop ship part of Le Régiment de la Reine, something I am very proud of and of all that he accomplished.

 

La Saint-Jean is and has been the French Holiday for millennia, it is certainly older than any other holiday in France and it resonates with French speaking people because of its origins in ancient Gaul.

Here I present songs from the 1970’s which have a special place in my memory and that of so many French Canadians and/or Quebecois. The words and the music have such meaning to me.  One by Claude Dubois about people in Montreal belonging to a certain economic strata and social class and the other by a famous group Beau Dommage about Ginette a girl in the popular imagination.

 

First roll of the Summer

Tags

Beach, lobster, PEI, Richard's, Summer, tourism, West Cove Head

Today finally we had some nice weather which was inviting enough for us to go to the beach at Cove Head. We are only 20 minutes away from the beach and the drive up is quiet usually alone on the road. The beach at Brackley is part of the National Park and so it is forested with maritime pines and sand dunes, marshy land and tall grass, beautiful and quiet. There are also some small harbours for lobster boats like Cove Head and a simple shack like restaurant called Richard’s which only serves seafood and lobster prepared very simply like you would have in your kitchen at home. You place your order and pay at the window then you are given an electronic device the size of a small phone and when it beeps your order is ready, you can sit at one of the simple wood tables looking out to the sea and beach or you can sit in your car to eat. The parking lot is small about 30 cars.  Richard’s has become very popular and it is best to go between 3 and 4pm to avoid crowds but still today we waited 20 minutes for our Lobster roll and fries.  It is a generous portion of lobster, I would say half to a full one pounder, chopped up and mixed with celery, salt and pepper and mayo on a hot dog bun. It was delicious. Having lunch late meant no dinner tonight, we are too full.

This being the long weekend of two in a row, June 24 Quebec St-Jean Baptiste Day and then 1 July Canada Day, schools are out for the Summer and so family vacations should start. But where are the tourists? Last night at the Summer Opening of the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre, a person I know who is well connected to the business circles told me that tourism is down 50% so far this year. There are no tourist, I am not making this up, since May 15 we should have had droves of them all over the place, no what we have is lots of vacancies and half empty flights in and out of the Island. Cruise ships come but passengers do not get off. They are usually in port from 9am to 5pm. Last week only 20% got off a ship carrying 2600 people. The only reason I see so far has to do with the terrible weather we have had in April, May and June. Too many days of heavy rain and blustery winds with well below average in temperature. Even today with a lot of sunshine at the beach is was around 16C and in town it was around 19C not exactly Summer weather. The wind is still strong and cold.

Going to the beach so close to our home is pure luxury, it is so quiet, all you hear is the wind, the surf and the birds.

 

Summer finally

Tags

C-91, Canada., Gauguin, Indigenous language, natives, NGC, Ottawa, Parliament

We returned from Ottawa a few days ago, it was our first visit in 3 years. A 90 minute quiet flight from Charlottetown. The plane a regional jet 50 seats was half empty and it was the same upon our return, strange it should be full at this time of the year but the weather has been so cold and rainy, not pleasant for tourists or us.

We saw a lot of people in Ottawa and I got to visit the National Gallery of Canada and meet with my old colleagues. Very kindly gave me a 90 minute presentation on the wonderful changes in the museum. Very impressive, the NGC is amongst the top 10 art galleries in the world. The new Canadian and Native wing is spectacular, in the set up of the gallery both the Algonquin and Ojibway people were brought in for consultations on how to display the various artifacts. All of it is displayed with sensitivity amongst Canadian art of the same period. I also visited the other galleries on Renaissance and Baroque art, modern and contemporary. A computer now controls all the LED lights and is programmed to sense when a gallery is empty of people or when people walk in, the computer adjust lighting accordingly. Doors open by themselves as you approach given their size its a good thing. The museum now has 2 restaurants and a coffee shop and a new revamped gift shop with beautiful books.  I do miss the National Gallery.

On the steps leading to the NGC Director’s Office, words by Joi T. Arcand of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. Written in Plains Cree (Y dialect) expressing hope and encouragement to all Indigenous people who struggle to keep their language alive.

Note to readers yesterday was the last day of the 42sd Parliament of Canada, the House rose for the Summer and will not reconvene since we will have a general election in October. The House and Senate passed bill C-91 a new law to protect 60 Native languages in Canada. This will give official recognition to indigenous languages and create a position of Native language commissioner similar to the one we have for French and English, Canada’s 2 Official non-indigenous languages. Also today in Montreal, Amherst street in the downtown core named after a British General who committed crimes against humanity in the 1750’s against Native groups in Canada by distributing contagious smallpox infected blankets to natives in an act of genocide. The street will now bare a Iroquois name ATATEKEN, meaning peace and brotherhood.

Entrance to the renovated and re-organized gallery. Well worth a visit and take an audio-guide, so you understand what is on display. This multi-million dollar project was part of the Canada 150 Celebration.

I also visited the other galleries of renaissance, baroque and modern art. Many things have changed and it was a pleasure to see many of the art works I knew well and had presented in the past.

This work is entitled: Olive Garden of Eden by Chloe Wise of Montreal. Using a marble podium it becomes the overwrought support for a toppled Cesar salad – an ”Italian” food stuff invented by émigré Cesar Cardini in Mexico in 1920. Wise who is known for her realistic sculptures, here plays on notion of artifice and authenticity in our Western consumer society, obsessed with branding and marketing.

Charles Meynier, 1810, Wisdom (Minerva) defending youth from the arrows of Love. This French painting done at the height of Napoleon’s Empire presents the young hero  poised between a life of empty sensual pleasure at the sight of the sleeping Venus and one of struggle and glory. Minerva shield defends him from the arrows of love. The idea of his sacrifice to duty resonates here with the Empire’s cult of military virtue and service to the Nation. Hopefully he makes the right choice.

The Court of the reflecting pool whose bottom is the ceiling to the other hall entrance to the museum below.

The garden Courtyard re-imagined in a Japanese style design.

My colleagues also invited me to visit the Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) exhibit of self-portraits. It gave a good background on his life and family, he was married and had 5 kids, though his wife left him and returned with said children to Denmark when he decided to quit his job as an investment banker and become a full time painter travelling around the world and dying at 54 in French Polynesia.

It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.

I was not aware that he worked with many French artists like Monet, Césanne, Matisse but also with Van Gogh. He was a friend of French poet Mallarmé.

Gauguin self-portrait with yellow Christ, c.1897

 

 

Le Jour J , 6 Juin 1944

Tags

Canada., Canadians, juno, normandy

Finally the Season begins

Tags

Canada., diplomacy, Fenice, Handel, Music, Organ, PRC

Well yesterday 4 June finally the weather warmed up to the point that restaurants could open up to diners on their terrace. Boats are finally gliding down the streets towards the launch docks in the marina. To see those monster being towed down the street is impressive, traffic has to make way for them. Still very few tourists and the cruise ships have come on days when the weather up to now was poor and cold. I do not think this will be a very good season for tourism, everything is a month late and since most things shut down after 30 August, that is not much time.

In books I am reading now one is entitled Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s campaign of influence by Jonathan Manthorpe is the story of how Canada came to recognize the People’s Republic of China in 1969. The influencers were all Canadian missionaries who worked in China between 1920 to 1949 and beyond, many names were familiar to me as those of people who held great influence with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in coming to a decision to recognize the PRC. What the book reveals is how naive Canadians and our Government are and were about China. Canada believed that we could change China and make it a model of democratic governance. This belief was encourage by the influential group of Canadian Scholars on China, many of whom were the children of the Christian missionaries who had worked for decades in China prior to the victory of the Communist forces over the Nationalists in October 1949. They had lived and worked in China and spoke fluent Mandarin, their knowledge back in Ottawa was impressive and no one thought of questioning their beliefs. To this day and until fairly recently prior to the dispute with Huawei and the hostage diplomacy practice by the Government of China, many in official circles made themselves the apologists of the Communist dictatorship. Canada now understands that we will not change China nor its lack of respect for Human rights, democracy and an open society. Canada is in no position to dictate to a super power and we are under pressure from the large number of Chinese citizens in Canada to cowtow to China. A very interesting book and one which reflects my own experience in the PRC before 2007.

I have also re-read the book of John Berendt, The City of Falling Angels. It is about the terrible fire which destroyed the Fenice Opera House in Venice in January 1996. A complex story of negligence, corruption, incompetence which happens to often in Italy.

It is a story I know well since we visited Venice many times between 1996 and 2011. I do remember visiting the City months after the fire and the stench of the burnt Opera house was still very present in the air. We did go at the re-opening in 2004, it was re-built as it was in 1836, quite a beautiful place.

Berendt’s book reads like an investigation report, many of the details were well known to me and re-reading it brought back a lot of memories. If you do not know much about the history of this criminal fire and the actors, this is a good book to read.

 

Jean Victor Arthur GUILLOU, French organist of note, 1930-2019. Plays G.F. Handel concerto for organ no 10, allegro. At the organ of Montélimar. His interpretation is different and beautiful.