La Biennale de Montréal announce the list of participating artists for L’avenir (looking forward). Co-produced with the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, BNLMTL 2014 combines a multi-sited exhibition, a dynamic series of performances, film screenings, talks, tours, publications, conferences and other special events at the Musée d’art contemporain and at other cultural institutions and public spaces throughout the city.
Participating artists and collectives: Abbas Akhavan (Toronto); Adaptive Actions (Jean-Maxime Dufresne and Jean-François Prost) (Montréal); Edgar Arceneaux (Los Angeles); Arctic Perspective Initiative (Matthew Biederman and Marko Peljhan) (Montréal and Nove Gorica, Slovenia); Nicolas Baier (Montréal); Taysir Batniji (Paris); Amanda Beech (Los Angeles); Ursula Biemann (Zurich); Raymond Boisjoly (Vancouver); Andrea Bowers (Los Angeles); Matthew Buckingham (New York); Mikko Canini (Toronto); Simon Denny (Berlin); Dave Dyment (Toronto); Charles Gaines (Los Angeles); Ryan Gander (London); Goldin+Senneby (Stockholm); Babak Golkar (Vancouver); Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (Paris and Rio de Janeiro); Nicolas Grenier (Montréal and Los Angeles); Isabelle Hayeur (Rawdon, QC); Thomas Hirschhorn (Paris); Klara Hobza (Berlin); Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens (Montréal and Durham-Sud, QC); Simone Jones and Lance Winn (Toronto and Wilmington, DE); Emmanuelle Léonard (Montréal); Ann Lislegaard (Copenhagen and New York); Basim Magdy (Cairo and Basel, Switzerland); Lynne Marsh (Berlin, London and Montréal); John Massey (Toronto); Jillian Mayer (South Florida); Shirin Neshat (New York); Jacqueline Hoang Nguyen (Stockholm and Montréal); Susan Norrie (Sydney); Melik Ohanian (Paris and New York); Li Ran (Beijing); Kelly Richardson (Whitley Bay, England); Kevin Schmidt (Berlin and Vancouver); Skawennati (Montréal); Steele & Tomczak (Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak) (Toronto); Hito Steyerl (Berlin); Oleg Tcherny (Paris and Venice); Althea Thauberger (Vancouver); David Tomas (Montréal); Suzanne Treister (London); Étienne Tremblay-Tardif (Montréal); Susan Turcot (Whitstable, England and Kamouraska, QC); Anton Vidokle and Pelin Tan (New York, Berlin, Istanbul and Mardin, Turkey); Hajra Waheed (Montréal); Lawrence Weiner (New York and Amsterdam); and Krzysztof Wodiczko (New York and Cambridge, MA)
76 days
50 artists and collectives
23 new works
22 countries: Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Palestine, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and the Unites States
4 curators: Gregory Burke, Peggy Gale, Lesley Johnstone and Mark Lanctôt
3 publications
L’avenir (looking forward) examines how contemporary artists give form to the question of “what is to come?” Shifting between assessment and anticipation, clearly grounded in the “now,” and informed by echoes of the past, the exhibition looks towards the future and strives to unveil a range of possibilities and rekindle some that may have been prematurely extinguished. Through a broad range of works and media, including film and video, sculpture, photography, painting, installation, performance and new media, L’avenir (looking forward) promises viewers powerful experiences: moments for contemplation, invitations to wonderment, occasions for exchange and calls to action.
“Working from different histories, artistic traditions, cultural contexts and mobility, the artists of BNLMTL 2014 inevitably propose vastly different futures,” says co-curator Gregory Burke. “Many works address geopolitical concerns, insinuate ethical questions and hint at economic alternatives. Others point to the ‘what is to come’ of art, that is, how effective is it and what will it become?”
The 2014 edition of BNLMTL has been completely reimagined with new executive and curatorial leadership and vision. L’avenir (looking forward) was conceptualized by co-curators Gregory Burke and Peggy Gale, and developed in tandem with co-curators Lesley Johnstone and Mark Lanctôt of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. All four curators worked in close collaboration with Sylvie Fortin, Executive and Artistic Director of La Biennale de Montréal. BNLMTL 2014 is co-produced with the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.
About La Biennale de Montréal
The mission of La Biennale de Montréal is to foster, support, interpret and disseminate the most current visual arts practices by producing the biennial event BNLMTL. All of the initiatives of La Biennale de Montréal are premised on risk and experimentation. Its goal is to support daring, thought-provoking art practices and curatorial projects while offering the public a diversity of experiences.
