An offshoot of Archive Collective magazine, Archive Contemporary is an intimate fine art gallery launching in Montreal’s Pointe St Charles neighborhood. The gallery space provides a platform for established and emerging artistic talent, promoting visibility through monthly group and solo exhibitions.
The inaugural exhibition, “The Awakening” presents work from international and Canadian artists selected for their distinctive conceptual visions and their innovative styles.
“Archive Contemporary’s inaugural exhibition, coinciding with the summer solstice, brings together nine artists and photographers channelling movement, emergence and temporality through their work. Using the idea of magical realism as a starting point, The Awakening explores the tension between order and chaos, reality and artifice, natural and supernatural. The energetic pieces on show address the interior mysteries of the natural world, presenting familiar life in an unfamiliar way and reminding us of the inherent enigmas of our lived environment”.
Exhibited artists:
˚Synchrodogs: present their latest photographic work, Slightly Altered, a surrealist exploration of man’s intervention into the Carpathian Mountains.
˚Benoit Paillé: presents four photographic works in his signature style, using a hotshoe flash to create psychedelic, spontaneous representations of the natural world.
˚Live Wild Collective: the French all-girl collective presents a range of mixed media works pushing the boundaries between reality and distortion.
˚Beaver Sheppard: presents two paintings inspired by the layered landscapes of Newfoundland, but guided by the intuitive chaos that characterizes his artistic work.
˚Francois Ollivier: presents photographic work centred around the idea of spontaneous manipulations onto the landscape, creating groups, scenes, or setups that will exist only once.
˚Nanne Springer: presents three magical pieces shot on film, hand-developed and handprinted in her darkroom.
˚Christie Brunet: present two energetic “instinctive paintings,” in the abstract style.
˚Kyle Berger: a photographer with a magical realist view of suburban Canada presents two photographic pieces that seek out the extraordinary in the mundane.
˚Frédéric Tougas: presents two drum-scanned analog pieces, both visual documents on altered environments and the way societies and their constructs fit into natural spaces.
© Synchrodogs 
© Synchrodogs 
© Fred Tougas 
© Kyle Berger 
© Benoit Paillé 
© Francois Ollivier 
© Live Wild Collective
PHOTOBOOKS ON SHOW:
˚ Martin Toft, Te Ahi Kā – The Fires of Occupation: The book consist of 89 colour and b&w photographs spanning from 1885 to 2017, including rare images held in 19th and 20th century collections in New Zealand, photographs from both the photographer’s trips in 1996 and in 2016 and vernacular images from Māori family albums. Seven hidden chapters of text appear inside fold-out of double page spreads, that include important conversations with tribal elders in relation to Māori cosmology and provide context about the return to their ancestral homeland, Mangapapapa.
˚ Francois Ollivier – BISES: a collection of photographs, memories, words and sounds, categorized by geographic area. Through the act of wandering and travelling, BISES invite us to contemplate our external surroundings and our relationship with the places we visit, the moments we live.
˚ Pascal Haas: Tel—Avivis: An analogue beach portrait series documenting the urban hedonism of young Jewish and Arab Israelis, with a focus on their passion for body workout and performative masculinity as part of a quest for normalcy in a politically fraught region.
Archive Contemporary also hosts events centered around discourse, skill sharing and community building through its artist-led educational programming.
Montreal-based artists (and/or artists planning to travel to Montreal) are welcome to submit pitches for creative events to maela@archivec.art.
The gallery is also accepting submissions for future exhibitions and collaborative projects.
“The Awakening” opens in Montreal on June 21, at Archive Contemporary – 2471 Rue du Centre.
For more information on consigned work and upcoming events, please visit archivec.art.