Redesigned Montreal Museum Makes Bold Statement

THE MONTREAL GAZETTE
By John Pohl

The Founding Identities section is part of the new galleries presented by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in a preview visit on Monday. To view a gallery of photos from the preview, visit montrealgazette.com-photos

CANADA - The unveiling Monday afternoon of David Altmejd's monumental bronze sculpture of an angel signals that the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is about to invite the public into the Bourgie Concert Hall and its new pavilion of Quebec and Canadian art. Altmejd's The Eye, standing in front of a church that has been transformed into a concert hall, continues the artist's fascination with bodies in metamorphosis and is a fitting symbol for an art museum in its own great transformation. The former Erskine and American Church, now a 444-seat concert hall with comfortable seating, is also a space for exhibiting 81 restored stained-glass windows, 20 of them made by the Tiffany company of New York. The public grand reopening of the museum takes place Oct. 14 to 16. Information: http://www.mbam.qc.ca/. [link]