Cuba Colectiva meets St-Denis

The Musée des Beaux Arts exposition on a Cuban art ends tomorrow. The centerpiece of the exhibit is the Cuba Colectiva, a mural painted by a bunch of revolution-lovin’ Europeans and Cubans back in 1967. The mural was divided into a 100 sections; each section was drawn by lots, save for #26 reserved for Fidel himself. (July 26 was a significant date for Fidel.)

Fidel never got around to painting his portion, so there’s a blank spot where #26 should be.

Part of ave. du Mont-Royal is now blocked off for Grand Prix weekend. Over the past two nights, artists painted the street, filling in block after block of pre-drawn rectangles. Each rectangle is numbered, starting at 1, going eastward. #26 was blank. Cute.

The Cuban exhibition is worth a look-see. Don’t bother with the sluggish audio guide; there’s enough writing on the walls. Taking in the Revolution-era painting evoked a bit of sadness in me. The Cuban Revolution seems to have inspired so much hope and joy throughout the artistic world, yet now it all seems so naïve and folkloric.

Surprisingly, I didn’t see any Che t-shirts in the gift shop.

Bread and Puppet

I checked out the Montreal Anarchist Theatre Festival tonight. The last night of the Festival is tonight (Wednesday) at 7:30pm at Concordia.

I highly recommend this show because of the participation of the Bread and Puppet collective from Vermont. The same nagging voices of political dissent whose messages seem so trite coming from most corners of the arts world come alive in the puppetry, music and choreography of this fantastic show. It’s funny, clever, and appropriately raucous. The other acts on Wednesday will be different than those I saw tonight, so I cannot comment on those, but the hour-or-so of Bread and Puppet is well worth the $10 price of admission. Do see this show if you can. Follow the first link for further details.