It’s Summertime in Paris at Montreal’s Parisian Laundry

Until August 13, when you travel to Montreal, you also get Summertime in Paris. That’s the name of the annual summer show at the Parisian Laundry, one of the west end’s most breathtaking galleries, which this summer is showing work by a collection of young movers and shakers…

The Parisian Laundry show unites the work of five hot young artists: Jaime Angelopoulos, Celia Perrin Sidarous, Fabienne Lasserre, Derrick Piens and Paul Hardy. It’s a colourful festival of form and gesture, with the work of one artist commingling seamlessly with another’s. Sculptural structures by Lasserre and Angelopoulos inhabit both floor and wall and share the space with the large-scale painted colours canvases of Hardy and the careful installation photographs of Sidarous.

The impressive thing is how is all gels together into a clear curatorial expression of taste: you can practically pinpoint the Parisian Laundry flavour through this choice of artists. The creators come from far and wide – Lasserre lives in Brooklyn, Angelopoulos and Piens work in Toronto, Sidarous and Hardy live in Montreal – but there’s a telling thread that runs thorough the work that’s practically impossible to put into words: it’s playful, poetic, messy but pretty, weird and somehow animalistic. The sculptures, particularly, take on a creature-ness that really enlivens the space. There’s also a celebration of materiality, where you can practically feel the air thick with the jubilation a four-year-old finger-painter feels. Does any of this make sense?

Either way, it’s one of the summer’s most seductive shows. Don’t miss the work in the Bunker, too, the small room in the basement of this beautiful gallery: there’s a video by Montreal artist Olivia Boudreau called Le Bain, which is the quietest, most subtle representation of intimacy I’ve seen in a long time.

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THE DETAILS

Summertime in Paris, Until August 3, 2013