Celebration of Earth Day at the MAC
This coming Saturday, April 22

Montréal, April 10, 2006 – The Musée d’art contemporain is proud to announce that it will participate in the 36th edition of Earth Day, which will take place this coming Saturday, April 22. To mark the occasion, the museum is holding two art workshops and two guided tours for the public in conjunction with its major exhibition Anselm Kiefer: Heaven – Earth, at 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. Thirty visitors are invited to take part, free of charge, in each of the one-hour workshops and tours. Participants in the workshops, entitled Bits of the Cosmos, will invent their own bits of the cosmos after observing some of Kiefer’s works. The guided tours will offer greater insight into the work of this artist, considered one of the leading practitioners of contemporary art. If you are interested, simply register by calling (514) 847-6239. Children 12 and under must be accompanied by an adult.

Gigantic, monumental, colossal: Anselm Kiefer: Heaven – Earth is one of Montréal’s cultural highlights of 2006. Kiefer’s first major presentation in North America in twenty years, and first ever in Canada, the exhibition contains some forty works. Composed of paintings, sculptures, photographs, collages, mixed-media works on various materials and books, this remarkable body of works reflects Kiefer’s multiple imaginary spaces that draw upon myth and history, nature and culture. From structures or ruins of wood, brick and clay to landscapes of scorched, furrowed or barren earth; from the boundless expanses of the sea to the infinite vastness of the universe; from the microcosms of nature to the macrocosm of the starry reaches; from ancient myths to historical or biblical figures—the range of subject matter reveals a philosophical, metaphorical and symbolic dimension, where everything is connected to memory and the passage of time.

More than 50,000 people have already visited the exhibition since it opened this past February 11. You have only twenty days left, until April 30, to see it for yourself. Don’t miss it!

The MAC is located at 185 St. Catherine Street West, Place-des-Arts metro. On Saturday, April 22, the museum is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information on our activities, go to: www.macm.org. And for more details on Earth Day in Québec, go to: www.jourdelaterre.org.

The MAC is a provincially owned corporation funded by the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec. It receives additional funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council for the Arts.

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Information: Danielle Legentil, Media Relations Officer
                   Tel.: (514) 847-6232
                   danielle.legentil@macm.org