Projections Series: Mark Lewis
December 11, 2007 to January 31, 2008

Montréal, December 5, 2008. As part of its Projections Series, the Musée d’art contemporain presents the film work Rush Hour, Morning and Evening, Cheapside, by Canadian artist Mark Lewis, from December 11, 2007 to January 31, 2008.

Since the mid-1990s, Lewis has made film his preferred material, adopting cinema’s techniques but not its length (his films run no longer than 10 minutes), and dispensing with both narration as such and sound track (his films are generally silent). Lewis says he makes a “cinema in parts,” dissecting the grammar of film.

Rush Hour

The artist’s work in recent years has revealed a connection with the pictorial tradition of experiencing and representing time. In Rush Hour, Morning and Evening, Cheapside, 2005, which was recently acquired by theMusée, Lewis captures the sun at certain times of day—in early morning and late afternoon—when its low light stretches out shadows on the ground. These shadows of passers-by moving along a sidewalk form a steady stream marching across the screen. The 35-mm film transferred to DVD has a running time of 4 min 12 sec. According toLouise Simard, who is in charge of the Projections Series, “this slice of everyday life presented in an endless loop illustrates a recurring theme in Lewis’s work: tranquillity and motion.”

Mark Lewis

A native of Hamilton, Ontario, Mark Lewis is now based in London. His work has been shown widely around the world to enthusiastic notices, particularly for his contribution to the 2003 exhibition The American Effect at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. In 1995, the Musée presented his famous Two Impossible Films in the exhibition L’Effet cinéma.

The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal is located at 185 Sainte-Catherine Street West, Place-des-Arts metro. Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesdays till 9 p.m., and the first Friday of every month for the Musée Nocturnes, also till 9 p.m. Information: (514) 847-6226 and www.macm.org.

The Musée d'art contemporain is a provincially owned corporation funded by the Ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition féminine du Québec. It receives additional funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council for the Arts, as well as from Lichen Communications.

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Source and information:                                              
Danielle Legentil                                                         
Public Relations Coordinator                                      
Tel.: (514) 847-6232                                                 
E-mail: danielle.legentil@macm.org