Phi to open new space in Old Montreal
The Phi Centre, a private art gallery in Old Montreal, is adding a new venue called Phi Contemporain costing $80 million to build, including $27 million from government.
(Le Devoir has started having ads that automatically play music or sound, so watch out for that.)
Joey 08:42 on 2022-04-27 Permalink
True, it’s a private gallery, but it’s run by the Phi Foundation, which is not for profit. In that sense, I’m not sure how it’s fundamentally different from, say, the Contemporary Art Museum or the Museum of Fine Arts (though I’m not sure what kind of governance structure it features).
Kate 09:50 on 2022-04-27 Permalink
Neither am I. A wealthy woman started Phi a decade ago, whereas the other museums were, I believe, begun by groups of people, but they’re all run by boards acting for foundations by now.
mare 09:51 on 2022-04-27 Permalink
@Joey The staff aren’t unionized government employees, for one thing. And the owner of the Phi Centre has veto power over the exhibitions (and anything else), which the owner of the other museums you mentioned (the government) thankfully does not.
@Kate They don’t sell any art (apart from small items like books and clothing in the shop), so I wouldn’t call it ‘an art gallery in Old Montreal’, since it’s *very* different. You should go and check it out, they have good shows, and only charge an admission fee for some exhibitions.
Kate 10:14 on 2022-04-27 Permalink
mare, it’s not a museum though, so it’s a gallery. Unless we just call it a “space”?
I’ve been in it. I wasn’t especially planning to visit, but I was meandering around Old Montreal at some point before the pandemic (the Phi website says it was mid-2019) and saw signs for an exhibit by Yoko Ono, so I went in and looked around. I was confirmed, more or less, in my jaundiced opinion that Yoko Ono is not all that, but I got a look at the existing “space” which was fine.
DeWolf 11:49 on 2022-04-27 Permalink
Art gallery is a pretty broad term. My sense is that it usually refers to something quite small in scale, but there are actual museums that call themselves galleries (eg the Vancouver Art Gallery) even though it’s a bit of a misnomer (why would a gallery contain multiple galleries?).
In this case the most accurate term would be kunsthalle: a museum without a collection.
DeWolf 12:01 on 2022-04-27 Permalink
Also, thanks to this news I just discovered there is an exhibition of Stan Douglas’ photography on now. I love his stuff so I’ll go check that out soon!
The article in Le Devoir is a little confusing about the actual scope of the project. The new building will be located at St-Paul and Bonsecours, right across from the market, and it will include a new structure built on a vacant lot and the transformation of some existing historic buildings. (The international architectural competition required entrants to have experience in heritage conservation.) But it’s not clear what will happen to the existing Phi building at St-Paul/St-Pierre.
mare 19:51 on 2022-04-27 Permalink
I quited ‘an art gallery in Old Montreal’, because that to me has a different ring to it. There are a lot of those, and a lot of them sell bad art to tourists, and they have someone sitting at a table who looks annoyed when I come in because it’s obvious I’m not a buyer.
Kate 14:05 on 2022-04-28 Permalink
mare, I so know what you mean.