Art Matters pARTy March 9, 2006

pARTy! Also, art.

The collision between art and rock'n'roll is evident throughout this year's Art Matters, Concordia University's fine arts festival in Montreal. Indeed, something palpable is happening amongst a younger crop of artists at Concordia. The pretenses of high modernism so prevalent in art school are being shed in favour of what curator Shannon Linde calls a "pop art revival." Festival community outreach co-ordinator Chantal Musgrove prefers the term "rock'n'roll art". Organizers Corina Kennedy and Emily Shanahan have taken the festival out of the gallery cube and into the rock venue, with an emphasis on notching up the event aspect of each vernissage. Venues for the festival include notable indie-rock haunts Sala Rossa, Casa del Popolo, the Green Room and Café Esperanza. In Kennedy's words: "Art students make up a good portion of the indie-rock scene. So we took a look at what venues allowed the opportunity for visual art and performance to mingle that would best showcase these students' work."