You can go ahead and take the streets, because we are of the sky"The Stadium Art Movement Manifesto, created simply as a web presence for the wonderful world of Stadium Art
Newsfeed: (Montreal) 28th February 2009 Stadium Art Movement appeared at Off the Hook Gallery and Boutique, 1021a Ste-Catherine Street West.
Please visit this website for more information:
offthehook.ca
Watch for Johnny Kim's exclusive interview with the Montreal founder of the Stadium Art Movement
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Thanks to all those who supported the Stadium Art Movement with the purchase of the 2008 Calendar. A 2009 version was unveiled at EXPOZINE in Montreal on the 27th of November 2008. It is available at Drawn & Quarterly, Petits Pains Show and Kensington Market Toronto. Get ready for our new website launch 2009, stadiumartmovement.com
important appendix update at bottom
click the italics to move to the links
Patron Saint: Archibald Leitch
Revival Location: Montreal, Quebec- hotbed of urban culture
iNTERNATIONAL OPENING DEBUT OF MONTREAL-STYLE STADIUM ART took place Thursday 10 JAN 2008
VERNISSAGE
at DANCE CONMIGO -3365 ST LAURENT LEVEL 207 (ABOVE LE CORRIDOR)
to see pictures from the event click here
MAJOR INSTALLATION of LARGE SCALE WORK with HISTORICAL GUIDE and MAPS of the MOVEMENT with a special dance performance--to view clickh here
photo by nathan curry:
Pictured: stadium artists Jonathan Himsworth and Anurag Dhir
Availability: Drawn & Quarterly- Bernard Street in the mile End Montreal 2009 Calendar now on sale.
Also visit the craft fair Petits-Pains Show, to be held 5035 rue St-Dominque (corner of St-Joseph and St Laurent) 13th and 14th of December.
To order posters, postcards, t-shirts and calendars online, email newcolenall@yahoo.co.uk (this facility will be expanded into our 2009 stadiumartmovement.com website)
This is an art form that first came to note in the late seventies and early eighties in Britain and South America, much of it produced by failed draughtsmen and Architecture School drop-outs.
Early links with graffiti and football hooliganism have been unverified, yet it is certain Stadium Art came about at the same time modern mainstream media turned their attention upon the social identities of youth sub-cultures at the beginning of the Thatcher era.Popularized by the writer Simon Inglis in his seminal work Football Grounds of Great Britain, (no longer in print, our copy is now worth $300+!) the Art World has since witnessed a new emergence in the genre emanating from Centre Sud Montreal, Quebec. "Acclaim" has been swift. Within the contexts of varying degrees of humour, according to several critics, samples coming out of Montreal via The Trunk Collective subvert the everyday status quo of the Old School, most of which sits in association with the early style of Archibald Leitch.
"The stadium has carried the day against the art Museum"-- Hannes Meyer- a Swiss teacher at the Bauhaus 1927-30
This late wave of New Montreal stadium art is characterized by its disregard for logical mechanics and emphasis on questioning the issue of popular public space (land? sea? air?) versus the personal and private. Here we see free-hand block work (a graffiti term) let loose without a ruler, yet humble in its regard for the classical founders of urban design. Homages to Beaux Art, The Chicago School and the City Beautiful movement pop up inside aerials that intend to romanticize the coziness and congestion found in the nooks and crannies that connect the sub-worlds inside densely populated cities. The notion that a vast tract of the landscape should be set aside for a twice weekly event, and then left hollow in the meantime, is a matter that has even brought some of the Theologians in on the question. It seems to some, that these are not just symbols, but holy places.
As Simon Inglis probably meant to say in his landmark book on stadiums (Sightlines) -what we are seeing in Montreal amongst some of the more daring artists working in the genre is a "return to the garden, the redrawing of the boundaries of the jungle and the relinquishing of eden to the original sin; the laws of right and wrong played out by the gods and winds while we watch innocently, entombed by the city, in the womb of our aspirational mothers, to be born, and born again... that is the goal"
Jonathan Himsworth, in Montreal for the burgeoning global Stadium Art Movement
etc.[Note, some of the images seen here are not available to the public. The image with the trunk is now held by Cirque du Soleil a gift commemorating their assistance with the Art Movement through the involvement of the Trunk Collective]
Please support your local stadium artist
Further Notes:
In overwhelming response to the article in the Montreal Mirror and the incredible turnout at the International Vernissage on 10 January it is certainly clear that the movement is underway.
With the inclusion of two additional stadium artists at the opening, and other work in this genre turning up on our desk we can see it will not be long before this blog becomes obsolete and we will have to expand to a proper web address. In the meantime, we ask that you search out your local stadium artist and persuade them to join our caravan.
This caravan is mobile and will be moving across the continents. An international tour is our first priority, so please look out for us in your town during 2008.
In the process of establishing the Montreal branch of this Movement, it comes to mind that many have doubted the integrity and pedigree of our metier. One critic gasped and said it is all something I've invented, to which i responded: "That's what Edison was told when he brought out the lightbulb, yet still he had the humility to credit the founding fathers..." And so I add to this rebuttal-- look around you--- this movement is self-evident. We have an animation series coming to French Televsion next year. The premise? Twenty-seven imagined stadiums, fully drawn and come to life! The most advanced evolution of the art seen to date.
If you thought we Stadium Artists have are a bunch of softies with no strength to their own sensibilities, check out or click THIS.
And as a current favourite in showing the extent of our expression--- try search "stadium art" on youtube. Thus far, this is the one that works the best:
click here
"No matter how hard you try, you can't stop us now"
