Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal

The Montreal Museum of Fine Art—SUCH a tremendously awesome collection! We didn’t even see all of it. Sadly.

One hall was closed for some reason, another cost extra beyond the general ticket price (we should've paid!) and we just flat out didn’t see this one at all: Drawing in the Name of Freedom. RATS!

Me & Dine's hearts

Jen & Moore's "Large Totem Head”

There are at least four separate buildings (pavilions) all connected underground via serpentine galleries and exhibition halls. We got lost a couple of times so, of course, missed a room or two.We must have.

Jen and I both took 1,001 pics. The ones I keep coming back to are of David Altmejd’s The Eye. Standing outside the Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion is this 13+ foot tall bronze, winged man, with a collection of cupped hands for a head and a blown out midsection (more hands sit on the stomach wall, peering out). I was totally transfixed. I wish I could've gotten up close and personal with him. I wanted to see all the details, the brush strokes, so to speak.

Possibly our fav part of the museum was what they call the sculpture garden. Now, the word garden puts in my head a, ya know, green area, a patch of ground. Not all sculpture gardens can be as palatial as the de Cordova's but still, I imagine something sort of contained. Maybe like the MoMA's.

In this case, the museum's referring to the areas to the side or in front of the various buildings (unless we missed the garden-y part of the garden—could be!). Jim Dine's hearts and a rather vulva-ish Henry Moore  are on the front steps. A Fernand Léger is tucked in beside the entry. Antonin Gormley's Building VI stands at the side, watching over the sidewalk. Joe Fafard's great bronze cow sits nearby.

There's something about big, big sculpture that totally pulls me in. I want to touch it, climb a ladder and look into the faces, sit and have a cuppa joe with them, find out how they feel about being giants rooted in place. I wanna live with 13' tall winged horror shows, 7' tall valentines and a bronze cow or two. Doesn't everyone?

I just GOTTA come back to this joint!