Photo 400 group holds successful auction of their work

By P.A. SÉvigny

Through a “Cash & Carry party” on Jan. 27 at the VAV Gallery, Concordia photography students managed to raise almost $3,000 to finance their own graduate group exhibition at Montreal's Art Mur gallery.

Named after a photography course called Photo 400, the group is getting ready to build their careers after university. Photography student Yana Kehrlein said Photo 400 is “all about producing good work — work that's ready for the world!"

With very little publicity, the four-day exhibition still managed to pull in a good crowd. While students, friends and faculty members were lining up at the bar, others, including a number of Montreal's art scene regulars were placing their bids for various pieces being sold.

Faculty members supported their students. The crowd cheered when Evergon, a well-known art photographer and popular professor, bought Vincent Lafrance's powerful Sans titre.

Kehrlain's Blue Carpet, a 44" by 58" inkjet print, raised more than a few bids, and was considered to be one of the more controversial items on sale at the auction.

Geneviève Cadieux, another well-known artist who teaches in Fine Arts, bought Darren Ell's Osama, a stark portrait of a homeless Palestinian seeking Canadian refugee status while wearing a designer sweater.

Evergon said he admired student But Lau Lai's Venice, an inkjet photomontage reminiscent of Canalleto's 300-year-old paintings of the city's famous lagoon. "She's brilliant. She's got a lot of images inside, images that are ready to be made, and to be seen."

When April DeFalco, an avid art collector, bought Martin Verreault's Salle des Pendus for $200, she said she was buying "a bargain at a fire sale." She felt Verreault's work had "a kind of contemporary clarity and composition."

DeFalco, a blue-collar worker for the City of Montreal, is also a part-time Concordia student who is trying to pile up enough credits to earn a degree in art history along with a minor in history.

"Collecting art is all about time," she said. "If this is what Verreault is doing while he's still in school, can you imagine what he's going to be doing 10 years from now?"

That was one of the questions being discussed at a round table conference held at the gallery earlier that day. More than 100 people attended the noon-hour event, moderated by graduate student Jean-François Belisle.

Working off the theme that 'consumption completes production', representatives from every sector of Montreal's professional art community discussed the realities of trying to make a living in the art world.

Marc Séguin, a Concordia fine arts graduate who is a successful artist, said that a successful art career takes a lot of work, a lot of planning and a lot of discipline. "Remember, the artist is always the low man on the food chain."

Séguin said that while government art grants certainly help at the beginning of one's career, an artist still needs a break. Keep working in order to be noticed, and to be there when the time comes. "That's when things begin to happen," he said.

Asked if a gallery owner could be described as "an arbitrator of critical taste," gallery owner Eric Devlin said he had his doubts.

"You might believe in someone's work, and you can do whatever you can to push it, but the public is going to make its own mind up, and you're not the one who is going to tell them what to buy."

Both Devlin and Art Mur director Rhéal Lanthier said artists have to realize that their relationship with the galleries is a two-way street.

"Art needs time, and time costs money," Devlin said."

Lanthier agreed, and added that gallery owners do not want to invest all their time and energy promoting an artist only to have the artist decide to go out into the country and pick apples.

"When all is said and done, it's still a business," he said.