studio béluga

it’s february, you know. and just FYI, the average low temperature is -13 degrees celsius. sans wind-chill.

there are only two good things about this month: discounted post-valentine’s-day candy and the fact that it’s shorter than dru barrymore’s marriage to jeremy thomas.

oh, and nuit blanche. all night february 27th, 2010, montréal comes alive (from the dead) to celebrate things like corporate sponsorship of worthy artistic endeavours, art and alcohol, music and light, and the chance to traipse around all night in subzero weather. it’s a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” mentality, which is generally the kind of thing that soccer coaches say to asthmatics.

studio béluga is teaming up with CKUT to present call for light: a night of sound art, radio and radio-based images. what is it that keeps radio around when we have things like television, youtube and automated carrier pigeons? it’s special — but how? projections by béluga-based artists (wanna be us? see the calls for submissions page) explore questions like this and “how many people can we fit in the sound booth at once?” you can come play on the first floor of the belgo building, 372 ste. catherine west, starting at 8pm saturday february 27th.

this is the first studio béluga show to be co-curated by our new programming team member, clara halpern. clara joins us with a background in ancient, medieval and contemporary philosophy, library studies and butter churning. she’s an emerging visual arts curator at a large public library and can be ogled on the béluga artists page.

in other news, we’re in the process of relocation. that is, we’re moving (new location TBA, FYI) and if you’ve ever moved in a montréal winter, you know just how super fun that is. good thing we’ve got so much blubber. if you can spare some, send us your fortitude, because that would be nice to have, too. and if it’s art that you can spare, daphna lewinshtein is looking for work to be auctioned in a doctors without borders haiti benefit on february 20th — see that pesky calls for submissions page for more details. us, well, during this time, we’re expanding our online exhibition so lawn day r’few zay, champion of the underdogs, and are accepting submissions for off-site exhibitions that take the weather into account, but not seriously.

et finalement, studio béluga has been in the works for just more than one whole year. she was conceived last january, birthed last may and has been feted each month since. to commemorate this happy occasion, take a look at our exhibition history. turns out we’ve been busy, with over 30 artists exhibiting their work at the studio and dozens more involved in other, more secret, ancillary ways.

this january we had the annual concordia university mfa student cocktail party, a grand success involving the disappearance of many bowls and small spoons, on january 15th; at the end of the month we welcomed the ericka cicchillitti-nicole hill-liz leggett trio of very young and very talented artists to produce their community-curated exhibition, DolleeBlue. inspired by the images all women portray and these young artists’ discoveries of their own personal images, DolleeBlue was a smorgasbord of photography, painting, music and mixed-media work installed through community involvement. more photos here.