On the Walls: The Week in Art

GALA, by Dominique Pétrin

There’s a lot of fun art stuff going on this week, including Art POP’s short-time exhibits, plus a few new and ongoing shows.

Former Les Georges Leningrad singer Dominique Pétrin’s new show GALA has completely transformed Arprim, blasting the walls with dizzying black, white and florescent-hued graphics. Everyone I know who’s seen the show has raved; don’t sleep on this. Up until Oct. 20 at Arprim (372 Ste-Catherine W., Belgo Building, #426), free

Of course, the good people at Art POP have numerous offerings throughout the week.

The first is The Art of The Suburbs, profiling the work of artists involved in Arcade Fire’s visual packaging, cover and videos for The Suburbs album, laying bare the creative process behind the work. The exhibit includes work by photographer Gabriel Jones, director and videographer Vincent Morisset and graphic designer and illustrator Caroline Robert. Nomad Industries (129 Van Horne), Sept. 21-23, open daily from 2-7 p.m. Vernissage Sept. 20, 6-9 p.m. free

You’ll Dance to Anything brings together four artists who play with ideas about music and technology. Charles Gagnon uses aural markers to point to the sounding qualities of things, while Margaret Haines’s work addresses the commodity status of music, with a focus toward things happening around town this week for POP. Robb Jamieson contributes a video installation about a fictitious ’80s video artist, Douglas Ewers, called Failed Art, and Shawn Kuruneru contributes images of pop cultural objects and motifs. Quartiers POP (3450 St-Urbain), on display from Sept. 19-23, 11 a.m.-8 p.m., vernissage Sept. 21, 6-9 p.m. free

Outside of POP, there’s a vernissage for Neofolk, a group exhibit happening at that collects flea market oddities and other retro knickknacks. The show’s up ‘til Oct. 13. Rats 9 (372 Ste-Catherine W., Belgo Building, #530), vernissage Sept. 21, 5 p.m., free

Finally, if you haven’t yet checked out Maison Kasini’s Hello From Vermont, an exhibit of works by several artists from the neighbouring state, your last chance to do so will be the closing party. Maison Kasini (372 Ste-Catherine W., Belgo Building, #408), Sept. 22, 3-5 p.m., free

It’s also closing week for Mario Bergeron’s solo exhibit Nouvelle Signalisation,which comes down Sept. 22. Zephyr, 2112 Amherst ■