On the walls: the week in art

“Planting and Weeding,” by Jude Griebel (2012)

While January is arguably the snowiest (and crappiest) month of the year, that doesn’t mean you should be spending it holed up, waiting for the snow to melt. Cult‘s arts team has assembled some hot options for the week ahead, all events free.

O Patro Vys’ “artist du mois” is JC Guindon, a multidisciplinary artist who draws, paints, write, collages and draws comics. Guindon’s work is comical and imaginative, a “substitute for television” that foregrounds lighter side to his underlying political message. Vernissage Jan. 9, O Patro Vys (356 Mont-Royal E.), 6 p.m.

Jude Griebel’s Grow Apart employs both sculpture and oil painting and seeks to understand the bigger questions surrounding transformation. He explores change, belief, mortality, inspired by the psychological and supernatural. Vernissage Jan. 10, Galerie FOFA (1515 Ste-Catherine W., EV 1-715), 5 p.m.

Séripop are presenting their first show in the city in over three years, The Options That Are Offered to Us: The Least Likely/The Most Terrible, a big, bright painstaking installation first shown at Calgary’s TRUCK gallery last year. In the gallery’s other side, Joel Taylor and Patricia Middleton present La nuit dernière/Last Night, a looped single-screen video projection, the fruit of almost nine years’ collaboration. Vernissage Jan. 10, Galerie B-312 (Belgo Building, 372 Ste-Catherine W., #403), 5 p.m.

Sasha La Photographe of the Rats 9 Art Collective presents Meow Mix Retrospective, a collection of photographs and video chronicling 15 years of the landmark series of Plateau LGBT scene soirées dubbed Meow Mix. This exhibition features some recent images and video from 2012, as well as documentation and party pics dating back to 1997. Participating artists include Sasha Brunelle, Viva Delorme, Miriam Ginestier and Valérie Sangin. Vernissage Jan. 10, Galerie Rats 9 (372 Ste-Catherine W., # 530), 6 p.m.

Faut-il Se Couper La Langue?, by Edith Brunette, borrows its name from a 1970 documentary by Jacques Giraldeau, which, translated, asks: must we cut out our tongues? The film was influenced largely by activist movements of that era, and so too is the exposition taking place at SKOL. Spanning over a month, the event seeks to address issues and concerns surrounding political engagement (or lack thereof) through video, debate, conversation and more. Opening Jan. 11, Centre des Arts Actuels SKOL (372 Ste-Catherine W., #314) 5:30 p.m.

Local self-taught artist Carl Campeau presents a solo show called Louis Riel, opening Sunday. The exhibit was inspired by Chester Brown’s classic Drawn & Quarterly comic of the same name, and Campeau tells the story of the Métis rebellion using his own mix of stamps and monochromatic graphic design elements, often integrating aesthetic and iconographic elements from prairie native traditions. The show will be on display through Feb. 3. Vernissage Jan. 12, Monastiraki – Le Petit Monastère (5478 St-Laurent), 3 – 6 p.m. ■

Check out our complete listings for more great scene, stage and gallery events.

Compiled by Kristen Theodore and Emily Raine.