A different kind of photo exhibit

Photos from Tim Tadder’s Water Wigs series. 

While it’s no secret that the art world loves a good party, all too often photography gets left out of the fun, exhibited either in staid galleries or swapped online. But Robert Armatta is determined to change that.

This week, the third installment of his Subwoofer series goes down at l’Olympia. The events pair fine art with electronic music, and this edition features photographer Tim Tadder’s poppy, colour saturated Water Wigs images, plus the first-ever Montreal performance by Italian electronica icon Alexander Robotnick.

In the early evening, Water Wigs will be displayed in a static exhibit, like any vernissage, but then the space transforms into a dance party, with art projections, a live set by Robotnick and sets from DJs Hayden Wood and Kola Papass.

“I’m more and more attracted to the pop art movement,” Armatta explains, adding that he recently closed down his own brick-and-mortar gallery in favour of organizing events. “The whole Subwoofer concept is a very sort of pop art idea. We marry visuals to music. Electronic music has had images married to it forever, but that’s not really the case with just an exhibit.”

Amatta says he’s long been a fan of Robotnick’s, but he came across photographer Tim Tadder more recently, when the commercial photographer’s artsy side project Water Wigs went viral last summer.

“It turned into a viral sensation immediately,” he says. “There’s really nothing else like it, there’s nothing else that compares to it. It’s very rare for a photographer to do pop art-type art photography and actually get it right.

“A lot of fine art photography has recurring themes. I try to look for things that really break out of the mold using photography, and this is it in spades.” ■

See the one-night-only exhibit of Tim Tadder’s Water Wigs 7–10 p.m., followed by DJs and a performance by Alexander Robotnick with projections at Olympia Theatre (1004 Ste-Catherine E.), $15