The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 118

J6 THE GAZETTE. MONTREAL, SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 1998 VISUAL ARTS cratiny only deepens the mystery Wall sculptures of Judith Sehwarz have a way of def ying all definition sect The visual result is a kind of star or is it the symbol of radiation? This black gray atomic vision hovers just above another oval, this one physically solid and also fastened closely to the wall Again, we get several readings, but the notion of inexorable progress is stopped in its tracks. The longer we look, the more elusive the work seems. Is the lower oval really a disk seen in perspective? Do the upper and lower emblems have some kind of parity, as in a mathematical equation? At times, the over-all spectacle even recalls the cosmic consciousness of Adolph Gottlieb. Campbell, in his essay in the catalogue for the show, makes an interesting point about Schwarz's links to Cubism, with its pictorial fluctuations.

However, Campbell's true insights get tangled in art-speak that only the most insecure of academics can love: "The works are grounded in a flux that characterizes our lived through perceptual experiences and the eidetic images with which it is so rife." Fortunately, Schwarz's works speak for themselves. If they are astonishingly complex running "conversation" rather than static oratory it's not for the sake of mere aggrandizement. Grid, the most stunning piece in the show, is made entirely of steel and has cutting-edge contours that look almost lethal. Yet, before we know it, this wall-piece a grid perforated by countless tiny windows begins to "shift," both in terms of shape and meaning. We half expect the sheet of metal, like a crystalline virus, to multiply and divide.

Somehow the interior expanse seems to declare sovereignty from the outer edges. And like most of the works, this one has a low-key, three-dimensionality suggesting a rudimentary architecture. Protruding slightly from the wall, this work alludes to the notion of concealment, thus bringing the wall itself into play as stratum and as a psychological metaphor for the "shadow" self. Dissembling Structures by Judith Sehwarz is at the Leonard and Bina HENRY LEHMANN Special to The Gazette Logic or logo, concept or icon? Judith Schwarz's art, at once purely abstract and oddly evocative, has a way of falling between the words, of defying definitioa Now her pre-eminence in the game of show-and-tell, give-and-take, is resoundingly reaffirmed by the eight wall-sculptures in her exhibit at Concordia's Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery These wall-pieces, each giant collage more elegantly furtive than the last, are culled from her production over a 10-year period. We get a sense of an artist in the process of fine-tuning pieces already finely tuned.

This worthwhile show of work by one of Toronto's better-known artists, organized by Montreal curator James Campbell, is unpretentiously titled Dissembling Structures. (It is being circulated by the Art Gallery of the University of Waterloo.) The earlier pieces, such as History, done in 1989, are almost jaunty History is a large heraldic assemblage with a dark metal stuck on and partially in a reclining oval. Suggested is a computer info-card or a stylized ballot though we'll never know what the vote is for. Initially, like all Schwarz's creations, this conundrum demands to be decoded surely there is a logical explanation, an underlying plan. Yet, getting to "know" the work only leads us farther from any conclusions.

Intimacy with the work takes us from text to texture, with the constituent materials asserting themselves. Ultimately, it is the blond wood of the oval and the treated steel of the that assume a kind of primacy Logic, created in 1994, is an even more illogical trademark, with as many histories and antecedents as we wish to read into it. It's hard to tell whether this fascinating assemblage, dominating part of a wall like stylized graffiti, consists of three elements or just two. Two "scribble-scrabble" ovals, made of ribbons of steel, inter ISAAC APPLEBAUM Logic (above) and Grid (below), two Sehwarz conundrums that require decoding, on show at Concordia's Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery. i Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, 1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd.

until May 2. Phone: 848- 4750. 4r Michel Gerard Maranda's installation, History (aufhebung), at Galerie B-312, has to do with repetition and the non-persistence of memory Don't expect to find a melting watch somewhere behind the 1,100 little drawings fastened row after row to the gallery walls. In fact, a time bomb is more likely-Each small element represents a kind of emotional "tick." Like the work of Sehwarz, that of Maranda can be understood as language or as pure ecriture, no strings attached. Each little sheet of paper contains a kind of blob often a leaf-shape produced by pencil at times so obsessively applied to a poetry of time.

-t The charm of this work is precisely that it doesn't grab attention it just sort of gets to you. Michel Gerard Maranda's History ii at Galerie B-312, 372 Ste. Catherine t. Room 312, to April 18. Phone; 874-9423.

that the paper begins to look like beaten silver. And, in the case of Maranda's art of ideas and latent anger understandable given that Maranda is currently a doctoral student more is truly a great deal more, with the paper and the little pins that hold it to the wall, adding up ARCHITECTURE ng tlie trmM ast, present, future aid train station, however, there appearsio, be a consensus, since CP has agreed 4o donate the building to the Westmount Historical Association. The Assodia-j tion plans to refurbish the building not only to accommodate Westmount's; archives but also to serve as a venue for some activities of local groups. At present, one of the contentious is-; sues is the nature of the housing devel--opment on the land adjacent to the sfa-, tion. Developer Jerome Winikoff ap-' plied for a building permit to construct: townhouses in two parallel rows (19f units facing Ste.

Catherine St. and sey-: en units behind, in line with the. sta- tion). The public reacted unfavourably; to this site planning because the front; row of the proposed luxurious town- houses would block the view of the train station from Victoria Ave. This; scheme also appeared to have too much asphalt.

Much more sympathetic and right-; ly so was the public's reaction to ani alternative proposal for Winikoffsjj Iffffd rill! I rimfW f-CD flZ. iuninzf ii 1 I i til iml 1 jiim The fate of derelict Westmount Station seems decided, but details of the housing development proposed for the surrounding area remain to be settled. NORBERT SCHOENAUER Special to The Gazette A17-acre site encompassing the Westmount Station and the Glen Yards is being readied for yet another housing development on derelict railway land. This property represents but a small part of Canadian Pacific Railway's former real-estate holdings, of which 25 million acres was a land grant, circa 1881, for building a communication (telegraph) and transportation (railroad) link across the country. This generous gift of crown land was also intended to offset financial losses that the railway company would incur from its passenger service in sparsely populated western Canada.

Westmount's first train station was a simple wooden structure, and it was built at Abbot and Hillside Aves. Because of the unfavourable gradient of the railway tracts at this location, however, a new station was built in 1907 at the foot of Victoria on land occupied at the time by a brickyard and owned by the Decarie family For many decades, this second train station served intercity travelers living in Westmount or in neighbouring residential communities. While automobile and airplane travel gained increasing popularity in the post-World War II period, passenger rail service other than that of commuter trains continuously declined in North America. At the same time that rail travel in most European countries was making a comeback, in Canada passenger rail service was allowed to deteriorate year after year. After Canadian Pacific, in the 1950s, adopted a policy of diversification (CP Rail, CP Air, CP Ships, CP Hotels etc.) to make each operation fully self-sustaining, it created Marathon Realty Ltd.

in 1963 to take over the administration of all its real-estate other than that required for railway use. The sizeable deficit that continued to plague passenger service of both the CPR and CNR led to the formation, in 1978, of Via Rail Canada, which took over all intercity passenger service in the country. (Very recently, Via Rail's president, Terry Ivany, pleaded before a Commons committee that passenger GAZETT old Westmount Station, erected in 1907, to the Westmount Historical Association CP has agreed to donate the suggested by Andrew Hoffman, chitect and urbanist living in West-, mount. In Hoffman's scheme, two fgtys of townhouses, at right angles tqSte. Catherine define a civic squall Jn front of the station; these dwellings are i backed by an additional two rows of townhouses.

Being at right angles to the street, these dwellings would not' face Ste. Catherine, a busy street with a i concrete median barrier, at this loda-J tion. Instead, they would either face; park-like square fronting the station or pedestrian pathways at the rear. The parking of cars, however, wouldisti! have to be resolved. Another important aspect that needs to be addressed before redevelopment of the Glen Yards becomes a realitys! the future pedestrian link between Glen Yards and Victoria Ave.

Railway tracks are formidable barriers; a safe and convenient connection between the two sides-r-J quires the building of either a br idge or a tunnel. Since crossings are usually costly, it is unlikely that there would be more than one, and if this pedestrian passage is to be within the boundaries of Westmount, its location has to bet somewhere between Claremont and the old train-station site. Indeed, the station itself may prove to be the ideal location for such a gateway 1 I Of course; the nature and appear-! ance of this "gateway" will be crucial in determining whether commerce' along Victoria Ave. and its vicinity! would benefit from a future residential! community planned for the GlenJ Yards, just on the other side of thejold Westmount station. lit i Norbert Schoenauer is emerituslkr fessor of architecture at McGill Vttibeh sity.

his proposal. Calling it Cite des Ter-rasses, "for its sweeping profile of balconies," his proposal was ultimately rejected by the client because "its high density and height went against it," according to Erickson. More recently, Westmount Mayor Peter Trent and Councillor Karin Marks asked CP officials to revise their latest master plan with its high-rise condominium proposals and substitute low-rise homes, in order to attract young families to the Glen Yards. To restore the traditional heterogeneity of Montreal's population, young families have to be lured back from the suburbs to live in the city. Marathon Realty should heed the mayor of Westmount's request, because Sir Raymond Unwin's old motto Nothing Gained by Overcrowding! is still good advice, since over-development, with an emphasis on the quantity of dwellings instead of their quaLity, is disliked by young urban families, especially those who grew up in the suburbs.

On the fate of the old Westmount obsolete for intercity travel. In principle, the station could have continued to function as a commuter stop as well as a transfer point to the metro, but this was not to be. The planners of the metro line extension to Notre Dame de Grace and beyond opted for the construction of the Vendome metro station, near the border of Westmount, rather than converting the old train station for this purpose. Since the distance of this metro station from the old train station proved to be too great for convenient transfers between the two, the creation of a new railway stop was necessary, adjacent to the metro station. (In passing, one should mention that the design of the structures and barriers of this new commuter railway stop is not only functional but also very attractive.) There are three important precedents in Montreal for residential developments on former railway lands: CP's Angus shops site (Les Terrains Angus) located east of d'Iberville between St.

Joseph Blvd. and Rachel StE. CN's old Bonaventure train-station area (Les Floralies de la Montagne) east of Guy between St. Jacques and Notre Dame Sts. CP's old Dalhousie train-station area in Old Montreal (Le Faubourg-, Quebec), east of Berri and south of St.

AntoineSts. Housing in all three of these residential developments can be characterized as being of low to medium density, and low to mid-rise in height (two to eight storeys); moreover, an attempt was made in all three developments to recapture some of the spirit of Montreal's indigenous multi-family dwelling units, those multi plexes in which most dwellings have their own civic address. In 1968, noted West Coast architect Arthur Erickson was commissioned by Marathon Realty to prepare a master plan for the development of the Glen Yards. A pair of "stupendous" high-rise apartment buildings that, in the designer's words, also "picked up the convolutions of the surrounding freeways," formed the main theme of rail service will cease in Canada unless government help is forthcoming.) When the CPR was relieved of its obligation to serve all rail travelers, the Westmount train station became.