Gabor Szilasi
Corridart. Les maisons de la rue Sherbrooke, à l’angle de la rue St-Urbain

1976

Gabor Szilasi’s photographs show details of a large-scale installation by Melvin Charney titled Les maisons de la rue Sherbrooke. The temporary work was built as part of Corridart, a public art event presented along Sherbrooke Street between Atwater and Pie-IX for the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. Charney’s installation included a life-size plywood façade replicating the neighboring Victorian apartment buildings, and scaffolding that served as support structures for historical photographs and giant plastic hands pointing an accusatory finger toward recent constructions. Openly critical of the city’s massive modernisation projects, which involved the wide-scale destruction of residential neighborhoods and heritage buildings, Charney’s installation provoked the ire of Mayor Jean Drapeau, who ordered city workers to dismantle the entire exhibition – some 30 works – on the eve of the Olympics’ official opening ceremonies.