Abdala Kaufmann, owner of Galerie Abyss and host of the exhibit, has a degree in fine arts and has been tattooing for several years. She identifies her space as a vehicle, not only for showcasing her own abilities to tattoo, but also for promoting an “alternative” side of Montreal art, with the goal of becoming a “hotspot for Montreal artists.”

In “Superheroes,” Kaufmann remains true to this alternative, local mandate, featuring 21 Montreal-based artists, each given an equal amount of space, and thus equal value, in the exhibit. The diversity in artists creates an expansive range of styles and treatments of the superhero theme. The pieces vary from seemingly straightforward and typical portraits – such as a large Catwoman piece and another Venom portrait – to more serious and sombre black and grey pieces.

The exhibit also offers satirical and even subversive representations of the familiar characters, best exemplified by a series of portraits which depict famous superheroes indulging in sexual acts (such as the Ninja Turtles seducing April O’Neil). The series subverts the typical conception of superheroes and their conventional heroic personae by exposing the characters as less than pristine. Though this was an interesting spin on the classical superhero, there were perhaps a few too many of these sexualized pieces.

In addition to depicting aspects of superheroes that often escape the spotlight, like their sexuality, many pieces took on the task of reinventing what it means to be a superhero. Some pieces put a contemporary spin on the classic comic book theme, expanding the traditional superhero canon by choosing Disney’s Darkwing Duck, or a broad landscape from the contemporary animated show Adventure Time. This reinvention used humour more often than not, such as the depiction of Robocop (who is shown to be stealing Shrödinger’s cat, proclaiming he is taking the cat “dead or alive”) painted by David Merk. Merk, an American-born, Nova Scotia-raised artist, explained that his “witty” style is made possible by alternative, open-ended exhibits such as “Superheroes,” which allowed him to take a humorous spin on Robocop.

Other artists in the exhibit riff on the superhero trope by removing the heroic imagery from heroic personae, such as in a small-painted series of pieces depicting Captain America, Nightcrawler, and Ghost Rider as miniaturized and heavily obese, and another depicting Joker and Batman as children on a bench eating potato chips (Batman munches on salt and vinegar while Joker opts for ketchup).

Instead of celebrating the hero, these pieces examine superheroes by taking away their key features: strength and public personae. Melsa Montagne does this in a striking (and very Hitchcockian) manner by depicting Catwoman as she turns into a bird. Montagne uses her abstract style to tell the story of a strong character being turned into something she does not want to become, mocking the characters in this exhibit in a serious manner.

Montagne agreed with Merk that this exhibit was different in the sense that she had the freedom to produce something she didn’t necessarily know a lot about, saying, “I had to do a lot of research […] because I’m not a superfan of superheroes.” Many of the artists in this exhibit are not particularly specialized in comics and comic book heroes, but that is what gives the exhibit its relevance. These artists that come from highly different backgrounds in training and style combine their individuality with an average popular knowledge of superheroes, taking these common icons and giving them new meaning.

In a similar vein of removing key character traits, Marie Chantal Le Breton’s piece features a Batman-esque silhouette but with sexualized women inhabiting its empty spaces, homage to a rising artist who makes collages of superhero comics and feminized figures. Le Breton’s piece takes away the hypermasculinity of the male silhouette and replaces it with a feminine aura instead. Again, the artist reshapes the commonly accepted viewpoints, whether humourously (like Merk) or with more of a message-driven and abstract style (as with Montagne and Le Breton).

While the exhibit certainly showcases a great deal of superheroes and does so very diversely, those looking for traditional comic book art might be disappointed with the gallery’s open-ended and artist-motivated approach to these characters. This seems to be the all-encompassing idea of both Galerie Abyss’s ideology and this exhibit specifically.

The point is not so much whether the superheroes are mocked or depicted as idealized figures, but rather that they are placed within the hands of the artists who paint or sculpt them, completely on their own terms.

The approaches to the theme are so varied that they do not showcase superheroes as a theme per se, but rather showcase the artists who, through their own interpretation, undermine and rewrite the superhero stereotypes.

This expansion on the superhero is a welcome addition, and a necessary one too if comic books and other superhero mediums are to be kept as participatory culture. Thus, as Le Breton puts it, these thematic events allow for one to differentiate the “artist from the artisan,” the latter of whom would fall into some kind of predetermined, day-to-day routine in terms of creative production. The exhibit allows for both character and artist to embrace the presence of the brush and reveal their hidden alter-ego, as any superhero must do at some point or another.

  “Superheroes” runs until Janury 25 at Galerie Abyss (1520 Notre Dame West).

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Addressing the packed cafe, Albaih spoke about his background and his initial foray into the creation of political cartoons to start off the event. His story began at home, where his family discouraged talk of politics due to the subject’s taboo nature in Sudanese society, and in the streets, where street art, one of his first loves, was illegal and dangerous. Albaih explained that this overwhelming sense of political oppression pervading his home and his art caused him to adopt his current mission, that of “simplify[ing] current situations for people who didn’t want to talk about [them].”

While Albaih’s art does just that, rendering the tangled web of international politics accessible, his cartoons are not lacking in depth or thought-provoking attributes. On the contrary, Albaih’s work, which largely addresses the Arab Spring protests, incites discussion through its (sometimes bitter) wit and popular cultural references. One piece, for example, shows Bashar al-Assad in the famous banner of the hit TV show Mad Men. Albaih explained to The Daily that because much of his audience encounters his art while scrolling on a phone, such eye-popping and recognizable images can deliver his message most effectively.

While al-Assad may or may not be a flirtatious, 1950s businessman, it is up to the viewer to make pertinent connections between the show’s subject matter and al-Assad’s regime.

Albaih’s work uses popular imagery to explore layers of meaning, opening the viewers’ eyes to something new through something familiar.

While engaging with popular culture, Albaih also critiques much of its mainstream rhetoric. One particularly thought-provoking piece on display shows two simple silhouettes – one an emaciated person, the other a photographer approaching the person. In the next scene, the photographer walks away saying, “Perfect!”, while the impoverished person lies on the ground, seemingly having collapsed from hunger. The use of silhouettes and a shadowy landscape makes for a poignant critique of how mainstream Western media uses tragic, out-of-context images to homogeneously portray international events. In this heartless interaction between the photographer and the individual, Albaih displays how most journalists only attempt to capture a tokenized image while staying emotionally distant from the subject, or even taking joy in their subject’s ‘picturesque’ suffering.

This piece could also serve as a critique of the quick and emotionally-detached practice of sharing popular images of international devastation on social media. This criticism also appears in another piece where the silhouette of a well-off individual gives a Facebook ‘like’ to the outstretched hand of a beggar, demonstrating the hypocritical nature of ‘Facebook charity.’

At the event, Albaih explained that his work took off in 2010 when his art went online, around the same time that the Arab world was bursting into revolutionary flames. With the rise of new political and social movements also came an uprising of activist art.

Albaih stated that the many people who spray-painted their ideas and artwork on the street walls and who died for these actions were people who “died for change.”

However, while much of Albaih’s art reacts to current political situations, he told The Daily that his art also tries to address the fact that “most people forget history.” Albaih wishes to “ask questions that involve memory,” critiquing the notion that radical events taking place today are an entirely new phenomena. “People don’t remember that only 60, 70, 80 years ago the Arab world was occupied.”

Simply put, Albaih’s art takes on the age-old saying that “history repeats itself.” His art depicts political figures dressed as ancient authoritarian rulers in one piece and in another image as the hand-puppets of larger entities. The images point to the repetitive, performative, and futile nature of political talks in the eyes of frustrated citizens. Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi appears in Pharaoh’s clothes with his military uniform hung up on a coat rack – not only does the Pharaoh costume critique the recent accusations of human rights abuses in Egypt under the new regime, but it also calls into effect a broader historical narrative of the abuse of power by authoritarian rulers.

Simple in design, Albaih’s cartoons convey a wide range of emotions and potential interpretations. Without being vague, his artwork is open-ended and invites further exploration. Albaih himself agrees that his art is “a two-way street,” a call for people’s opinions and an open invitation to discuss. Certainly breaking from the de facto ban on discussion in his childhood home, Albaih has brought a new facet to political and artistic dialogue – a conversation he hopes to remain a part of and to encourage for as long as he can. Albaih’s art brings freshness to what some may consider the circular or static state of political dialogues, especially when it comes to more “serious” or academic settings. He invites us all to join these important dialogues, after a quick laugh.

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Allan, an ethnographer, filmmaker, and PhD graduate, discussed her book as both a presentation of the daily life of Palestinians living in refugee camps and a critique of an increasingly alienating nationalistic discourse. Refugees specifically features a camp called Shatila in southern Beirut. In an interview with The Daily, Allan explained that the book is based off of her doctoral thesis, for which she traveled to Shatila and studied there. She highlighted the ethnographic aspects of the daily life in the refugee camp, also critiquing the nationalistic discourse that has overtaken the thousands of refugee Palestinians who live abroad. When asked if the book directly covers anything about Israel or the ongoing debates, Allan replied that “it does not.”

In attendance was Michelle Hartman, an associate professor of Arabic Literature at McGill and one of the organizers of the Palestine series. Hartman expressed to The Daily a hope of bringing people of all backgrounds together to “talk about Palestine while casting a spotlight on the vibrant Palestinian art scene.” Hartman wants to incite a new dimension to discussions about Palestine through the “intensity of art.”

While it may not have focused on art, the speech Allan gave at her launch was certainly intense. Allan’s talk served as a critique of discourses that “no longer adequately cover the struggles and ambitions of the millions of Palestinian refugees,” exploring the shift from traditional kinship relations to economic-based relations in refugee camps, and the evolving views of exiled Palestinians toward Palestine itself. She addressed how discourses of Palestine view Palestinians as “purely ethno-political beings” void of what she described as the mostly “Western notion of human complexities, emotions, ideologies, and aspirations.”

Key among these struggles is refugees’ lack of civil rights. Allan explained that at the cost of the refugees’ most basic civil rights, the Lebanese government refuses Palestinians full citizenship precisely to “foster Palestinian nationalism.” Allan argued that most discussions of Palestinian refugees focus on the idea of return to Palestine, which mostly reflects the experience of “Palestinians in Europe and the West, and not that of exiled Palestinians living in refugee camps.” Discussing this at the launch, Allan shared an anecdote about a girl who told her “you can’t move Shatila to Palestine.”

This viewpoint of the Palestinian refugees is particularly important because of its relatively small representation within the greater narrative of the Palestinian right of return. Allan claimed that while some nationalist strains consider refugees to be ‘cowards’ in the face of opposition, their stories of ever-present conflict must be heard to acknowledge Palestinian discourse on a wider scale, one that includes refugee camps like the one in Shatila. Even for most ardent followers of the Palestinian conflict, Allan’s approach is one that opens eyes because it is not even within the framework of these prominent political conversations.

While Allan’s discussion was primarily political, she closed the event with a reading from Refugees of the Revolution that demonstrated how her treatment of the topic is not only powerful due to its rarity, but also its artistry. Reading a passage about the business of bird-tending, she used her filmmaker’s touch to showcase complex notions of economic relationships in a way that felt cinematic. In her dual voice of artist and ethnographer, the brute reality of Shatila came to life. In listening to Allan, it became clear that with her new book, the experience of this reality will begin to speak for itself.

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The film starts with a general biography of Andersen, who was inspired by the horrors of An Inconvenient Truth to become an environmental filmmaker himself. Now a strict vegan and a self-proclaimed “obsessive recycler,” Andersen tells the story of his realization that changing his individual lifestyle was not enough. In his search to discover a way to make an actual impact on the environment, Andersen began to look for the root cause of all the problems he sought to fix. After extensive research, he arrived at the conclusion that the true cause of most of the planet’s destruction comes directly from the practice of animal agriculture – in other words, the practice of raising (and in most cases slaughtering) livestock for edible products such as meat and dairy.

With eye-opening statistics –for example, animal agriculture accounts for fifty one percent of greenhouse gases – and numerous interviews with scientists, disgruntled ex-farmers, and representatives of the top environmental activist organizations, Andersen cements his argument. In the end, there is a sincere plea to switch to a vegan diet as it requires less land, produces less waste, and could potentially rebalance our planet’s ecosystem.

Anderson manages to present the sheer size of the consumptive waste that is created by and for livestock with both gravity and subtle wit. The film’s facts are shocking and provoke the viewer to contemplate the severity of our planet’s environmental degradation. Cowspiracy emphasizes the seriousness of a siuation where not only is the government not paying attention, but the organizations who claim to be working to solve these environmental issues either do not know their actual cause or choose not to share it with the public.

Andersen also adds a personal edge to the film by portraying how environmental activists such as himself have suffered for their research, citing the repression and murder of green-minded activists in Brazil, and the closer to home case of Cowspiracy losing its financial backing due to the film’s potential for controversy. Instead of coming off as overly dramatic, this angle supports and propels Andersen’s message beyond mere contemplation.

However, the film does not focus on much more than these cold facts. Whether the absence of proposals toward an environmental solution is intentional or not, it is undoubtedly where the film’s faults arise and where questions go answered. Don’t be mistaken, the film does devote some time toward showing the alternatives to meat and dairy eating; for example, the production of equally-nutritious, plant-based “meat,” “yogurt,” and “eggs,” or community farms that grow plants and vegetables. Andersen also devotes time to explaining the dietary reasons for a vegan lifestyle. But whether these are viable options already in production or in the growing stages of development is not made clear. Additionally, the film does not address the development cycle for these kinds of products – whether they produce waste as well. In a question-and-answer session after the film, Andersen claimed that “roughly 98 per cent of people have access to vegetables,” without acknowledging that meat alternatives are often more expensive than fast food, and thus inaccessible for large portions of the population. The absolute lack of acknowledgement of any kind of complications that could occur with the shift toward veganism (both as a diet and means of using land) makes the proposed solution come across as a godsend rather than a viable option in the eyes of a discerning viewer.

Andersen also hinders his own argument with a clear personal disdain for meat eaters. Given the circumstances of the film, this bias is understandable. However, for the uninformed it ignores a diversity of upbringings, traditions, beliefs, and financial situations. At one point in the question-and-answer session, Andersen went so far as to call meat eating “an addiction to animal flesh and animal secretions.” With this kind of mentality it will be hard to foster a discourse with meat-eaters, let alone catalyze a worldwide dietary change – the movie ends up translating as more of a guilt trip than an impetus for change.

While the film presents its ideas with an impressive fervour toward respecting the lives of animals, inspiration does not successfully cover for the lack of information on the practicalities of ending animal agriculture. This gives the idea of living as a vegan an idealistic appeal but ultimately less credibility. Due to these limitations, Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret is unlikely to cause an agriculture revolution. That said, it certainly provides some good food for thought.

Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret will be available for DVD purchase and digital download November 6, and is currently available for preorder.

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