A multidisciplinary exhibition slated for the fall of 2017 at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC) will celebrate the influence and inspiration provided by Montreal native son and acclaimed singer-songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen. The homage to this global star and touchstone of Montreal culture, A Crack in Everything, will be presented as part of the city’s 350th anniversary celebrations.
Through his poems and his music and lyrics, Cohen touches a huge audience and influences countless artists across all disciplines and generations around the world. The exhibition, which is being created exclusively for the MAC for the occasion, will allow the Musée to offer the public a collection of brand-new works commissioned from and created by local and international artists who were inspired by Cohen’s style and recurring themes. The works will span the visual arts, performance art, music, the written word and film, thus providing visitors with a dynamic, participatory and immersive experience. The exhibit will later travel to a number of other museums around the globe.
Cohen will be part of the programming for the celebration of Montreal’s 375th anniversary. In addition to his songs and poems, the 81-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member has created novels and paintings. From his first album on Columbia Records in 1967, Songs of Leonard Cohen, he has garnered consistent critical acclaim and enjoyed the esteem of his peers and musical artists to follow in successive generations. His best-known songs like “Suzanne,” “Hallelujah,” “Bird on the Wire” and “So Long, Marianne,” among others, have become standards. Such artists as Judy Collins, Johnny Cash, R.E.M., Jeff Buckley, Tori Amos, Nick Fave, Robert Flack, Beck, Nina Simone and many more have covered Cohen’s songs, and he was name-checked by Kurt Cobain in the Nirvana song “Pennyroyal Tea.” His most recent and 13th album, Popular Problems, was released in 2014.
