2022 Webster Library Exhibitions

PETITE ENVELOPPE URBAINE: An Exhibition of Exhibitions in Envelopes

Image: Documentalists Walking Out. The CRUM, 2010. CC BY-NC-ND

August 1 – September 30, 2022
Webster Library vitrines on LB-2

The Centre de recherche urbaine de Montréal (CRUM) is a symbiotic (parasitic) research group founded in 2000 by Felicity Tayler, Matt Killen and Hugues Charbonneau, and later joined by Douglas Scholes, Alexandra MacIntosh and Christian Carrière. Members of the CRUM collective, also known as “CRUMmies” explore links between art and urban space through their diverse and creative collaborations with artists, artist-run centres and other organizations at local, national and international levels; and through the 20+ year production of their remarkable Petite enveloppe urbaine (PEU) series.

Although the CRUM has produced gallery exhibitions, each work in the PEU series is a de facto temporary exhibition. “Since 1998, the Petite enveloppe urbaine has gathered urbanities of various disciplines around topics concerning their ways of life and their imaginary worlds. The small publication infiltrates different networks in various countries taking the form of paper envelopes containing uncommon projects” — in the tradition of assemblage magazines and portable exhibitions.(1)

This exhibition of exhibitions in envelopes presents a selection of the twenty-three issues of the Petite enveloppe urbaine that have been published since the series' launch in 1998 — first under the supervision of Charbonneau and guest coordinators, and then by the CRUM itself with occasional guest collaborators as of no. 11 (2004). Covering a wide range of topics linked to art and the built environment, works in the exhibition also highlight the imaginative, poetic and playful nature of the CRUM and their collaborators.

The Webster Library thanks the members of the CRUM for their involvement in this exhibition and for the loan of CRUM-related materials. Concordia Library is also grateful to Artexte for the loan of several issues of the PEU to supplement those issues of PEU held by our own Special Collections.

If you already knew about us, you are part of a special group. — CRUM

What have I got myself into? — J.L.

JELLO-2nd attempt from CRUM on Vimeo.

Video: Jell-O (for Disincorporation). Regard, Levis, QC, CRUM, 2018. 1:04 min. CC BY-NC-ND

(1) "Petite enveloppe urbaine." Centre de recherche urbaine de Montréal, https://crum.ca/petite-enveloppe-urbaine/

Cover image of issue number 23 of the PEU with contents listed and four figures dressed in hazmat suits leaving a building with archive boxes

Image: Petite enveloppe urbaine No. 23. Désincorporation (2018). Copy 13/50.

Image text:

Petite Enveloppe Urbaine, numéro 23, Septembre 2018, Lévis (Québec)

Désincorporation

100 Days, Daimon R. Tayler McLeod, Felicity Tayler & Christopher McLeod

A Family's Exquisite Body, Laurie Lamoureux Scholes, Douglas Scholes, Jaden Scholes & Zach Scholes

Échographies d'un détachement, Christian Carrièere & Audrey Lavallée

Get Your Armorial Bearings, Alexandra McIntosh, Alex Ferko & Isla Ferko

Killen Family Craft Time, Matt Killen, Joanna Foster, Matthew Killen, Ronan Killen & Anya Killen

Rethinking Family, Maude Christie, Daniela Mahmoudi, AnLi Tsang & Rozie Whillans

Cleaving utopia, Amber Berson & Saelan Twerdy

CRUM, Centre de recherche urbaine de Montréal

13/50