''Horizon'', the New Mural at MAC

This mural, illustrated by the British comic artist Lando, is a component of the film installation “Horizon” by the Canadian-American artist David Hartt, presented within the walls of the MAC. The artist’s nephews, Elijah and Isaiah, appear as protagonists in a psychedelic and retro-futuristic narrative that transitions from private spaces like the bedroom and living room to public spaces like the arcade, street, and urban horizon, in an imaginary city dotted with megastructures reminiscent of Montreal.

Hartt’s work intertwines documentary and conceptual elements that refer to suburban life in Montreal, where he grew up. Reflecting his culturally mixed origin, the artist describes this context as having been the source of “deep feelings of alienation,” in response to which the modernist buildings of downtown appeared as a kind of imaginary refuge.

By reconsidering the theme of the physical and symbolic horizon as it might be seen by the next generation, Hartt’s work proposes a “new narrative of polyphonic heritage” that overlays family and social time with the longer, more open time of speculative fiction.

“Horizon” is a film installation created specifically for “Skyscrapers by the Roots,” a group exhibition currently presented in the MAC spaces at Place Ville Marie, which explores the legacy of late modernism in architecture. This work was created with the support of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.