The Exhibition as Film Set: A Multi-Media Production at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art

Once Upon a Time…The Western at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art is absolutely cinematic in its layout, design, and overall effect. This is appropriate for a multimedia exhibition aiming to present an entire genre of painting, photography, and film, tracing its inception in early-mid nineteenth century landscape painting all the way to its contemporary iterations in music and film, as well as even more recent responses to the genre by First Nations artists in both the United States and Canada. Covering the Western in both countries over the span of a couple hundred years, the scope here is vast and daunting. Yet the Museum tactfully toes the line between being comprehensive and critically engaging with the material’s often-troubling cultural implications.

Canada is often left out of the Western genre as most know it. This exhibition gives representations of Canadian landscapes equal attention, while also presenting promotional posters and written narratives of both Canadian and well-known American characters and performers such as Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley. The two countries are most notably brought directly into dialogue with each other in the subtle mention of the “Northern” subgenre: these were Canadian versions of Western films produced in the U.S. that propagated the American fascination with exotic-seeming Canadian landscapes.