Apartment613

"Stability - Stabilité" by Stuart Lanctôt Kinmond

Fashion. The late night boulevards buzzing with people. And the omnipresent whiff of chocolate.

Ask Cube Gallery curator Don Monet what he likes best about Montreal - which is not just his birthplace but also the subject of Cube’s newest exhibition - and those are some of the answers you’re likely to get.

“I think it’s everybody’s favourite city, you know?” says Monet, who chatted with Apartment613 over the phone a few hours before tonight’s vernissage for Allo Montreal. “It’s just this great, small, cosmopolitan, European-style city.”

Over the next two months, Allo Montreal will showcase the work of 10 artists exploring just what it is about Canada’s second largest city that’s proved so captivating. Interpretations range from sculpture to painting to photography. The featured artists are from both Ottawa and Montreal - which creates a “really interesting dichotomy,” says Monet, between how resident Montrealais and those who live elsewhere consider and respond to the city’s charms.

Allo Montreal, by the way, might not be the only interurban partnership on Cube’s horizon. Monet says he’s exploring the possibilities of hooking up with a gallery in NYC - specifically, Brooklyn - for some sort of joint exhibition. Everything’s still in the early stages, but one idea Monet’s tossing around is having simultaneous opening nights, with each gallery linking up over video. There could be also an exchange of sorts, he says, with Ottawa artists showcasing their talents south of the border while New York artists make the trek to our nation’s capital. Nor is Monet ruling out the possibility of Ottawa artists interpreting NYC and vice versa - a concept similar to Allo Montreal - calling the idea “an interesting thought.”

But that’s all well in the futur. Tonight’s vernissage for Allo Montreal gets underway at 7 p.m. at Cube’s new location (1285 Wellington St. W.), with the exhibition running until July 25.