Centre
Artworks
→ PHI's art collection
- Installation
- Free
- Contemporary Art
PHI Centre
315 Saint-Paul St West
Montreal, Quebec, H2Y 2A3
Monday and Tuesday: 9 AM to 5 PM
Wednesday and Thursday: 9 AM to 7 PM
Friday: 9 AM to 9 PM
Saturday: 11 AM to 9 PM
Sunday: 11 AM to 7 PM
All ages
Free, no reservations required
Before visiting, please review some essential information about the visit, including details on accessibility at the Centre.
For more details on safety measures in place at the PHI Centre, visit our COVID-19 page.
An ongoing collection of contemporary artworks, accessible and free at the PHI Centre.
Selected by
The thinking behind the collection
Following our mission to bring art into our everyday lives, PHI is now displaying a selection of its ongoing collection of contemporary artworks on the ground floor of the PHI Centre, free and accessible to the public.
Titled Figure–Ground, the series has been carefully selected by Jon Knowles, Exhibitions Manager at the PHI Foundation.
The selection brings together several works from the PHI collection that explore the figure and the complex and intimate correlation it establishes with its background. For us, the figure is a point of reference to question, while its meaning is found in the relationship with its background: its context, the space that surrounds it, and its place in time.
Among these works, we see figures as silhouettes—bodies escaping the overburdening of their representation. Some sculptural pieces make the site of their exhibition their ground and call us to question the ground as a mode of display. Others use minimalist figures with the barest of elements to create symmetrical images that we understand right away, putting an emphasis instead on the cultural history and context that makes these figures at once recognizable.
In this collection, when the figure(s) and the ground are intertwined, they are in resonance, sometimes in harmony, and sometimes in counterpoint. Rather than simply seeing, they ask us to employ all of our senses, our perceptions of time and space, as well as our cultural and learned ideas about how we see and interpret representations.
Meet the artists
More Events at PHI
Free
Centre
Chromatic Myriad
August 15 → July 31
The PHI Centre showcases a light installation with evolving content, adapting to the seasons and exhibitions
Off-Site Location
The Horizon of Khufu
February 16 → May 31
The immersive experience Horizon of Khufu, presented in the Old Port, is a unique VR expedition to discover the wonders of Egypt
Free
Centre
Embodied Spaces
February 24 → December 31
A monthly gathering of live performances where art comes to life
Free
Centre
A conversation with Sonia Boyce, Rajni Perera, and Marigold Santos
April 30
The PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art presents a conversation with artists Sonia Boyce, Rajni Perera, and Marigold Santos, hosted by Cheryl Sim, Managing Director and Curator at the PHI Foundation
Free
Foundation
Natacha Clitandre: Reflexive Constructions
May 3 → September 8
Reflexive Constructions is a public engagement project by artist Natacha Clitandre taking place in the PHI Foundation’s Education Room, in parallel with the exhibitions Sonia Boyce: FEELING HER WAY and Rajni Perera and Marigold Santos: Efflorescence/The Way We Wake.
Free
Foundation
Sonia Boyce: FEELING HER WAY
May 3 → September 8
The PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art is pleased to present the North American premiere of FEELING HER WAY by Sonia Boyce DBE RA
Free
Foundation
Rajni Perera and Marigold Santos: Efflorescence/The Way We Wake
May 3 → September 8
The PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art is pleased to present Rajni Perera and Marigold Santos: Efflorescence/The Way We Wake
Album Launch Show
Centre
Wake Island and Radwan Ghazi Moumneh: خُلق/هُجر | Born to Leave
May 3
What is it like to immigrate to North America as an Arab? Wake Island explores this question in a tryptic featuring an immersive live performance with Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, a spatial audio listening experience and a role-playing video game