By Montreal For Montreal - Art & Chewing Gum with Andrew Jamieson

This is a rebirth. As a media outlet, we at Forget The Box are getting back to the fundamentals that inspired us to start: the scenes our weird and wonderful city has to offer. 

We're expanding, streamling, focusing. Embracing our DIY ethos and selves, we're giving the spotlight to the indie venues that deserve your business, the local artists worth your attention, the icons you might not know are your neighbours.

We're reinvesting in community: we're building a virtual hub for real people, a community centre that exists far beyond a box.

Engagement is key. We are limited only by the quality of our team, so we're raising our standards, while keeping our ears to the ground, and our feet firmly planted on the pot-holed streets of Montreal.

The changes start rolling out February 14, and will keep coming. This isn't a facelift, this is an evolution.

Jason McLean remains Editor in Chief (he wears it well). Dawn McSweeney moves up to Managing Editor, and we welcome Andrew Jamieson as our new Creative Director. Allow me to introduce him…

The website shows the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts as closed, but it isn't; it's the last VIP night Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music, so it's open for me and a guest, closed to the rest.

For a hot second I panic, wondering if I have the wrong date, but I know it'll be fine. My guest is Andrew Jamieson, so no matter what, we'll have plenty to talk about. We will find art, one way or another.

Why am I talking to him and telling you about it? Well, he's taking over FTB in an all love kind of way, and there are bound to be questions. Like, who the heck is Andrew Jamieson?

"I'm a classically trained Antagonist. I mean, I'm a multidisciplinary artist, based here in Montreal."

He's also a theatre creator, event producer, acting coach, and networker extraordinaire. A man of many talents who enjoys a title, he can now add Creative Director of Forget The Box to his repertoire.

We wander through the exhibit, going ahead, backtracking, re-examining. 

"I saw an ad for this," he says with a vague gesture to the room itself. "Some woman on it said 'it shows how much he was inspired by the New York City street scene'. Bitch, he was the fucking street scene! What goddamn textbook did you get your garbage from? Utter trash! Fire the writers!" He enunciates the words perfectly, as is his manner; the theatre background is inescapable.

Andrew's familiar with pieces I hadn't seen before this exhibition. The concert posters fill more space than I remembered; walls of incidental ephemera, each a miracle by virtue of its survival. If Jean-Michel had never become BASQUIAT, these would've just been scribbles for local shows. Like the rest of his art, these pieces aren't ashamed of their DIY nature, rather their beauty actually depends on it. To follow the doodles along the edges, to read his handwriting in its unique style is to remember that there was a human who made this, maybe with his mind wandering, maybe full of attention, but he's there, and we can almost touch him. It's easy to draw a comparison between these posters and Forget The Box: people playing their hearts out, other artists lovingly getting the word out, and to the sands of time, well, who's to say? We'll look back one day and find that some of the locals we covered will become stars, others will change paths. We will be here, hyping talented, skilled people, interesting spots, and vital venues.

"The simple concept behind Forget The Box -- don't just think outside the box, forget the box entirely -- I vibe with that," he says. "It's on brand, for me. A core principle of my practice is 'Wallessness and Borderlessness', pushing the limits of how a story can be told beyond even remotely conventional methods.

"However, this takeover has more to it than the synchronicity between brands. It's about wanting to give attention to some really fucking talented local artists, and what they create. There is a vacuum in this city when it comes to coverage of the arts. We have a few local publications who have total disregard for the ground level and underground art being created in this city.  

"Montreal has an electric scene, but if you don't have an already existing name, or something to offer in exchange, those publications won't cover you. Hell, they won't even return your emails. There are so many artists in this city creating phenomenal art, and we want to give them the spotlight.  Artists, we want to know what you're doing, and we want to talk to you about it.  We want to give you the attention you deserve."

We're discussing fonts, which is fabulous. There are too few people I can discuss this minutiae with, but Andrew is one. He's explaining his own style, both how it appeared in his “graffiti days”, and his notebooks, spanning 15 years of writing thus far. 

As he speaks, he opens a pouch of gum, pops one into his mouth, and in a flash security is there, saying that there's no eating allowed. I wonder if he knows it's gum, and if that counts, especially since it's already in his mouth. After a pause, Andrew slowly spits the gum back into the package, closes it, and puts it back in his pocket, never once looking away from the art. The security guard steps back to his station, as if this is the most normal thing, and I try not to make a scene laughing.

We wander into an alcove with a screen, one of many, and here's Warhol with Jean-Michel, black and white, larger than life, his eyes looking right at us. "This is the first image we've seen of him," Andrew says. "That's unacceptable! He's The Artist!"

The finished product is only part of the picture. Beneath the façade of the creation, the artist remains the hand behind the curtain; the creative communities only get spoken of in past tense, and then romanticised. We've separated the art from the artist by calling it content and consuming it instead of admiring it, or letting it change us. 

In reality, artists are their own best promoters. Sure, everyone knows about the hierarchical system of artist management, but if you've ever actually known an artist, they've put their art in front of you, talked to you about it, insisted on being seen. They'll take to the walls if they must, let the museums come and go as they please.

And it's funny when they do come: pieces of graffed up wall hang on display while we VIPs murmur and stare. Keith Haring's famous figures wander across a piece, the first real Haring I've ever seen. It's something like coming full circle, the outsider art being brought in after some unseen trial by fire by which the artist was sanctified and became Somebody. Then, even the scraps cannot be wasted: tear down the walls! Set up the velvet ropes!

So, what's the plan for Forget The Box? 

"Along with a visual re-brand, we will immediately begin marching toward our mandate of covering ground level and underground arts in Montreal. This means a marked difference in the content on FTB.  Profiles on artists, venues, event series, along with reviews and conversations.  Coverage of local restaurants and small businesses, as well as local news.

The objective is for Forget The Box to become a community centre in Montreal. A place where artists know they can reach out and be given the respect they deserve, a place where art lovers can find whatever they're looking for. We're not a guide to the city for visitors, like some of the other publications read: We are by Montreal for Montreal.

There's a full circle here with Andrew and Forget the Box too. It's an act of giving back to the community that gave him so much, an effort to fill the spaces he's seen lacking from the artist's perspective, to be the community leader he wished he'd had. And the proof is in the pudding: a decade ago, FTB covered him at a poetry reading: https://forgetthebox.net/selected-poets-from-poetry-night-at-kafein/. It's funny how these things go.

In the room where Jean-Michel's notebooks are on display, we're both inspired. The thought of having a notebook dissected, each page, even the cover, carefully framed, meticulously arranged for the masses of the future is a very specific thing and we share that rare space. We make pacts in that room, about our work, our deaths, our legacies. Chronology has me by the proverbial balls, while Andrew's been known to tease death. It's a strange race.

But this is about life: new beginnings, evolution, re-invention, and the multifaceted pleasure of enjoying gum and art at the same time. We are creators as well as observers, and we will speak as such. We'll tell you what we liked, and we'll be honest about what we didn't. We'll cover the venues and people that you should know about, and we want to hear about the spaces and artists that we should be covering! We remain proudly local, now with a bonus dose of passion for our mission and a newfound lust for this media life.

Stay tuned.