CRUM

Webster Library, Concordia University, July and August, 2022
Organized and curated by John Latour, Teaching & Research Librarian – Fine Arts Concordia University

The Centre de recherche urbaine de Montréal (CRUM) is a symbiotic (parasitic) research group founded in 2000 by Felicity Tayler, Matt Killen and Hugues Charbonneau, and later joined by Douglas Scholes, Alexandra MacIntosh and Christian Carrière. Members of the CRUM collective, also known as “CRUMmies” explore links between art and urban space through their diverse and creative collaborations with artists, artist-run centres and other organizations at local, national and international levels; and through the 20+ year production of their remarkable Petite enveloppe urbaine (PEU) series.

Although the CRUM has produced gallery exhibitions, each work in the PEU series is a de facto temporary exhibition. “Since 1998, the Petite enveloppe urbaine has gathered urbanities of various disciplines around topics concerning their ways of life and their imaginary worlds. The small publication infiltrates different networks in various countries taking the form of paper envelopes containing uncommon projects”[1] – in the tradition of assemblage magazines and portable exhibitions.

This exhibition of exhibitions in envelopes presents a selection of the twenty-three issues of the Petite enveloppe urbaine that have been published since the series’ launch in 1998 – first under the supervision of Charbonneau and guest coordinators, and then by the CRUM itself with occasional guest collaborators as of no. 11 (2004). Covering a wide range of topics linked to art and the built environment, works in the exhibition also highlight the imaginative, poetic and playful nature of the CRUM and their collaborators.

The Webster Library thanks the members of the CRUM for their involvement in this exhibition and for the loan of CRUM-related materials. Concordia Library is also grateful to Artexte for the loan of several issues of the PEU to supplement those held by our own Special Collections.

If you already knew about us, you are part of a special group.— CRUM

What have I got myself into? — J.L.