Urban Totem – McCord Museum, Victoria Street below Sherbrooke Street West, Montréal, Québec

Totem ubrain/histoire en dentelles is one of Pierre Granche’s major works. This sculpture was installed to mark the McCord Museum’s official reopening in 1992. It now occupies a prime spot on quiet Victoria Street, which runs alongside the Museum’s west side. Ensconced in a niche formed by joining the old building and its new extension, Totem urbain was designed to bridge the old and the new, the interior and the exterior. Both the form and the title of Granche’s piece allude to the majestic haïda totem in red cedar standing inside the Museum’s Victoria Street entrance.

The work – an allegorical representation of the history of Montreal – is composed of four elements. The first of these is the illuminated elliptical plinth on which the remaining elements stand or from which they radiate outwards. The plinth is made up of three layers of glass fragments sandwiched between two massive translucent slabs that filter the light radiating from the base. The assembly is suggestive of water, an island, or rock strata. In using these pieces of glass, the sculptor makes a direct allusion to the 200,000 glass negatives of the Notman Photographic Archives, one of the McCord’s priceless collections.

The second element, the "urban totem," is a synthesised image depicting the city and three periods of its history. The totem is formed of three cylinders that fit one inside the other to form a small chimney. The first cylinder is inspired by the old buildings on de la Commune Street in Old Montreal; the second represents Montreal townhouses with their characteristic outside staircases, and also the industrial era; while the third evokes the present-day downtown area with its towering skyscrapers.

Then follows the third element: the parade of figures. Granche uses a score of archetypal figures and objects to conjure up moments and objects that are rooted in our collective memory. The sculptor tips his hat to history and geography, with many references to legends, the seasons, traditional trades and industrialisation. Each figure calls on another; associations are thus scrambled, cast into relief, or paralysed by the play and interplay between them. Here as well, the artist gestures to some of the Museum’s collections, such as Costume and Textiles, Ethnology and Archaeology, and the Notman Photographic Archives. This profusion of figures and images is seen through the lens of photographer Notman, which Granche has cleverly integrated into the work.

The final element in the work is a communications tower whose roots are buried in a mountain of books. This image symbolizes knowledge and culture, rooted in our present-day society, and recalls the Museum’s mandate to research and disseminate.