MONTREAL, CANADA.- A real love affair has developed between the public and the exhibition Brian Jungen now on at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Already, 40,000 visitors have fallen head over heels for the highly imaginative works of this Vancouver artist.

Visitors have found two sets of works particularly inspiring. First of all, the famous Prototype for New Understanding series of masks (1998-2005), and then the gallery with the whales: Shapeshifter (2000), Cetology (2002) and Vienna (2003).

Made out of Nike running shoes, Air Jordans more specifically, each of the 23 Prototypes presented (23 for the number worn by the famous basketball star) is an astounding variation on the theme of ceremonial West Coast Aboriginal masks. As for the three life-size whale skeletons, they are cleverly created from plastic lawn chairs. Visitors have been full of praise and have hailed the artist’s ingenuity, sense of poetry and creativity.

The public is not alone in being charmed. The critic’s pick in the summer edition of the American magazine ARTnews, Brian Jungen has been widely acclaimed for his exhibitions this summer at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and the Tate Modern in London.

Montréal is the last North American stop for this exhibition organized and circulated by the VancouverArtGallery with the support of the Audain Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

You only have another three weeks, until September 4, to visit it. The museum will be open every day, Monday through Sunday, including Labour Day Monday, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Wednesday evenings until 9 p.m.