Top 5 Montreal Art Exhibits to See This Weekend: September 17–20, 2026
September in Montreal has that particular energy when summer refuses to completely leave, but the city’s cultural calendar has very clearly decided that fall has begun.
This week’s Top 5 Montreal Art Exhibits takes us from the intimate studio world of one of Montreal’s best-known muralists to an industrial contemporary-art landmark, 50 years of graphic-design legacy, explorations of the body as territory, and photography created simply for the pleasure of looking.
Better yet, several of these shows are opening Thursday, September 17, making this an excellent weekend to gallery-hop.
Here are the Top 5 Montreal Art Exhibits worth putting on your cultural radar from September 17–20.
1. Kevin Ledo — Passages
📅 Exhibition: September 16–20
🥂 Vernissage: Thursday, September 17, 5–9 PM
📍 1040 Marie-Anne St E, Montreal
🕐 Hours: 10 AM–5 PM
🎟️ Galerie: Galerie Le 1040 — Passages
Montrealers probably know Kevin Ledo first through scale. His murals have appeared across Montreal and around the world, but Passages turns the lens inward.
The five-day pop-up brings together four years of work created in the spaces between Ledo’s larger projects, tracing ideas as they shift between abstraction and figuration.
That makes Passages interesting precisely because it reveals the quieter experimentation behind an artist associated with monumental public work.
Why go? It’s fleeting. The exhibition exists for only five days, making Thursday’s vernissage an ideal moment to catch it.
2. Christopher Varady-Szabo + Shanie Tomassini — Fonderie Darling Fall Opening
📅 Exhibition: September 17–November 15, 2026
🥂 Vernissage: Thursday, September 17, 5–10 PM
📍 Fonderie Darling — 745 Place du Sable-Gris, Montreal
🎟️ Fonderie Darling
If you want your Thursday night to lean decisively contemporary, head to Fonderie Darling.
Its fall opening launches two exhibitions simultaneously: Christopher Varady-Szabo’s Après la pluie, la boue and Shanie Tomassini’s Solar Lamentation. Both open September 17 and continue through November 15.
The raw former-industrial architecture of Fonderie Darling makes this one particularly intriguing. Here, the building isn’t simply a container for art; space, material and scale become part of the experience.
Why go? Two new exhibitions, one night, and a vernissage running until 10 PM. This should be one of the liveliest stops on this week’s Montreal art circuit.
3. 50 Years, 50 Posters
📅 Exhibition: September 18–November 6, 2026
🥂 Vernissage: Friday, September 18, from 6 PM
📍 FOIL Gallery — 6560 Rue Waverly, Montreal
🎟️ 50 Years, 50 Posters Exhibition Details
Fifty years after the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, an exhibition at FOIL Gallery + Coffee asks a great question: what does Quebec graphic design look like now?
Presented by the Advertising & Design Club of Canada and curated by Bryan-K. Lamonde, 50 Years, 50 Posters brings together 50 posters from 28 Quebec studios and designers, all created during the past decade.
The reference to 1976 matters. Montreal’s Olympic visual identity became internationally recognized within graphic design, but this isn’t simply an exercise in nostalgia. The exhibition uses that 50-year milestone to look at the designers shaping Quebec’s visual culture today.
Why go? Because a poster can communicate, advertise and still function as art. Seeing 50 of them together offers a fascinating snapshot of Quebec’s contemporary graphic language.
4. Le corps comme territoire
Claudia Bernal, Rodrigo D’Alcântara & Sarabeth Triviño
📅 Exhibition: September 16–November 1, 2026
🥂 Vernissage: Thursday, September 17, 5:30–7 PM
📍 Maison de la culture Claude-Léveillée — 911 Rue Jean-Talon E, Montreal
🎟️ FREE
ℹ️ Ville de Montréal Exhibition Details
Presented as part of Festival LatinArte, Le corps comme territoire turns the human body into something much larger than a physical form.
Through textile and multimedia installations, Claudia Bernal, Rodrigo D’Alcântara and Sarabeth Triviño explore the body as a living territory carrying identity, memory, migration, ancestral knowledge and resistance. The exhibition approaches those ideas through queer, diasporic and ancestral perspectives and is curated by Claudia Arana.
It’s probably the most conceptually layered entry in this week’s Top 5 Montreal Art Exhibits.
Why go? It moves beyond looking at the body as an artistic subject and asks us to consider everything a body can carry: history, displacement, identity and inherited knowledge.
5. Denis Racicot — Pour le plaisir des yeux
📅 Exhibition: September 16–20, 2026
🥂 Vernissage: Thursday, September 17, 5–8 PM
📍 Galerie ERGA — 6394 Boulevard Saint-Laurent, Montreal
🕐 This week: 12–8 PM daily
🎟️ Galerie ERGA Exhibition Details
Sometimes art doesn’t need an intimidating conceptual thesis.
Photographer Denis Racicot has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions since 2001, drawing inspiration from nature, water, the seasons, the human body and the city. His approach searches for aesthetics, harmony and the unexpected.
Pour le plaisir des yeux feels almost refreshingly literal: slow down and enjoy looking.
Like Passages, this is another short-lived exhibition. It closes Sunday, September 20, so this weekend really is the window to see it.
Why go? After a weekend of conceptual installations, graphic design and large contemporary works, Racicot’s photography brings the experience back to observation and visual pleasure.
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