Matthew Purvis Book Launch and Screening

BOOK LAUNCH AND FILM SCREENING | The Pornographic Delicatessen: Midcentury Montréal’s Erotic Art, Media, and Spaces

Join us February 10th for an evening celebrating the launch of The Pornographic Delicatessen: Midcentury Montréal's Erotic Art, Media, and Spaces by Matthew Purvis, a new book from Concordia University Press that examines the development of erotic art and design in Montréal’s postwar and Quiet Revolution era.

Purvis stresses the confluence of visual art, film, magazines, dance, poetry, and journalism during the period—including Québec’s unique “maple syrup porno” industry (aka les films du cul), softcore men’s magazines (gay and straight), and the burlesque and striptease clubs of Montréal nightlife—tracking how formal models passed from surrealism and automatism into the evolution of a Québec-specific variation of pop art, ti-pop.

Tracing unexpected connections between eroticism, Quebecois nationalism, and the birth of the Canadian contemporary art system, The Pornographic Delicatessen surveys a wide range of nearly forgotten erotic materials, rediscovering the visual culture of a period that expanded definitions of what could be considered art.

For this event, Matthew Purvis will be present to introduce a free screening of Gilles Carle's classic 1973 softcore film La mort d'un bucheron. In it, a young woman from rural Québec named Maria Chapdelaine (Carole Laure), after the titular heroine of Louis Hémon's 1913 novel, comes to Montréal in search of her missing father. She takes a job as a topless singer in a country-western nightclub and, in a scene that is central to The Pornographic Delicatessen, Laure poses for a series of erotic photos among artworks by Montreal artists (including COZIC and Claude Tousignant) that exemplify the period’s tendencies towards quasi-psychedelic abstraction and pop-art kitsch (or, in specifically Québecois terms, ti-pop kétaine). 

This special event is co-presented by The Gail & Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art as part of the Co-organized Events series of conversations–perfectly timed for your Valentine's Day (or anti-Valentine's Day) celebration!

Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing at a special price. Please click the Register Now button to secure your space, as seating is limited for this free event.

📅 When: Tuesday, February 10, 2026
🕟 Time: 6:00-8:30 PM
📍 Where: VA 114 Teaching Cinema, Concordia University (1395 René-Lévesque Blvd. W)
💲 Cost: Free