Want to check out Montreal street art during your stay in Montreal? We got your back. In this post, you’ll find all the best spots and events to admire street art around the city.
Under Pressure Festival
Montreal’s first street art festival, Under Pressure, was first celebrated in 1996 and continues to take over Quartier des Spectacles every August, making it the oldest running festival of urban culture in the world.
For the past 23 years, street artists, graffiti writers, deejays, emcees, and street dancers have been getting together in a radiance of urban community and hip hop culture. The festival celebrates urban culture with over a hundred local, national, and international artists taking part in the festivities.
There’s always plenty going on during the festival, including the creation of massive murals, musical performances, conferences, street dance battles, kid’s activities, and more.
Alongside these incredible artistic performances, an unmissable event of the MURAL Festival is the gastronomic culinary event Grill Saint-Laurent, a culinary contest in which restaurant owners create and present visitors with dishes prepared on the grill. The festival is located on Saint-Catherine Street, between Saint-Laurent and Saint-Denis Streets, which is closed during the weekend to allow for artists to get to work creating murals and other pieces.
During this weekend, the closed street will also be home to activities such as basketball tournaments, a skate park, and music performances. General entry to the festival is free, with fees required for some activities.
MURAL Festival
Another of Montreal’s street art festivals, MURAL transforms Saint-Laurent Boulevard into an open-air art museum every June. The eleven-day festival features local and international artists to celebrate Montreal as the global destination for urban art, collaborating in a colorful atmosphere of music and art. The festival holds live art, music, exhibitions, and artist talks.
During the festival, MURAL runs various walking (and running!) tours to help you make the most of the urban art that the city has to offer. With over 30 tours to choose from, participants will be guided by a knowledgeable tour guide through a 90-minute walk of Montreal’s best street art spots.
The walking tours cost $20 + taxes. Alternatively, a private tour is available, which includes 2 alcoholic beverage vouchers and a $20 voucher for the BBQ Grill St-Laurent per person.
When the festival is not on, Spade & Palacio hosts a street art walking tour every Sunday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday, taking you through some of the city’s most infamous street art spots, including Saint-Laurent Boulevard and Plateau Mont-Royal. This tour is 2 hours long and costs $40 + taxes per person.
Saint-Laurent Boulevard and Saint-Catherine Street
If not visiting Montreal during either of the street art festivals, there’s no need to miss out on Montreal’s street art scene. One of the busiest streets in Montreal, Saint-Laurent is infamous for its impressive graffiti and street art portfolio.
As the focal point of the MURAL festival every year, Saint-Laurent has become a living open-air art gallery that’s ready to be experienced year-round. Saint-Laurent is also home to many vintage and artisan shops, boutiques, bars, and restaurants, making the street the perfect area for those seeking a street art crawl day trip.
The perfect stop-off for those exploring the art of Saint-Laurent, the infamous Schwartz’s Deli can be found along the street, serving Montreal’s world-famous smoked meat. Saint-Laurent also intersects with Saint-Catherine Street, the primary commercial artery of Downtown Montreal and another hotspot for street art and murals. Best known for its history, culture, and commerce, Saint-Catherine is also known for its spectacular art scene.
Every July, Saint-Catherine opens up into a must-visit street art experience, featuring musicians, DJs, graffiti artists, and acrobats. With over 300 boutiques on the street, many of them participating in the event, the commercial Saint-Catherine comes alive with creativity.
For those wanting to take their own street art Montreal walking tour, graffiti bloggers at Wall2Wall Montreal have created a map of the suggested walking tour route to best experience all of the street art that the city has to offer. The map connects all of the murals that have been done during the MURAL Festival, other major street art pieces in the city, as well as some urban secrets located in back alleys.
The starting point of the self-walking tour is the parking lot behind LNDMRK, known as ‘mural central’, near Prince-Arthur Street. The tour then goes up Saint-Dominique and Saint-Laurent East, heading back down Clark Street and onto Saint-Laurent West.
Plateau Mont-Royal and Mile End
The area combining neighborhoods Plateau Mont-Royal and Mile End has become very much an urban hub of Montreal. These two neighborhoods are rich in the artistic community, in which you will find colorful houses and spiral staircases among the street art that you seek.
The Plateau is home to many boutiques, cafes, and amazing restaurants to try typical Quebec food. While street art may be a little harder to find than Saint-Laurent, what you do find won’t disappoint. The Plateau is an up-and-coming street art locale, thanks to the Plateau’s Murality Program, which allows building owners to apply for a grant for the creation of a mural, promoting the growth and increase of urban art in the neighborhood.
Not far from the Plateau, Mile End, the hipster capital of Canada, boasts various giant murals that are well worth a visit. While neither area is as concentrated with street art as Saint-Laurent, the street art featured certainly makes these neighborhoods worth a visit.
Galleries
For those wanting a more museum-like experience of street art, Station 16 is a popular urban art gallery located on Saint-Laurent founded by the organizers of the MURAL Festival. Open all year long, Station 16 exhibits a combination of local and international artists, connecting them through a common passion for urban art and graffiti.
The gallery has previously featured exhibitions from street artists such as Stikki Peaches, Kashink, and Chris Dyer.
Also located on Saint-Laurent, the Yves Laroche gallery is committed to exposing works of avant-garde artists combining graffiti, tattooing, comics, and pop art. First opened in Old Montreal in 1991, Yves Laroche has established itself as a place to see some of the best contemporary urban art in the area. Some of the artists featured in the gallery include Banksy, Bast, and Roa.
