MAC in talks to bring Leonard Cohen exhibition to international audiences

After a record-breaking run that attracted almost 300,000 visitors, Montreal's Muse d'art contemporain (MAC) is in negotiations to take its Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything exhibition on an international tour.

"The Cohen experience continues," said MAC director and chief curator JohnZeppetelli.

The museumis in regular talks with an institution in Manhattan,as well as others in San Francisco, Copenhagen, Prague and Mexico City.

Zeppetelli saidhosting the exhibition in Manhattan will not only bring it to people who live in New York City, but it would help showcase its value to audiences around the world.

"It'll be incredibly important to show this in New York, which is a huge musical centre, cultural centre [and] Jewish centre, as well," Zeppetelli said.

New York City also played a key part in Cohen's rise asasinger-songwriter in the1960s,when he lived there and befriended prominent members of the city's music scene.

First we take Manhattan

One of the challenges of touring the expansive show, however, is finding institutions that can accommodate it.

"Even big museums couldn't take the totality of the show which here occupies six large rooms," Zeppetelli said.

The exhibition has been extended at the MAC until April 12, with longer opening hours so more Montrealers can see it or see it again one last time.

Former governor generalAdrienneClarkson, a friend of Cohen's since she interviewedhim for CBC in the 1960s, said the fact that she doesn't live near the exhibition is the only thing that stopped her from seeing it regularly.

• Montreal's Leonard Cohen comes home

"If I lived in Montreal, I would be there every day," Clarkson said Friday at a symposium on Cohen.

"I think Leonard thanks you," she toldZeppetelli, who had already poured three years of work into the exhibition when it opened last November.