Art schools - Panacea or problem?

While I love art as much as the next BFA holder, I also have a problem when there's a lack of consistency in the way art is taught in public schools. That's the topic I tried to address in an op-ed piece for NOW this week. Let me know what you think....

How to buy art

Art buying can be a bit of a tough call whether it's for oneself or for others. In a piece for this week's NOW, I poll top TO gallerists for their advice during the holiday season.

Bike art - ride it before it's too cold!

Tomorrow is the final day for Sound Cycles at Interaccess Gallery , which I wrote about for the National Post last week. Ride the art while you still can!

Knitting factory @ Illingworth Kerr

Yesterday the National Post ran my interview with Lee Plested, curator of a new knitting-oriented exhibition at the Illingworth Kerr Gallery in Calgary. Extra cozy and extra utopian.

Cowboys and Indians... but not how you think

I'm posting this late, but last week NOW ran my review of Kent Monkman at the Museusum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto. Cowboys and Indians, but not how you think . Do go and check it out!

Sorry, Out of Gas

Though I'm too young to remember it, I'm very impressed with the Centre for Canadian Architecture's current exhibition on the 1973 oil crisis. I did an interview with centre director Mirko Zardini on the topic for the National Post last week, and appreciate the chance to look at a time when the future, as it sometimes looks today, looked not so bright.

Unusual Toronto War Memorials - Globe Toronto

The weekend of November 11 is an ideal time to reflect on the ways that the built environment, particularly monuments and memorials, manifest war stories in 3-D. This weekend the Globe Toronto section published my mini-survey of unusual war memorials in Toronto, from ones you are encouraged to climb (U of T Soldier's Tower) to ones that live in department stores.

Welcoming Snap Judgments

Usually I try to avoid making snap judgments, but I'm darn excited about the photography show of the same name currently on at the National Gallery in Ottawa. Today the Post ran a nice selection of images from the exhibition with my interview with curator Okwui Enwezor. FYI the book for the show also won a major award, in case you can't get to the capital to see the show itself.

BGL's hits and misses

In this week's NOW Magazine, I look at two shows concurrently running in Toronto from Quebec trio BGL. I love their work overall, but was disappointed in their Koffler Centre show. They have been on quite a festival and exhibition tear lately, and I wondered if that might have had an impact. In any case, I'm always interested in seeing what they do next.

Roy Arden Interview

Some overdue posting going on here... on Monday the Post ran my interview with Roy Arden in relation to his mid-career retrospective currently on at the Vancouver Art Gallery. I really enjoyed Arden's sense of social mission, a sometimes rare angle in contemporary art nowadays, and as usual am sad we couldn't publish more of the interview. I look forward to posting more extensive versions of these exchanges soon.