TIFF Art Thoughts up at Posted Toronto

TIFF is very celebrity friendly, but it's also got an art angle in its Future Projections and Wavelengths programs. Today, Posted Toronto (the Hogtown-centric blog of the National Post) published my art recommendations for the fest. An excerpt:

There’s serious, yet seriously enjoyable, works at Future Projections this year — many by Toronto artists. At the top of the heap is Elle Flanders and Tamira Sawatsky’s terrific Road Movie, showing at 51 Woleseley St. Demonstrating that there’s often more than two sides to every story, Road Movie’s layered look at life in Israel and Palestine unfolds across six screens on three wall-like structures. Though some might find the premise heavy-handed — one side of the “walls” features stories from travels with Israelis, the other side tales from journeys with Palestinians — this duo weaves an experience that is elegant and unexpected.

Also strong is Nicholas and Sheila Pye’s show Light as a Feather Stiff as a Board at Birch Libralato (129 Tecumseth St.). The Pyes may have split romantically, but their collaborative art practice continues to chug along here with a characteristically dreamy brew of sensual and painterly psychic dramas. In the central work, The Flower Eaters, one artist eats a rose, while the other plucks petals from their mouth — a mythical, ancient-seeming premise remade Gen Y style.

Finally, veteran filmmaker Peter Lynch’s Buffalo Days gives the ROM’s gloomy Spirit House (100 Queen’s Park) some much-needed, well, spirit, marrying views of Alberta landscapes with an evocative soundtrack of Blackfoot drumming. Also promising: When David Rokeby’s electronic installations work (like his light cube at Telus House) they’re wondrous. When there’s technical glitches, not so much. Fingers crossed for his effort at the Drake Hotel (1150 Queen St. W.).

For more (including James Franco and Mr. Brainwash) read on at Posted Toronto or look in tomorrow's print edition of the Post's Toronto section.

(Installation view of Elle Flanders & Tamira Sawatsky's Road Movie by Tom Blanchard and via the National Post)