
The ever-quotable (if not ever-correct) Jerry Saltz has a good saying about buying into art world hype -- I've heard him call it "drinking the Kool-Aid."
Well, when I went to watch five hours of Ryan Trecartin videos at the Power Plant on Saturday -- roughly 7,200 2.5-second scenes, by my estimates -- I was pretty wary about drinking the Kool Aid. I mean Trecartin has received about a bazillion great reviews and awards, which can add up to (a) art world mega success and (b) art world mega suspicion.
In any case, I watched the those five hours of videos and by about a quarter of the way through I myself was a true believer. The Kool-Aid is tasty, and the art is darn good too. I explain a bit of the why in today's NOW:
In his frenetic, absurd videos, Trecartin takes Warhol’s strategies into the Web 3.0 age, using the methods and images of consumer culture to expose same.
Where Warhol used silkscreens and soup cans to prompt a closer look at commercial products (and people as commercial products), Trecartin uses Final Cut Pro and social-media-speak to reveal pressures to package oneself as “sexy” and “successful.”
He also echoes Sherman, using wild makeup, crazy costumes and multiple personas to critique subliminal standards. His CEOs spout nonsensical commercialese (“Go create your own market, you stupid, fucking bitch!”), sport cheap wigs and ride in RVs rather than Town Cars. Comparisons to John Waters, icon of transgressive camp, are also on the money.
Others beg to differ, but I'm staying solid on this one. My only regret is that I had to play the Warhol/Sherman card to make my point. Ah well.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
On Trecartin: Yes, I Drank the Kool-Aid, and Dang, was it Tasty! The Art Was Good Too.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
More Retro Action: Delving into the CanArt Archives

With Stephen Harper proroguing our government to a standstill--over the phone, no less--it's an extra-depressing time to be in the present. Why not leap back to the past? That's something I've enjoyed doing for the past few years when it's come time to dig up some "Retro Reads" for the Canadian Art website's holiday break. I really enjoy looking through old art magazines for interesting photos and time-warp perspectives. This season, I posted three articles from the mid-1980s: an interview with Eric Fischl, a critique of the opening show at the Power Plant, and a museum policy op-ed by a guy who went on to become one of Montreal's (and Canada's) most prominent dealers. Enjoy.
Image of Robert Enright's 1985 interview with Eric Fischl from Canadian Art
Monday, January 4, 2010
Flashback to the Future: First post of 2010
How many people are teary/crabby/unpleasant/disbelieving today because vacation is over? Me too and three. But I must recall that typing is a way of burning off all the ol' nog calories that I've accumulated over the past couple of weeks. To that end, here's a couple of items by me that went up over the break:
Top 10 of 2009 at Sally McKay & Lorna Mills's blog
posted December 26
I'm so glad to be a part of this annual top 10 project. Reading everyone's picks for the year, even if they're just snarky satires, is really great fun, a reminder of all good things seen and missed.
Reviews of Michael Snow and Nothing to Declare at the Power Plant and Hinterlands at Harbourfront Centre
from January 2 National Post
An excerpt: From the return of Tut at the Art Gallery of Ontario to the remount of General Idea at the Art Gallery of York University, there was a lot of retro action in Toronto-area galleries this fall. Unusual among these was the opening of Can-Art icon Michael Snow's solo exhibition at the Power Plant. Focusing solely on works from the past 10 years, Recent Snow seems to suggest that focusing on the present can be an effective means of honoring past achievement -- no tired retreads required. More concretely, the show provides newer art viewers with a taste of why the 81-year-old Snow might be relevant decades after Walking Woman and Wavelength made their debut. There are seven works here to make the case, all involving video, and all showing off Snow's playfully uncompromising sensibility. The best-- SSHTOORRTY, That/Cela/Dat and Piano Sculpture -- show Snow in top form, slicing and dicing plot, language and sound down to their essential elements only to build them back up again. The worst -- Serve, Deserve and The Corner of Braque and Picasso Streets -- seem a bit more like MFA fodder than masterpiece material. Nevertheless, one leaves the show admiring not only Snow's longevity but also his sense of quickness, wonder and vibrancy -- qualities jaded twentysomethings could stand to learn from.
Image of the Ontario Finest Meat 2010 Calendar from oimp.ca
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Out today: Q&A on Universal Code

Though fall tends to be a killer time in the Canadian art world—with the Toronto International Art Fair, several Nuit Blanche-styled festivals and major exhibition openings all lined up in a row—there's still room once in a while for a big, sweaty summer blockbuster.
To that end, for the last few years the Power Plant in Toronto has been lining up some pretty interesting group shows with broad, wide-ranging appeal. Show popularity is further boosted by the fact that admission to the gallery for the last few summers has been free (thank you Jackman Foundation) and that they do fun artist-playlist events on the lakeshore on the weekends.
So last year, curator Helena Reckitt put together the well-received "Not Quite How I Remember It". And this year, gallery director Gregory Burke has taken the reins for "Universal Code," a group show (originally conceived as a biennial) that addresses the mega-mega-mega themes: life, the universe, and everything, um, basically. Like any good blockbuster, it's also got some marquee artists: Gabriel Orozco, Thomas Hirschhorn (with the Dancing Philosophy piece I loved in Madrid), Trevor Paglen, Josiah McElheny and the like.
Last week, I met with Burke to discuss the origins of the show from his perspective. Today the National Post published a condensed version of our exchange with some nice pics to boot. Here's an excerpt, focusing on what could be one of the main problems with Burke's premise:
Q Some might say that we experience life very differently based on our sex, race, culture and class. Can a work of art ever really be universal, and speak the same to everyone across these differences?
A I don't think there's a yes or no answer. Most artists now accept that we come to anything with a set of cultural ideas. Henrik Hakasson's film of monarch butterflies in this show is very mesmerizing and moving, and doesn't seem to have any cultural baggage. But the framework of art is itself a kind of baggage. I think we humans encounter the world through systems, and all those systems are inherited. There's a danger in thinking there could be a system outside of that that is "pure" and somehow universal.
It's a tension in the show that remains unresolved, this showdown between the specific and the universal. But I'd say the show's definitely still worth a look, especially for Tania Mouraud's video installation, Keith Tyson's compelling reformed bronze block and Henrik HÃ¥kasson's film (I heard it had tech problems, but when I saw it it looked fine.)
Images from top - Cerith Wyn Evans's Harmonia Mundi, 2009 (still from a fireworks event at the Power Plant earlier in June); Henrik Hakansson's Monarch - The Eternal, 2008 (film still); Keith Tyson's The Block 2001-2002 First two images courtesy of the Power Plant; last one from othercriteria.com