Something troubling has come up for me in the last couple of weeks when visiting galleries.
It's when venues let the exhibition get in the way of the show—or rather, don't make the accoutrements of the exhibition subtle or invisible enough for the work itself to shine through. Basically, I'm talking bad framing, smudged walls, skewed labels and the like—there seems to be more of it now than I previously recall, and it's not a good thing for the Toronto art scene.
Now, I'm admitting to this irritation with no small degree of dread. To complain about things like the use of cut-up Avery labels instead of numbered stickpins, or about the choice to use glass frames rather than mount to Plexi—well, these are the types of niggling complaints that give many critics a (deserved) lily-livered reputation in the popular milieu. It all seems very Princess and the Pea, no? (It's a far cry from learning to ignore barrelling logging trucks on a cycle-camping trip down the Pacific Coast Highway, I can tell you that!)
Nevertheless, I must note two exhibitions I've seen that disappointed due to the small details of installation and presentation not being considered and attended to.
The first instance of this is Katsuhiko Mizuno's "Four Seasons in the Garden of Kyoto" at the Japan Foundation. When I saw related images in the brochure and on the web, I was quite looking forward to seeing this exhibition. As I've noted here previously, there's a city worker's strike in Toronto right now, with a few weeks of garbage piling up in public parks and private backyards. The result is a stinky urban soupcon that makes the prospect of escape into placid images of Zen gardens all the more appealing.
Unfortunately, all the prints in this show are relatively small (around 11" by 17") and mounted behind glass in such a way that one's reflection is continually at odds with visually entering the picture. I get that of course these kinds of reflections are what some works of art are actually about. But in this case, they're not appropriate. This show would have worked much better if: (a) the images were mounted on Plexi and/or lit correctly to avoid intrusive reflections; (b) the images were printed much larger; (c) audio from two related documentary films wasn't blasting through the space—headphones please!
The second instance of this phenomenon I encountered at Miriam Shiell Fine Art and her show "Wood and Ash." Now don't get me wrong, there is some quite nice (and big-name) work in this tree-themed show—the Lee Friedlander prints are really great, the David Nash sculpture is interesting, and, strangely, it's nice to see Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller's work House Burning in a commercial group show context. Zang Huan and Angel Marcos's images are also intriguing. It's just that, for one, the space is very awkwardly arranged, with a bench right by the Nash sculpture that I'd say steals its fire somewhat and further cramps an already cramped space. Also, this is where the label issue irritated me the most, with large paper-sticker numbers that seemed strangely obtrusive. How hard is it to order some stickpins?
A third instance of this I already described a bit in relation to the George Ohr show at the Gardiner Museum. While that exhibit is laid out fine, the contemporary collections area is looking a little shabby—video booth dark and dysfunctional, walls smudged and even written on.
Do you think exhibition standards are dropping? Is it the recession? Depression? Someone please tell me.
Middle image from Japan Foundation Toronto; last image from Miriam Shiell Fine Art; Neither of these, unfortunately, look as good in person
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
When the Exhibition Gets in the Way of the Show
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
A few Nice Painting Shows on Queen West

Recently, when I was out gallery-hopping, a friend told me "You know what? I don't really go to Queen West anymore."
And in a lot of ways I can't blame people who think this way.
With the combination of rising rents and the recession, many contemporary galleries have fled the area to less costly nooks on Tecumseth, Ossington, and Bloor West.
Still, I'd have to say the trip to Queen West is still worth a visit, particularly this week, with a number of remarkably nice little painting shows. Here's the rundown:
Kris Knight @ Katharine Mulherin. To July 18.
For many years Kris Knight has made a practice of painting beautiful young androgynous things against vaguely Canuck-kitsch backdrops. In his lastest, very seductive paintings, the subjects are more beautiful and the settings more hoser-chic than ever. As David Balzer pointed out recently, Knight's painting skills still need work. The style can feel a bit too tight at times, a bit too self-limiting. But it's still well worth seeing for the fashion-spread beauty of these Hudson's Bay babes, and their log-cabin noir environs. The northern lights have never looked so hip.
Sadko Hadzihasanovic & Melanie Rocan @ Paul Petro. To August 1.
Dealer Paul Petro tries to frame these two separate shows as different looks at gender in painting. I don't really buy that schtick. But the shows themselves are worth looking at. Upstairs, in "50 paintings for my 50th birthday", Sadko Hadzihasanovic continues to show his facility with drawing and painting in an assortment of small works on panel. All seem quickly done yet deeply felt, a nice combination. Some, like the lead image on this post, are portraits humorous, mythical characters. Others are simply streetscapes of a tropical locale. Others are more realist-styled drawings from photographs. Together, they are a really nice summer show. Melanie Rocan, a younger painter than Hadzihansanovic, still seems to be working things out. Not all her compositions hang together effectively, but a few are perfectly ragged, situating themselves between reality and abstraction, between space and flatness. Her work is getting better.sm.jpg)
Wren Jackson @ Paul Petro Special Projects. To July 15.
Former gallerist Jackson here provides another kind of perfect little summer show--quite small, almost postcard-sized, paintings of landscapes and what looks like lakeside docks. Though the statement for the show is somewhat sinister, these feel sunny, made in a spirit of enjoyment and cherished placeness. If an exhibition can be wonderfully modest, this is it.
And just a little further down the road... Lorenzo Pepito @ 2of2Gallery. To July 11.
Youngish Vancouver artist Pepito explores widespread (including, presumably, his own) sneaker obsessions in a series of smallish photorealist paintings depicting Nike sneaker boxes. As with Knight, the style sometimes feels too tight, but it is delightful the way Pepito lovingly reproduces each sticker or scrape on these boxes. These boxes themselves are kinds of fetish objects, not a one a like, each a product of thousands to millions of dollars of design. What drives this newfangled, way-cool version of old-man concerns like philatelyand numismatics? Pepito seems to seek to understand pop culture, and himself, through this painting project.
Images from top: Sadko Hadzihasanovic, untitled, 2009; Kris Knight, Wedding Blanket, 2009; Melanie Rocan, The Painting Side Show, 2009; Wren Jackson, untitled, 2009; Lorenzo Pepito, Free:Loom, 2008. Knight image from Katharine Mulherin; Hadzihasanovic, Rocan and Jackson from Paul Petro; Pepito from 2of2Gallery
Monday, July 6, 2009
Museum-Head Misanthropy in Montreal

As I indicated on Twitter over the weekend, there has been a spate of museum-head misanthropy in Montreal of late.
On Friday, July 3, I received a copy of a protest email signed by 80+ Quebec artists, curators and academics expressing shock and indignation over recent events at the Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal, one of Canada's most prominent contemporary art museums.
The letter was addressed to musee board head Omer Marc DeSerres, and was signed by a variety of well known (and often award winning) Quebec artists, including David Altmejd, Francoise Sullivan, BGL, Raphaelle de Groot, Massimo Guerrera, Jocelyne Alloucherie and Isabelle Hayeur. Gallerist Simon Blais, art historian/curator Martha Langford, and former Musee National des Beaux Arts de Quebec curator Anne-Marie Ninacs also signed the petition.
On Saturday, Montreal newspaper Le Devoir ran the letter text in its Ideas section, and ran a related article on the debacle. In the article, reporter Stephane Baillargeon noted several curious things about the letter:
1) Though it complained mightily about the director-choosing process at the musem, the letter didn't name new director Paulette Gagnon even once. (On June 16, Gagnon was named successor to Marc Mayer, who ran the gallery for four years and is now head of the National Gallery of Canada.) Ninacs is quoted as saying that the protest really is about the selection process, and not about Gagnon per se.
2) The letter in general accuses the museum of not functioning to its potential and being almost invisible on the international scene. It also accuses the board of not seeking out qualified international applicants for the directorship.
3) According to previous Le Devoir research, the community favourite for the director's position was Louise Déry, curator of the college-based galerie de l'UQAM and commissioner of the much-noted 2007 Canada Pavilion in Venice featuring--guess who?--David Altmejd. So it's possible that the letter was sparked over Déry not getting the director job.
4) Board head Omer Marc DeSerres has written a letter back refuting the claims made in the protest missive.
5) Also noted by Le Devoir is the fact that many of the criticisms of the museum in general could be veiled attacks on Marc Mayer, the previous director who just left in January.
6) Despite the large number of recognizable names signing the letter, there are still many curators, critics, dealers and artists who did not sign.
In any case, it's interesting to see such open outcry in Montreal over this issue. For one thing, Montreal is regarded as potentially the best art spot in Canada right now--both for making and for viewing. For another thing, the MACM is regarded in English Canada as a rather forward-thinking institution, what with the love-in over last summer's Quebec Triennial and all. Perhaps on the flipside this is an instance of the community demanding better performance?
I also wonder, would this type of letter ever come out in Toronto? Or Vancouver? Could just be my short history on the scene, but it's hard for me to imagine this type of thing happening here. Thoughts?
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Back to School for TO's Best Shows

With convocations having wrapped across the country recently, the last place anybody wants to go this weekend is back to school. Alas, that's where some of T.O.'s strongest shows are right now—in university and college galleries. My condensed review on three of these exhibitions—"The Path of Most Resistance" at OCAD, "Noise Ghost" at the Barnicke and "A Sense of Place" at UTAC—appears in today's National Post. Here's an excerpt from the extended review:
Just opened last week, “The Path of Most Resistance” is a fun group show dealing with a typically dead-dry issue: art materials and techniques. The inventive, diverse approaches of four artists are what make it work. Vancouver’s Elizabeth McIntosh, best known for colourful, abstract, triangle-based paintings, shows two large canvases. One is done in her signature style, while another, much newer, shows experimentation with darker colours and diagonal lines, as well as pinning paper to the wall behind. (This is much more successful than McIntosh’s recent, disappointing show at Goodwater on Queen, which experimented only with pinned paper.) Less well known but just as strong are the paintings of Brit Alexis Harding. In these, shiny pigment puckers and wrinkles across taut canvases like a magical second skin. (Harding’s got a painting in progress in the gallery too, if you want to see just how he achieves this unusual effect.) Play with glossy colour also dominates the blobby sculptures of American Daniel Raedeke; a mesmerizing video animation of these is both silly and sophisticated. Finally, Toronto’s own Nestor Kruger uses the materials of the gallery itself—white walls and columns—to provide some witty (and unlabelled) architectural double-takes. To September 13.
I feel a bit oddmanoutish, as Gary Dault seemed to love McIntosh's show at Goodwater, as did Andrea Carson. But the pinned paper really fell flat for me on its own there. At OCAD, where it forms a backdrop/additional element to her amazing painting, I liked it a lot better.
Image of Alexis Harding's Depthplunge 2007 from Mummery + Schnelle
Friday, July 3, 2009
Recommended: Douglas Coupland @ Clark & Faria

As soon as I saw his Warhol-riffing "Marilyn" prints done up with old beer labels, fruit stickers and skater decals, I was pretty sure I would like Douglas Coupland's latest Toronto show at Clark & Faria. And I was right.
In this outing, Coupland goes a little riotous--to strong effect--on the colour and materials end. In addition to the Marilyn redos, there are vertical sculptures made out of building blocks, wall pieces made out of pencil crayons, and paint-altered yearbook pics. All of these evoke a certain mix of public-school innocence and art-school cynicism that really seems to function well.
The objects Coupland chooses to work with--like the beer labels and skater stickers--also evoke a certain nostalgia for past eras, even for those of us who never got to drink a Molson Canadian with a 70s pop-art label, or whose most established link to skateboarding is inheriting a 1980s Westbeach tee. These choices most certainly connect to Coupland's strangely refined taste in Canuck design kitsch, which has been previously compiled in his "Souvenir of Canada" books.
Overall, these objects make for a more successful show, I think, than Coupland's previous exhibition at the gallery, which was pretty much a mashup of Penguin book covers and text pulled from pop-punk. That mix of the nostalgic design object and melancholy text is repeated here, especially with the block sculptures, which spell out things like "Hot Shit" and "Monsters Exist". But there's more aesthetic diversity here, more permutations of the experiment, which make it overall more appealing.
Also refreshing in comparison to the previous exhibition is Coupland's willingness to plumb and more explicitly integrate his personal history. A few collages integrate letters from his literary agents and publishers, and while the text is obscured there is something semi-self-revelatory or risky in it. Also upfront is Coupland's attempt to explore his pop-cult forbears--the Marilyn prints are titled "Matricide", and a series of framed Warhol wigs is titled "Patricide", while silkscreens of a young Bill Gates sing the idea of the geeky creative pop genius in a different key.
Granted, as with any exhibition, one wonders how much editing the gallery itself did on Coupland's studio practice. A darker set of porn-playing-card collages are located downstairs, a XXX contrast to the genteeler paperback covers of his previous body of work. Much less pop-arty, wallet-opening persuasion here.
Overall--though it's always dangerous to try and straight-read the work of an artist who is so adept at irony and self-reflexivity--I'd say I'm pleased to see Coupland more explicitly using art as a means to explore those always-big questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? What am I, my thoughts and creations, made up of? What about all that shit that happened in the past? Am I over it? Will I ever be? What about sex, love and related emotional mazes?
Art doesn't always have to be a kind of shell game, after all. No matter what big papa Warhol is famed for.
All images--Douglas Coupland's "Matricide with Beer Stickers"; "Fuck Off"; and "Matricide with Fruit Stickers" from Clark & Faria
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Also out today: Q&A with Chris Millar in National Post

I have never had a fondness for LSD or Norwegian Death Metal. So why is it that I like Chris Millar's overstuffed psychedelic paintings so much? I think it's (a) the mania (b) the cartoonish quality (c) the wacky stories Millar makes up to go along with each one. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
But if you need to find reasons to like (or just understand) the Calgary/Chicago-based painter's, you might be interested in the Q&A I did with him that's out in today's National Post. Here's an excerpt:
Q The stories you try to tell through painting are usually pretty crazy. Why?
A I guess what a lot of my paintings are about is creating characters and looking at what circumstances arise from their ideas --and usually, those are bad ideas. For example, in 2006, I did a painting called Sandwich Maker. It was about snack researchers travelling back in time to try and learn more about the invention of the sandwich, which is kind of ridiculous.
One of my goals is to create something fun and funny. As an artist, you spend most of your time trying to come up with really great ideas, so I think it's a release sometimes to come up with some pretty horrible ideas and get characters to act them out. Maybe it's a comment about being an artist and the pressure to be brilliant all the time. I'm much more fascinated by people's lack of brilliance than the opposite.
Millar's new paintings are slightly based on a bootleg of Simon and Garfunkel as done by aliens and a heavy-metal pal. Also available is a collectible record and book related to the project. Most certainly worth a look if you're in Cowtown for sure. He's showing at Trepanier Baer to August 1. Also perhaps of interest: Calgary critic Nancy Tousley's take on Millar.
Top image: Chris Millar, Bestowing the Mating Yelps, 2008. Bottom image: Chris Millar, Simon & Farfenougan & Hunter, 2009 (Record on turntable). Both courtesy of the artist and Trépanier Baer Gallery.
Out today: Review of George Ohr @ the Gardiner Museum

One show Toronto's Gardiner Museum has been promoting like crazy this summer is a touring exhibition on turn-of-the-century Mississippi ceramicist George Ohr.
Problem: While the advertising is blockbuster, the size of the show is most certainly not. It's about 30 objects or so, and located for the most part in the museum's "Focus Gallery" -- a quite small grouping of vitrines in the middle of a historical ceramics floor.
As I indicated in a review out today in NOW, I mostly enjoyed the show.
But I have a few issues with pumping up a small show to superstar status like this. At first I was uncertain about this assertion, but after digging up Roberta Smith's 1989 NYT review of an Ohr show, I felt more certain. In her review, Smith states, "The exhibition of 91 examples of Ohr's work that has just opened at the American Craft Museum could be larger and more complete." [bold mine]. If 91 works aren't enough, 30 sure ain't.
My feeling is that when a museum puts a lot of promotional hoo-ha into an exhibition, prompting someone to pay $12 to see it, the person paying that money is inevitably going to feel shortchanged if said exhibition can fit into one small room. And they'll ultimately feel worse about the museum no matter how interesting or historically important that little show is.
Granted, there is a lot of other great stuff to see at the Gardiner besides this show. But even though I'm generally a fan, I must note the walls in the contemporary collections area were a bit marked up and graffiti'd, the video booth darkened and turned off, and the presentation on the shabby side on my latest visit.
It's an unseemly time to get down on the Gardiner, with it being its 25th anniversary and all. And you don't need to be a genius to know them getting rid of their free Fridays--as well as many reciprocal admission agreements with other museums--that the institution is needing more financial support right now than press critique.
But I say it because I'm concerned -- what can the Gardiner to do to get honest with its patrons and back on track? It remains to be seen.