
Tomorrow, Toronto city councillors vote on a billboard tax that could raise $11 million for arts and culture in our city. (That's a bolstering of 50%!) But as indicated by the photo above, snapped in my neighbourhood over the weekend, this worthy initiative, which I posted about a couple of weeks ago, is coming under heavy backlash from the signage industry.
This backlash from the signage industry isn't just happening in the streets—it's also happening, as illegalsigns.ca reports, at City Hall, where the billboard industry reportedly submitted false revenue data. Last week, Jonathan Goldsbie at Spacing Wire also suggested that Councillor Karen Stintz had been bending rules to meet with pro-billboard lobbyists.
Fortunately for arts and culture in Toronto, reputable poll results released Friday and posted on Praxis Theatre's blog indicate that Torontonians support the billboard tax by a 5-1 margin. Michael Wheeler at Praxis also notes that a NOW Toronto story on our "sign wars" is on its way to being its most commented story ever--the comments are most certainly worth a read if you want to see how vociferous this debate is becoming in some parts.
Hopefully, when the councillors vote tomorrow, they will note the vast majority of Torontonians do seem to be pro-billboard-tax. If you want to make sure they know your view, please email your councillor now, either through the BeautifulCity.ca site or using this list of contacts.
UPDATE 1 - BeautifulCity.ca has confirmed the vote is happening December 1 at 9:30am. They urge supporters who can to come out to City Hall and/or to an after-event happening at 9pm at 52 McCaul. (Thanks again to Michael Wheeler @ Praxis Theatre who posted this info on their blog.)
UPDATE 2 - As noted by Michael Wheeler in the recent comments, The Guardian has published an unabashed endorsement of the beautifulcity.ca initiative calling it:
"a brilliantly simple, logical idea which, if implemented over here, could surely help plug the growing hole in the arts council coffers." AND The vote has bee rescheduled again. 10am Friday is showtime.
Monday, November 30, 2009
UPDATED TO Sign Industry Strikes Back Against "Billboard Tax for Art" Initiative
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Auction Action - First-Timer Perspectives

So earlier this week I attended the fall Heffel Canadian postwar and contemporary art auction, one of several fall art auctions in Canada. (Sotheby's is coming up next week, and Waddington's had theirs earlier on in the month.)
Now, people come to art in different ways. My path to art and understanding art was as a student, and now as a writer. Other people work in galleries, grow up in artsy families, have enough money to collect, or simply make stuff from a young age.
Given my path to art, this was actually the first "real" (ie. non-fundraiser) auction I had ever gone to.
I have to say that overall the auction experience was instructive, if only to hammer home a lot of angles that you don't get exposed to in art school (sometimes for good reason, sometimes not). I'm talking about stuff like, of course, the market, and the special market conditions that occur around an auction. To be painfully honest, reader, it had never really occurred to me before (despite studying helpful accounts in The $12-million Dollar Stuffed Shark and Seven Days in the Art World) just how much the competitive auction atmosphere can drive up the price of a work. 
In other words, it's an apparently dumb fact that when you have people together in a room who have been primed to want the same object--be it art or antique autos or what have you--their face-to-face competitiveness (if you can nurture it) is bound to drive up the price. But seeing that actually happen in person is a pretty powerful lesson--one that was educational for me, and I'd expect for other people. (Class visit or field trip, anyone?)
Of course, in the days since the Heffel's auctions, there's been a lot of news buzz about their highest-selling work gavelled in the later-evening "fine Canadian art" auction--Lawren Harris's Old Stump, which went for $3.51 million, a million over estimate. (The Globe reported Toronto collector/art advisor Ash Prakash as the bidder, possibly acting on behalf of collector David Thomson.)
Still, on a smaller scale, and firsthand, there were some interesting underreported bidding results in the contemporary section as well--Charles Gagnon's Intersection 1963 was originally estimated at $20,000 to $30,000, and ended up tripling that to $90,000, a new record for Gagnon. Also popular was John Geoffrey Caruthers Little's Une journée d'éte, avenue Coloniale, vers Duluth, Montreal 1978, which was estimated at $15,000 to $20,000 and sold for $47,500, also a new artist record. Finally, Mashel Alexander Teitelbaum (that's AGO head Matthew Teitelbaum's late dad) also had a surprising result, with an untitled canvas from 1955 quadrupling its $5,000 top estimate to a $20,000 sale, also a new record. 
Of course, there's a lot that's depressing that can be taken away from these events—that your art might get more valuable (or be recognized) only after you die; that the Canadian art market still values the Group of Seven in a fetishized, unrelenting manner; that the recession still affecting millions of Canadians appears a moot point to the ultrarich; that the yearly salary of most Canucks (or the annual budget of an artist run centre!) is a but a trifling purchase pittance to our upper echelons. There's also more banal questions--who was trying to unload a ton of Dallaires here, and why? Still, I'm glad I went, and I look forward to learning more about this influential auction facet of the art world in the years to come.
Images from top: Charles Gagnon Intersection 1963, Lawren Harris The Old Stump 1926, John Geoffrey Caruthers Little Une journée d'éte, avenue Coloniale, vers Duluth, Montreal 1978, Mashel Alexander Teitelbaum Untitled 1955 - All from Heffel.com, except the Harris, which is from the CBC
Friday, November 27, 2009
Panel Power Part II: Of/By/For - A Dialogue on Representation

Earlier this week, I posted on an upcoming panel I'm involved with. Here's another—quite different in focus but just as interesting. It's focusing on First Nations representation, as elaborated in this excerpt from the press release:
Of/By/For: A Dialogue on Representation
Tuesday December 1, 6-9:30pm
Ontario College of Art & Design Graduate Gallery, 205 Richmond St W, Toronto
All are welcome to attend and participate in “Of/By/For: A Dialogue on Representation,” a panel discussion on Taras Polataiko’s recent video work, In the Land of the Head Hunters (2008). This work documents a screening Polataiko arranged, in collaboration with the Kwakiutl Band Council in Fort Rupert, of Edward Curtis’ 1914 film In The Land of the Head Hunters.
Polataiko’s video raises a number of ethical and interpretive issues, regarding the sensitivity of First Nations representation, the limits and potential of cross-cultural comparison, and the impact of different cultural and commercial contexts on meaning. How might viewers work through this complexity, so that new and critical discussions can take place? The goal of this forum is to involve critics, scholars, artists and students in an active ‘live’ dialogue.
The panel will include Bonnie Devine, curator, artist and interim director of the Aboriginal Visual Culture program at OCAD, Leah Sandals, independent art writer and editor, and Taras Polataiko. Moderated by Rose Bouthillier.
In the Land of the Head Hunters is part of Taras Polataiko’s forthcoming exhibition at Barbara Edwards Contemporary in Toronto, from November 27, 2009 to January 9, 2010.
I'm really looking forward to this event.
Still from Taras Polataiko's In the Land of the Head Hunters 2008 from Barbara Edwards Contemporary
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Arthur Renwick talks First Nations Faces in National Post

A couple of years ago, when I was introduced to the work of artist Arthur Renwick, it was in a small excerpt from one of his photo series that was hung alongside a large exhibition of Emily Carr's work at the Art Gallery of Ontario. In those photographs, Renwick was documenting First Nations churches in British Columbia--an interesting accompaniment to Carr, whose painting Indian Church is well known.
Recently, Renwick opened a show of rather different-looking photographs at Leo Kamen Gallery in Toronto. For it, he asked First Nations artists and curators to stare down the camera, and, in a way, all the imagery it has generated of native people. (The show on now is the newest iteration of a similar 2006 series.) Today, my Q&A with Renwick appeared in the National Post along with a range of his pictures. Here's an excerpt:
Q You asked your subjects to think about times when their native identity posed a problem. What experiences have you had with that?
A There's been many, especially with my brother. My father is white, and I have a pale complexion. He has a native father, so he looks really Indian. We're only a year apart, and hung out all the time growing up. But I'd be allowed places he wasn't. He'd call one of our friends, and the friend's mother would say "He's out right now." Then I'd call five minutes later and it'd be, "Hold on a second, I'll get him." It was obvious racism right from the get go.
I'm kind of an invisible minority. When people find out I'm native, their attitudes do change. And I've definitely heard a lot of remarks. One stands out: A guy I used to work with was a bit of a bigot. Finally, I got fed up and told him I was First Nations. He looked at me with shock and blurted, "Well, that explains everything!" Ha! It was quite funny. I laugh about it now, but then, I realized there was no way we could communicate.
Speaking of communication gaps, one thing that can't come across in the paper is the size of these portraits -- the faces are blown up to 30 inches by 30 inches. Worth seeing in person before the images head to the Richmond Art Gallery as part of the "cultural olympiad" stuff.
Image of Renwick's Rebecca 1 2009 from Leo Kamen Gallery
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Chris Millar's Got a Brand New Bag Sculpture

Got a last minute opening announcement here for a work that looks promising—Chris Millar, he of the overflowing comic-influenced canvases, is presenting his first "real sculpture" starting tomorrow at Trépanier Baer in Calgary.
Of course, the paintings that Millar is known for are pretty sculptural already, with little tentacles reaching off the edges of most of his stretcher bars. But as the invite notes, artist Ron Moppett encouraged Millar to go further, to “...make those extraordinary sculpted footnotes that hang off the edges of your paintings into singular wall-mounted sculptures...”
The result of this--well, we're unsure of yet whether it's well-heeded--advice is titled Bejeweled Double Festooned Plus Skull for Girls. The invite also says the work will travel across the country, though it'll be on view in Calgary till December 14. Yeehaw! I look forward to reading the reviews on this one.
Image of Chris Millar's Bejeweled Double Festooned Plus Skull for Girls from the Trépanier Baer invite
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Panel Power: Toronto Alliance of Art Critics says BRING IT
This post is just a friendly plug for a panel I'm involved with next week: "Toronto Alliance of Art Critics says BRING IT" aka "MAKE FACE MOFOS!"
The panel is the brainchild of talented and social art gal Nadja Sayej—yes, she of snap-and-snark-filled Artstars* hosting fame. It also features esteemed colleagues Murray Whyte, David Balzer, Rosemary Heather, Charlene Lau and Otino Corsano. My understanding is that we'll each very very briefly say something prepared, then open to a long Q&A. The event is co-organized by Xenia Benivolski of White House fame. Here's the key details:
Toronto Alliance of Art Critics says BRING IT aka "MAKE FACE MOFOS!"
Wednesday, December 2 @ 8pm (doors 7:30ish?)
Double Double Land - 209 Augusta
PWYC, suggested donation $5
Enticements: There will be confrontation! Someone will win a free art review! "Refreshments" will be available!
Oh, and in case you're wondering what the Toronto Alliance of Art Critics is, it would seem to be very much a work in progress. I'm in it for the fun and fellowship, like an atheistic and gender-neutral Catholic Women's League. My take is it is very open to expansion and invention. (I've longed for such a thing, though the closest I could find was the UNESCO (?) sponsored International Association of Art Critics.)
Bring it on!
Image of actors in overlooked art-critical treasure trove Bring It On! from the LA Times' Culture Monster
Monday, November 23, 2009
Excited About: Guerilla Girls at Galerie de l'UQAM

This morning on ye olde CBC radio, I got to hear a sports pundit make an annoyingly false statement -- namely that sexism simply doesn't exist for the "young folks". In his mind, sure, his generation (I'm guessing middle aged) was capable of being sexist, but certainly not those post-racial, post-difference, Obama-votin' youngsters!
What-ever.
Anyway, though dude was discussing soccer, not sculpture, I gotta just yet again restate the obvious: sexism (and other kinds of discrimination based on outward identity) most certainly do exist across all generations. Though things have gotten a lot better in recent years for the ladies (a fact for which I ironically thank Goddess) I hope my sports-loving colleague simply somehow failed to read the fairly recent news of profoundly ingrained sex harrassment in Ontario high schools? Or missed the release of the WHO report that shows women of all ages around the world continue to die because of ongoing sexism?
In any case, I'm very happy the Guerilla Girls are still working hard to put the lie to the idea that sexism is all over and done with. Next week, the GGs are releasing a new poster commissioned by the Galerie de l'UQAM. The commission, and a related exhibition, are timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Ecole Polytechnique shootings, which, as most of us know, specifically targeted women.
The show is only slated to be up for a short time (December 4 to 19) but hopefully the related poster--as with so many GG gems--will live on in wide distribution.
Image of the Guerilla Girls' UQAM poster from their website