My end-of-the-month gallery stroll -- out in the Post today -- took me to the Bloor-Lansdowne area, a nabe where a new businesses seem to be changing the streetscape on an increasing basis. Here's an excerpt:
Days of the Eclipse/50 Light Fixtures from Home Depot
Mercer Union, 1286 Bloor St. W.
An eclipse -- at least one of the non-Twilight-series kind--offers a strange state during which light and dark coexist, as well as a sense of suspended time and cosmic awareness. So it makes sense that the works in Days of the Eclipse, Mercer's current group show, riff on these eerie feelings -- albeit with an emphasis more on bleak darkness than awe-filled light. It's a particularly Januaryish show that way, with the promise of beginning weighed down by anxiety and regret (post-holiday credit-card statements, anyone?). Best in show is L.A. artist Marie Jager's Past/Present/Future, a wall piece that overlaps its titular words to form a laser-cut mirror. This artwork reflects the difficulty of teasing apart the three temporal states, and suggests that the place where these difficult time-planets meet is, perhaps, one's own, unremarkable, very human body. Jager's Pollution Paintings are also interesting. Made of diesel oil, they look like exploding planets and seem at first to deliver a simple environmental-anxiety message. But they change when one learns (from the exhibition brochure) that Jager makes her paintings by holding canvases up to an auto's exhaust pipe at the moment of ignition. Overall, the show --complemented in the back gallery by Christian Giroux and Daniel Young's stripped-down film 50 Light Fixtures from Home Depot -- takes a scientific, clinical approach to big problems of the soul. And though that kind of withdrawn weariness suits the season, this exhibit could use a little more feeling to balance its philosophy. To March 6.
Image of Marie Jager's Past Present Future from her website
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Three Reviews in Bloor-Lansdowne
Friday, January 29, 2010
Last Chance: Mark Kasumovic @ TIW
A little show I saw and really enjoyed recently was Mark Kasumovic at Toronto Image Works. The show, which focuses on power-line infrastructure, closes tomorrow, Saturday, January 30. Definitely worth a look. Also, if you have the time while in 80 Spadina, check out Sammy Baloji's installation at the Contact fest's new gallery. Baloji's work (the Toronto debut for this Congolese photographer, I beleive) is up to March 14, but merits repeat visits. (I'll be going back.)
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Back in the USSR Canada-SSR, Don't Know How Lucky You Are: Q&A With Caitlin Jones
Truth out!–-I'm a dual citizen of the US and Canada. When my US passport was still valid, I mostly liked it because it made travelling south of the 49th a little easier. But the lack of health care coverage freaked me out in terms of long-term stays--something that I do hope will change for the good folks of America as its new health-care plan gets implemented.
In any case, like everyone, I'm well aware that the US art scene pretty much eclipses Canada's in every way. Truly, you sometimes just have to admit that quantity can sometimes equal quality--or at least better odds of same.
Nonetheless, it was very interesting to chat a couple of weeks back with Caitlin Jones, who recently returned to Vancouver after a decade in the NYC region, where she worked for the Guggenheim, Rhizome and a variety of other impressive orgs (Believer and PS1, anybody?) Soon after returning, Jones became executive director at Western Front, the venerable artist-run centre, and this became my excuse to, you know, find out why she would abscond from what many culturati think of as mega-hyper-art-land to our supposedly barren frontiers.
Today, Canadian Art published an edited version of our phone chat. Here's an excerpt:
LS: You mentioned that you came back to Vancouver (and BC, and Canada) even before this position was posted. What do you like about being back?
CJ: Well, it’s nice to just be in this city; Vancouver’s a beautiful city to be in. So that’s number one, getting a little more space and breathing fresher air.
In terms of the art world, one of the things I found so frustrating living in New York was that despite the hard work of many, many people working independently, it’s extremely driven and directed by the market. In New York, there’s just no way you can get away from that. It’s a really commercial-gallery-driven culture.
Being back in Canada, and being back in British Columbia—although, sadly with massive funding cuts all this may change very soon or is changing drastically—it’s very nice to be in an environment and brainstorming with people in a way that has nothing to do with salability or market value or anything like that. It feels great—it feels the way it’s supposed to be, really inspiring and open.
So far, that’s biggest change I’ve noticed. Of course, once I get into the nitty-gritty of how arts funding and policy works, my feelings might change. But for the moment it’s a really refreshing change of perspective.
In the interview, we also talk about her views on Internet/art stuffs, which is a specialty of hers. One thing that didn't make it into the edit was that Jones' arrival marks a shift for the Front from a collective-management structure to a more traditional executive-director mode. Also, I had been wondering why a couple of positions became available at the Front this year--though many readers likely already figured this out, former exhibitions director Candice Hopkins got a job offer from the National Gallery in Ottawa and former media director Alissa Firth-Eagland departed for schooling in Europa. So there ya go!
Image of Caitlin Jones from Canadianart.ca
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Too Cool For School: Art & Science Fair Call for Submissions
Got a very interesting call for submissions via Sally McKay today. It's for Too Cool for School: Art and Science Fair which will take place at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto on May 8, 2010. According to McKay,
The Too Cool For School Art & Science Fair is an interdisciplinary project in which people from all walks of life come together in a convergence of art and science.The event is structured just like a school science fair participants will display their projects on rows of tables, and will be on hand to discuss their work with the public. The difference is that this event is as much about art as it is about science. Participants will be selected from an open call for submissionson the basis of originality, depth of inquiry, creative innovation and the element of surprise.
The deadline for submissions is March 26, and all "dreamers and inventors, original thinkers and adventurous tinkerers, mad scientists and misunderstood artists, anyone with an over-active imagination and a love/hate relationship with the so-called "real world"" are welcome to apply. (Some of the "winners" will be asked to develop their project further for a fall 2010 exhibition. Break out the ribbons!) Visit www.artandsciencefair.ca to find out more.
Image from Second Thoughts
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Art Matters: Who Knew?
As you know, reader, I'm mighty out of the loop sometimes. So it was this week when I read about Art Matters, a conference winding up Calgary's venerable High Performance Rodeo festival. The Calgary Herald has a report on the event, which sought to address the use of arts in social change.
But, but, but... that's not all. Not only was it a surprise to hear about the conference; it was a surprise to find out that Art Matters is also part of Governor General Michaëlle Jean's wider project Citizen Voices: Breaking Down Solitudes, which lists "Art Matters" and "Urban Arts" as two of its themes of interest.
As Jean said at the Art Matters conference,
"Art has the power to inspire, to heal, to transform, to rehabilitate, to bear witness and to make us believe there are better days ahead."
Such a different perspective from that of Stephen Harper, who has been quite silent on the arts issue since his much-blogged Beatles performance last year. (Oh, unless chopping funding to small arts mags -- some of those "citizen voices" -- makes a noise. Maybe someone should write a pop song for that?)
Image of Jean from the Calgary Herald
Monday, January 25, 2010
Recommended Read: Chris Nuttall-Smith in the Globe on hunt for a new head of the ROM
Great article in the Globe this weekend on the search for a new head of the Royal Ontario Museum. Written by Chris Nuttall-Smith, who was honoured at the National Magazine Awards last year for his Toronto Life feature about the ROM's problems, most of of the article focuses on ideas of what exhibitions should be, or how they should be designed. But there was some mention of access issues, to wit:
Dr. Colin Saldanha, a ROM trustee, said he doesn't care which field the winning candidate comes from. He wants his board colleagues to “think outside the box,” he said. “Nobody should be excluded. We want to see people presenting a vision, whoever you are. If your vision fits in with the vision of the board's strategic plan, then that's the kind of person that we need to hire.”
Saldanha, who runs a family practice clinic in Mississauga, said that many of the patients he sees – new immigrants who live outside the city core – haven't even heard of the ROM, much less visited it. He wants a new director who will make the museum, which charges $22 for adult admission, more affordable, and will reach out to ethnic and religious groups around the region. His hope: “A redefining of the term and concept of the museum,” he said. “It should be a centre for innovation, information, technology, all combined together within the grasp of the common man, the average Ontarian,” he said.
I do hope Dr. Saldanha finds some friends on the board who share his views.
Image of outgoing ROM head William Thorsell from the Globe and Mail
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Best things seen and unseen today
Here's where I went today: Radiant Dark, Mercer Union, Toronto Free Gallery, Olga Korper, Christopher Cutts, Peak Gallery, Fine and Dandy, Industrees, Jessica Bradley, Show & Tell, MKG127, Xpace, Hunter & Cook, Paul Petro, Heavy Metal, Clint Roenisch, Angell, Pari Nadimi, Open Studio, A Space, Red Head, Red Bull.
Here's where I did not go today (sadly): the big anti-prorogue protest in downtown Toronto.
Nonetheless, here's the best things I saw today:
Pictures from the anti-prorogue protest. Estimated 7,000 turnout in Toronto, thousands more across the country. Frequent updates and more images available at http://noprorogue.ca/ (Particular image above via http://www.twitter.com/helenspitzer)
Jon Sasaki's video of trying to run up an unsupported ladder in front of the "Better Living" building. Entertaining, sad, funny, all of the above. At Jessica Bradley. (Image from canadianart.ca)
Jessica Johnston's Recession Bling, which are copper cent-symbols necklaces created from--you guessed it--melted-down pennies. Sadly, I don't have any photos of these. But Anneke van Bommel's gold versions of disposable-fairground cutlery and Erin McCutcheon's "community vessels" (which require the joining of two pieces to be functional, pictured above) were also great. All at Radiant Dark. (Image from BlogTO)
Lead image of prorogue protest from http://twitter.com/ipauk
