
On a recent trip to Montreal, I really enjoyed a couple of things, artwise: 1) the Jenny Holzer show at the DHC (which is amazing as per her oeuvre, and also really interesting in terms of viewing a shift from her general statements on the vagaries human nature to a focus on a very particular instance of same--declassified, censored documents related to the Gulf War) and 2) David K. Ross' exhibition at the MACM, which provided an excellent museum-geek moment.
What Ross does in the latter exhibition, "Attaché," is introduce viewers to a little known phenomenon: that since the 1960s, public art galleries in Canada have colour-coded their shipping crates, such that the CCA's crates are painted cobalt blue, the MACM's crates (pre-1989) were rose pink, the MBAM's crates are painted yellow-orange, the National Gallery's crates are painted red, and so on. Ross (who's taken pictures of art-storage facilities in the past) explores this phenomenon in his show by providing large-scale photographic blowups of small sections of these crates. (Each print is sized to just fit the crate it depicts.) Ross also provides my favourite work in the show, a video where you watch MACM technicians and installation workers use drywalling techniques to seal off 8 of these colour-coded crates into their own hidden compartment within the museum. (I think the video is projected onto said compartment.)
In the text for the show, Ross and the curator reach towards the idea that this colour-coding system evolved around the same time as colour field painting--an interpretation that's actually not so interesting to me, personally. But I really enjoyed learning about this behind-the-scenes colour-coding system, as well as considering the museum-as-crate: a thing that both protects a work and seals it off from the world.
Ross' show wraps up September 6--worth a look if you can make it. (Also FYI Holzer's show continues at the DHC to November 14.)
Image of David K. Ross' video projection 396 x 534 x 762 from his website
Monday, August 30, 2010
Enjoyed: David K. Ross' Art for Museum Nerds @ the MACM
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Reviews: Morley Shayuk, Gilbert Garcin, Winnie Truong, My Geographical Screwups

A few weeks ago, I heard from Paul Petro that his Special Projects Space at 962 Queen Street West was closing because the landlord had sold the building. As Petro pointed out in an email release, the space has been home to notable independent art endeavours since 1996:
1996-98 "In/Attendant" (Shannon Cochrane, Myfanwy Ashmore, Keith Manship)
1998-2005 "Zsa Zsa Gallery" (Andrew Harwood)
2005-2007 "Paul Petro Multiples + Small Works"
2007-2010 "Paul Petro Special Projects Space"
In today's National Post, I review the final show of the PPSPS--Morley Shayuk--except, of course, like a total ass, I got the address wrong, listing the address of Petro's main space (which is definitely remaining open!) instead. I regret the error, and will send a correction notice in. I'm very sorry about that. Anyway, here's my review:
Morley Shayuk at Paul Petro Special Projects Space982 962 Queen St. W. To Aug. 31.
William Blake sought "the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower," but Morley Shayuk has been looking for transcendence at the mall and Tim Hortons. Scarborough Town Centre and the Dufferin Mall are just a couple of places where Shayuk videotaped design elements -- think food court porticos and fake-rock wall treatments -- that reminded him of the spirituality-symbolizing shapes and colours often used in 20th-century abstract art. The resulting short film isn't as good as its premise, but it's luckily just one part of this show. The exhibition's true highlight (and tone-setter) is a massive, rectangular beige-stucco monolith that dominates the small gallery space. Etched with more of those (once high-minded) abstract shapes, this monolith would be at home next to a Boston Cream or Brancusi's Kiss. It's both grand and silly, sincere and sarcastic--impressively so. A small abstract painting with a similarly neutral palette completes the show. Together, these works reminded me of the power of context -- that what's penetrating in one time and space can be pedestrian in another. This is a common contemporary-art theme, but it's freshened by Shayuk's quirks, like his crush on Group of Seven misfit Lionel Lemoine Fitzgerald. Overall, a good closing exhibition for 982 962 Queen West, which has been home to left-field art shows since 1996.
The article also reviews a few other Queen West shows (Gilbert Garcin at Stephen Bulger, Winnie Truong at Katharine Mulherin) too, both worth seeing in my view.
Still from Morley Shayuk's video from Shayuk's blog
Q&A: Paul Bernhardt Teaches me About the Touchdown Jesus, and Other Things

One thing I really enjoy about getting to do regular artist interviews for the National Post is I learn about things both great and small that I never knew before. Paul Bernhardt, for instance, taught me about the "Touchdown Jesus" while we were discussing his paintings, which are closing at Harcourt House and the Alberta Biennial in Edmonton this weekend. More artistically speaking, I was surprised to learn most of the work on view was actually based on in-situ sketches. Here's an excerpt from our chat, published yesterday in the National Post:
Q You sketched some of your new paintings in Alberta oil fields. Have you shifted from painting with raw oil to looking more at oil's origins?
A At first, having just moved to Alberta, I was kind of interested in the oil industry. For instance, jack pumps -- those pumps that look like dippy-bird toys -- are fascinating to me. They're essentially robots. Not only do they pump autonomously, but they stop by themselves, too. They have a quota for the year, and the minute that amount is out, a pump freezes until the following year. So I spent a couple of days sketching those near Lloydminster.
But those aren't the only kinds of sites I'm interested in. There's also things in my paintings like satellite dishes and power stations and airports--places that are more part of our everyday experience. So a bunch of things coalesce in the sites I choose. There's usually some kind of mechanical structure I find visually intriguing, but also something that speaks about the way we live right now, when using machines is such a large part of our lives.
Q Usually artists set up easels in front of beautiful scenery. Do you really sketch for hours in these grimier places, or do you just take quick photos for future reference?
A I sketch onsite; I seldom take photos. I just set up a little camping chair and bring water and a sketchbook. So these paintings are all based on places that I'm able to visit and experience. I may spend three or four hours in the city somewhere, or two days elsewhere. Other aspects of that experience can also end up in the painting, like the conversations I had with the guy who managed the site in Lloydminster, or songs that were in my head.
Read on here for the Touchdown Jesus connection--kinda has to do with Bernhardt's interest in machine-like figures, I think, or machines as figures.
Image of Bernhardt's Knockdown 2008 from the Alberta Biennial
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Worth a Look & Closing this Weekend

A couple of shows I'd recommend dropping by before they close this weekend:
Kunstkammer/Wunderkammer at Interaccess has already had some good reviews from David Balzer and RM Vaughan, but I'll put my two cents in as well and say that there are a couple of standout works that make this worth a drop-by. The first is Philippe Blanchard's Cave Rave, which projects that common Apple-computer "starburst" screensaver onto a painted scene of celebrating cavemen. The genius of this piece was that at first I didn't recognize the screensaver, and saw it anew as a kind of mystic, dancing flame. (Having seen Blanchard's other works recently at Angell Gallery and 47, I'd say he's one to watch.) Jo SiMalaya Alcampo's installation Singing Plants Reconstruct Memory is also neat. In it, houseplants niftily become a kind of technological interface or touchscreen--touch a leaf, and sound is projected into the space; same with a particular plant and video. Also cool, if not actually in the gallery: Torontron, a vintage 1982 arcade game cabinet that has been "retrofitted to play six indie video games by local developers." You can find it at the bottom of the Interaccess stairwell.
The Storyteller at the AGO. I didn't sit through all the videos in this show that's loosely structured around narrative strategies, but I'm very glad I saw Montrealer Emanuel Licha's War Tourist in the Suburbs of Paris and Michael Rakowitz's Return. Both address complex political issues and armed conflict in ways that bring you closer to the people who are going through same. Really remarkable personal tales that help us see wider phenomena more keenly. I had actually hoped to mention this show when I reviewed Drama & Desire, because it's my understanding that many of the paintings in Drama & Desire had also originally hoped to use storytelling (often more mythic than particular, granted) to point to (or take a stance on) key political issues of the day. Anyway, those two works are highly recommended—I can't believe no Canadian museum (or even mid-scale "contemporary art centre") has offered Licha a solo show yet given the incredible reach and ambition of his War Tourist series. But that's what his online CV still indicates.
Still of Philippe Blanchard's Cave Rave from 47
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Cottage Culture and Queer Culture: Larry Glawson Q&A out in today's Post

A few weeks ago, the prop 8 ruling in California got both sides of the gay marriage debate ready for more courtroom theatrics down the road. While I'm very happy that gay marriage and gay rights are gaining ground in California (and hopefully elsewhere!) I also found it interesting around that time to talk on the phone with Larry Glawson, a Winnipeg artist who takes a more personal approach to queer culture and politics.
For the past 30 years, Glawson has focused on taking pictures of friends and family, which includes his partner, Doug Melnyk. While he has done some queer-focused projects, in particular the Anonymous Gay and Lesbian Portrait Project, his work tends to revolve a lot around photography and the everyday.
Currently, Gallery One One One in Winnipeg has an unusual retrospective up of Glawson's work; it focuses exclusively on Glawson's portraits of Melnyk through the years, several of which have never been exhibited before. My related Q&A with him is out in today's National Post. An excerpt:
Q: This exhibit features photos that you’ve taken of your partner, Doug, over 30 years. What was it like for you two to see this exhibition develop?
A: It was an interesting process. The curator, J.J. Kegan McFadden, came up with the idea. He knew about a 1993 exhibition in Winnipeg that showed portraits Walter Gramatte did of his wife over a similar time period. So he proposed doing a retrospective of my work that way. Getting to work with someone on a retrospective was a positive thing for me, and the idea of using Doug as the spine of the show was also interesting. He basically has been there since the beginning and has been involved with every body of work I’ve produced. For Doug, I think it was both flattering and daunting to have to see 30 years of photos of himself all in one space. I was a bit nervous about it, too.
...
Q: Some people think of your work as being about gay culture. But looking at this show, it also seems a lot about cottage culture! Why are so many of these photos from the cottage?
A: I guess that speaks to the larger position of my work as being about the personal and about my everyday world. I didn’t go out to seek subject matter; my subject matter was what was around me. The cottage in these photographs is Doug’s family’s cottage, and my introduction to cottage life came through them.
Also, I do think the cottage, for me, was an exotic location; it wasn’t part of my family growing up. I was fascinated with the way people behave at the cottage; there’s this strange kind of leisure and work combination in the way that people are often in bathing suits and sitting around but always doing maintenance and building at the same time. And of course there’s partying, too! Throughout, a large part of my overall interest is in what things end up being when they are turned into a photograph, no matter what they are.
I urge everyone to take a look at the online version of the exhibition at http://umanitoba.ca/schools/art/galleryoneoneone/glawson03.html. There's some really nice pics in there.
(Image of Larry Glawson's Off-Dock 1985 from the National Post)
Monday, August 23, 2010
Collegial Criticism, White-Cube Whine? Both!

This weekend, the Toronto Star "New in Homes and Condos" section (a must read for any self-respecting critic!) noted that OCAD has been promised 8,000 square feet of new, ground level gallery space in a forthcoming downtown condo project.
Now, while I'm all for increasing Toronto gallery space, especially for students, I have to say this news touched on a point that's peeved me for some time: OCAD's rather poor use of its existing gallery space. In particular, its designated "student gallery" at 285 Dundas Street West seems catatonic for an institution of OCAD's size and activity, hosting just seven exhibitions per year. The OCAD Graduate Gallery at 205 Richmond seems like a similarly sleepy cipher--it doesn't even have a webpage on the school's site, let alone its own website.
To be fair, I'm aware the school also has a couple of more active gallery spaces, like the recently rebranded (if also somewhat slow-moving) Onsite [at] OCAD, which often focuses on international professional artists, and the student-union funded Xpace, which seems to be the school's best-used venue, if its most distant (located on the trendy Ossington strip, Xpace has a mandate to "bridge students with their established counterparts through experimental programming that cultivates public dialogue" -- the meaning of which I've never really quite figured out).
These stronger points aside, I don't think OCAD's promised megaspace at Richmond and Duncan will be of any use unless the school can get its collective act together and get students (or truly student-focused curators) actually putting new shows up every week or two.
I welcome anyone to call "golden light of nostalgia" on this little diatribe, but a one-to-two week turnover is the basis of the student gallery program at my alma mater of NSCAD, and I think it benefits both individual students (in terms of learning how to individually prep a show, meet deadlines, etc.) and the college (in terms of the openings providing a regular social venue and gathering point).
Like I said, it's always great to see new gallery spaces, particularly ones in the name of education. But you have to know how to use the space to get the most educational mileage of out of it, and I don't always see that happening at OCAD--or, for that matter, other downtown Toronto art programs.
Suggested solutions? Related gripes (I'm sure some will take exception to the condo's marketing scheme, including free lithos from OCAD students)? Feel free to post.
Image of Antony Gormley's Blind Light installation at Hayward Gallery via Metapedia
Friday, August 20, 2010
The Art of Mental Health

Just a quick post on a couple of art-and-mental-health items I've noticed lately. One is London, Ontario artist Kirtley Jarvis' textile reproductions of panhandler's signs. I haven't seen them in person (they're on display at the MSVU Art Gallery in Halifax as part of a three-artist show on mental states) but the photos of them look really intriguing to me. Part of me wonders about the potentially thorny ethics of this practice--Jarvis does buy the signs from panhandlers before reproducing them as artworks--but in any case they have been sticking in my mind of late as a way of representing the difficulties, illnesses and precarities that many Canadians struggle with. For more information on the show (and an install shot) check out this Coast item by Sean Flinn.
Another event that's come to my attention (more in the performative arts) is Stand Up for Mental Health, a national endeavour that's been holding Toronto workshops of late through Workman Arts, an arts-and-health nonprofit. Though I can't find it online, the Toronto Star has a nice article on the project in today's paper, and notes that a related performance is due to happen tonight at CAMH. More info is available at CAMH's page on Facebook.
Image of Kirtley Jarvis' Menu (Inside View) 2008 from Canadianart.ca