Showing posts with label mkg127. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mkg127. Show all posts

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Dean Drever's Bear Hunt at Toronto Sculpture Garden


Dean Drever is obsessed with bears, it seems. Last year, he showed a large yellow bear at MKG127 and more recently showed what look like smaller metal works at Douglas Udell Gallery. This winter, a few neon-orange grizzlies at the Toronto Sculpture Garden are raising his profile in Hogtown's public art sphere. As I mentioned in a brief review in today's NOW, this work seems a little worse for wear sans snow, with its plywood base showing distracting scuffs quite readily -- not a good sign for a work that's meant to be up until April. Nonetheless, I like the symbolic obsessiveness (and obstinate wilderness-orientation) of Drever's work, even if the delivery here could use work. I also find it interesting the way the Toronto Sculpture Garden morphed from a very different expression of nature--Katie Bethune Leamen's Mushroom Studio--last year to the pop-coloured mammalian this winter.

Image of Drever's Bear Hunt from the Toronto Sculpture Garden

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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Damien Hirst meets the Dollar Store: A Q&A with Laura Kikauka


Ontario- and Berlin-based artist Laura Kikauka prompted quite a few chuckles at the Toronto International Art Fair last year when her Berlin gallery, DNA, distributed posters with her gaudy, sequiny, low-rent version of Damien Hirst's For the Love of God printed on them.

With Kikauka returning to show some of her dollar-store crystal skulls at MKG127 this fall, I knew I wanted to line her up for an interview to see what her reasoning behind these witty works was. Our condensed conversation is published in today's National Post. An excerpt:

Q Your sculptures, as you've suggested, can be thought of as critical of Hirst. But is there anything you admire about him?

A I think he's an excellent businessman. I really liked how he auctioned his own work at Sotheby's last year, making his gallery buy it from him at top dollar. I thought that was a smooth move. His way of working in the art world goes against the grain, but I think it can be good to shake things up. What kind of artist can get attention these days not by splattering blood, but by actually having something to say?


Image of Laura Kikauka's Eye Candy from the artist and MKG127

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