How many people are teary/crabby/unpleasant/disbelieving today because vacation is over? Me too and three. But I must recall that typing is a way of burning off all the ol' nog calories that I've accumulated over the past couple of weeks. To that end, here's a couple of items by me that went up over the break:
Top 10 of 2009 at Sally McKay & Lorna Mills's blog
posted December 26
I'm so glad to be a part of this annual top 10 project. Reading everyone's picks for the year, even if they're just snarky satires, is really great fun, a reminder of all good things seen and missed.
Reviews of Michael Snow and Nothing to Declare at the Power Plant and Hinterlands at Harbourfront Centre
from January 2 National Post
An excerpt: From the return of Tut at the Art Gallery of Ontario to the remount of General Idea at the Art Gallery of York University, there was a lot of retro action in Toronto-area galleries this fall. Unusual among these was the opening of Can-Art icon Michael Snow's solo exhibition at the Power Plant. Focusing solely on works from the past 10 years, Recent Snow seems to suggest that focusing on the present can be an effective means of honoring past achievement -- no tired retreads required. More concretely, the show provides newer art viewers with a taste of why the 81-year-old Snow might be relevant decades after Walking Woman and Wavelength made their debut. There are seven works here to make the case, all involving video, and all showing off Snow's playfully uncompromising sensibility. The best-- SSHTOORRTY, That/Cela/Dat and Piano Sculpture -- show Snow in top form, slicing and dicing plot, language and sound down to their essential elements only to build them back up again. The worst -- Serve, Deserve and The Corner of Braque and Picasso Streets -- seem a bit more like MFA fodder than masterpiece material. Nevertheless, one leaves the show admiring not only Snow's longevity but also his sense of quickness, wonder and vibrancy -- qualities jaded twentysomethings could stand to learn from.
Image of the Ontario Finest Meat 2010 Calendar from oimp.ca
Monday, January 4, 2010
Flashback to the Future: First post of 2010
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Top 10 of 2009 up at NOW
The year's top 10 art events, which I contributed to along with Fran Schechter and David Jager, went up at NOW today. Here's how it shakes down:
1 Leona Drive Project, October 22 to 31
2 Candice Breitz @ Power Plant, September 19 to November 29
3 Cedric Bomford @ Red Bull 381 Projects, September 10 to October 10
4 Funkaesthetics @ Justina M. Barnicke, February 12 to March 23
5 Liz Magor @ Doris McCarthy Gallery, September 15 to October 25
6 Design For The Other 90% @ OCAD Professional Gallery, October 4, 2008, to January 25
7 Noise Ghost @ Justina M. Barnicke, May 28 to August 23
8 Maura Doyle @ Paul Petro Contemporary Art, April 24 to May 23
9 Its Time @ Drake Hotel, April 20 to June 1
10 Geoffrey Farmer @ Nuit Blanche
For reasoning, or to take issue via comments, check out the article.
Image of the Leona Drive Project from NOW
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Top 10 Art Developments of the Decade out in NOW
December 2009 is the mini-era of the decade list genre in all media right now, it seems. Rolling Stone just released their double-naught cover, seen above, and, for the less sincerely excited, my National Post colleagues have been doing a smileworthy sarcastic version in recent print editions of the Saturday arts section.
NOW's decade-list issue is out today, complete with a "Top 10 Art Developments of the Decade" section. I contributed to this list along with my colleagues Fran Schechter and David Jager. Here's the rundown:
1. Photography in flux
2. Queen West art boom
3. Post-conceptualism
4. Art festivals go big
6. Forever young
7. Art market bubble and crash
8. Galleries seize their space
9. Exhibition Transport Services cut
10. Rising museum admission fees
To read the reasoning and details, do hop on over to the article.
(On the art front, of course, we've already had some debate on this blog about the Star's decade-best art picks, which we should actually continue with the better-but-still-shockingly-white'n'male (TM) CBC.ca and Time.com art best-of lists. But I'll leave that for another post.)
Image of Chip Kidd's Rolling Stone cover from their website
