This weekend, web commenters went nuts over government's suspiciously timed late-Friday announcement to cancel plans for a National Portrait Gallery.
Their rationale? The gallery would cost too much money in these tough economic times.
Whether individual Canadians like art or not, there's no way they should buy this flimsy rationale.
First, the Conservative Government considerably increased the costs (both money and time-as-money) of the project as a whole when they halted building the gallery in Ottawa in '06 and began a process of asking for bids from other cities. If they hadn't done this, the gallery--originally slated as a reno of a former American embassy--would probably be complete by now.
Second, since 2006, the bids received on the project (from Calgary and Edmonton as well as Ottawa) have depended heavily, if not entirely, on private funds. Where's this taxpayer burden Harper's so concerned about?
Commentary online surrounding these events has, as usual, gone both pro-arts and anti-arts.
Some commenters have said "just put the dang collection online for all Canadians to enjoy." You know what? I think this collection should be online too. But to put a collection online still takes money. And a fair bit of it, especially if you are going to present information in a well-designed, accessible way. And if you're going to promote it for all Canadians to be aware of for their enjoyment--that takes money too.
Plus, seeing a painting online is nothing like seeing it in person; if that were the case, perhaps we could suggest the Louvre would save money by just putting the Mona Lisa and all its other famed treasures online and closing up its bricks and mortar shop. Everybody okay with that? Is that pretty much the same? I didn't think so.
Some commenters have also said that this really is saving money in tough economic times. But as has already been pointed out, much of the money was to come from private, rather than public, coffers. And if the conservatives really cared about overall cost of the project in the first place, they should have let it go ahead in Ottawa, where plans were already in place, as well as the collection and staff needed to care for it.
Further, an argument could be made that in these tough economic times, the project would provide much-needed construction jobs, as well as jobs in education, service and design. It would also provide, when it is complete, a low-cost-to-free form of recreation to hardworking Canadians.
Some commenters have also insinuated that the Harper gov is suppressing the collection to keep Canadians from being aware of their left-leaning history. I don't want to tag them with such divisive philistinism at this point in time--though the fact that Harper only hangs images of himself in the Conservative offices does much to support this thesis. (Thanks to Simpleposie for the link.)
Rather, I chalk up this sheepishly timed announcement as evidence that the government is continuing to use culture as a wedge issue. This is highly regrettable, because even if the Conservatives aren't trying to "keep Canadians from their history" that is the ultimate result.
I won't even get into the PM's own elitist double standard of being able to hang publicly owned works in his residence while keeping them from the public's own view. After all, I'm sure he'll be putting a stop to any repairs at 24 Sussex for financial reasons soon too... right?
Image of the former US embassy originally slated to be Canada's National Portrait Gallery from Canwest News Service/National Post
Monday, November 10, 2008
Cancelling the National Portrait Gallery: A Picture of Conservative Mismanagement
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Feminist Art: Rock n' Roll Fun, as Well as Symposium-tastic
Was reminded by Jezebel just now of how great Sleater-Kinney, the classic all-lady rock trio from the West Coast, is/was. As fun and head-boppin' as some of their music can be, these females are seriously feminist. As co-frontwoman Corinne Tucker once stated, "We just want to say that we're not here to fuck the band. We are the band." (Now there's an all-girl exhibition title up for grabs!) Though it's sad the band is no longer together, it is fun to still blast their music and read guitarist Carrie Brownstein's blog Monitor Mix. As well as, of course, shred some serious air guitar to their tunes.
Also feminist fun, albeit in a bit quieter way: Toronto artist, curator and teacher Carla Garnet has organized a symposium on "Art Institutions and the Feminist Dialectic" for December 3 and 4 via the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. Speakers include Emelie Chhangur, Suzy Lake, Allyson Mitchell and Camilla Singh, among others. For more information see www.oaag.org. And don't forget to BYO-Bass.
Just in case you need an extra nudge:
Worth Repeating: Peter Schjeldahl on Criticism and Friendship, or Lack Thereof
"You're not going to get a good art critic in St. Louis. To be a good critic, you have to be able to make a new enemy every week and never run out of people to be your friend. In this country that's LA and New York. Otherwise you're going to be moving a lot."
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Three to See: Galleries in Toronto's Kensington Market
Kensington Market has long been a haven for Toronto's boho artists. But lately it's not just about impromptu street parties--there's been honest-to-goodness galleries springing up to house the works of same. In this weekend's National Post, I check out three of these newish venues: Pixel Gallery, Project 165, and Studio Gallery. Read on after the jump for the info.
Image of a Jesse Harris artwork at Studio Gallery from www.jessebharris.com
Ironic? Iconic? Try both.
National Post, November 9, 2008
By Leah Sandals
Kensington Market has long been a haven for Toronto’s boho artists. But recently some honest-to-goodness galleries have been springing up, too. Sneak in a latte and people-watching at Casa Acoreana, and you’ve got an nice alt afternoon out.
1. Pixel Gallery 156 Augusta Ave.
The zeitgeisty-named Pixel Gallery, nestled behind the funky Function 13 design shop, opened almost one year ago. Since then, it’s done a lot to promote innovative digital art, such as video-game guns that shoot graffiti, not bullets. In its current show, Pixel collaborates with 20-year-old big-bro Pleasuredome, a still very active video exhibition collective. The result is A Lower World, a seven-artist exhibition riffing on the horrific and extreme. Though this art can be hard to stomach, the show’s a prime place to catch rising international stars. Swede Nathalie Djurberg, profiled in this month’s Vogue thanks to a recent show at Italy’s Prada Foundation, shows Claymation vids of a violent battle between dogs and people. American Laurel Nakadate pushes the boundaries of ethics and sense with wince-worthy videos documenting her encounters with lonely men. And Los Angeles artist Julian Hoeber’s unsettling flick Killing Friends has fake blood and psychological spooks to spare. On a gentler note, New York Times darling Michael Bell-Smith presents excess as scrolling, unending video game landscapes. Recent Whitney Biennial pick Mungo Thomson presents the “extreme” desert landscapes of Warner Bros. cartoons minus Wile E. and the Roadrunner. Finally, Marcus Coates of Britain offers a Monty Python-meetsMerlin scenario, performing an ancient divination ritual in the staid setting of a Liverpool apartment block.
2. Project 165 165 Augusta Ave.
Across the street from Pixel, three new exhibition venues have opened on Augusta: café-cum-event-zone Hotshot, Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts and Culture and studios-in-the-back, gallery-in-the-front affair Project 165. While these venues don’t show art continuously, they have upped the gallery quotient of the avenue. Right now, Project 165, the newest of these spaces, is hosting drawings by self-proclaimed “lost boys” Ryan Solski and Dan Rocca. Although Peter Pan conceits and naive drawing styles are starting to wear thin in the art world, Solski’s careful sketches of maps and faces still have a fairy-tale quality, while Rocca’s busier work bridges to psychedelic brands of fantasy. The latter’s smaller drawings of isolated objects with colourful auras seem especially sprinkled with fairy dust. Tinkerbell would approve, even if grumpy grown-ups don’t.
3. Studio Gallery 294 College St., 2nd floor
Created as an extension of founder Avery Hunsberger’s design office, which counts Calvin Klein among its clients, Studio Gallery is a raw, twentysomething-friendly art and music space fluent in the iconic/ironic Gen Y style of magazines such as Vice and Nylon. Keeping with the periodical theme, Studio’s current show features artists from the second issue of Bad Day Magazine, a new quarterly created by young Ossington Avenue photographer and filmmaker Eva Michon. Many works reflect a world-weary wonder: “At a dollar a letter, I could not afford to tell you how much I have to say,” proclaims Jesse Harris’s iron-on T-shirt. A cracked, flaking and, as it turns out, microwaved CD is commemorated in Paul Kneale’s massive colour photograph. And the poetic side of Crystal Castles-centric living is commemorated in Tim Barber’s sliceof-life pics. Next, watch for an exhibition by 18-year-old internet “It Girl” Cory Kennedy, fresh from having her portrait shown at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. To access the gallery by appointment, call 416-832-3933 or visit www.studio.to.
Spoiler Alert: James Elkins on the Art World
The comment from James Elkins is actually a bit of a spoiler for his article in the October '08 issue of Frieze, but it's still worth repeating:
"The art world is a productive mess, and that's fine if you are not interested in saying what the art means. Once you start considering the historical, philosophical and critical meaning of the work, then the art world is in a desperate mess, made even more desperate by the unblinking optimism created by markets and money. I am not calling for a return to principles, argument, rationality, effective political intervention or anything else. I am noting reasons why it does not make sense to be optimistic about the freedoms, possibilities, market values, historical position, expansion, significance or direction of current art, art history, visual studies, art crticism or art theory."
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Mincing around Jonathan Meese
So I reviewed international art star Jonathan Meese's Toronto exhibit for this week's NOW. And it stands as one of the more difficult shows I've ever had to review. Why? Because much as much as I am excited to see an artist of such stature come to Toronto--and I definitely agree that it's a coup for Greener Pastures gallery owner Kineko Ivic--the content is really challenging to deal with.
In many ways, particularly the formal ones, I really like Meese's work--I just love the mix of messy, stapled-to-the-walls stuff hanging with the still-messy-but-higher-end expressionist painting. And in a similar vein, his bronze pseudo-busts are totally awesome--love the mix of mushy nonsensical content and supposedly dignified means. Really nice.
But I just can't be one of those art viewers who's like "yeah, swastika on the ceiling, awesome semiotic-play cool!" Nor can I be easily swayed by the stories of how Meese is such "a great, sweet, gentle, loving guy" in everyday interactions. I can, admittedly, be swayed by the international accolades and opportunities Meese has received, which confuses my reactions even further.
Fact: Meese uses swastikas and other Third Reich imagery in his work. This is part of why his work is popular--Meese deals openly with the horrific aspects of recent German history that many of his countrymen would rather move on from. And I do get the sense that Meese is attempting to use these symbols in some sort of therapeutic way. After all, his mother, who likely lived through the war, is also a big part of his performances and the imagery he uses. I suspect that rather than going the route of suppressing societal trauma, and having it fester and resurge, Meese would like to address it in some way.
But here's another fact: those swastikas and other forms of Third Reich imagery, while ubiquitous and considered acceptable in documentary biopic contexts (Valkyrie, anyone? Maybe some Schindler's List?) are very charged, upsetting, and triggering symbols when used in other contexts. So much of Meese's works' success (as with any artist, but especially here) depends on the special frame of the gallery and museum. Outside of that context, Meese's work just looks like the living room of some crazypants dude with a Hitler obsession and and itch to paint. Or, from another perspective, is Meese just exploiting his considerable visual acumen to gloss over (in his trademark messy, "raw" way) the difficulty such symbols present?
I know the work is more complex than this in terms of its art historical, political and social references, but it's a difficulty I really haven't seen addressed around his work, at least here. I'm probably not looking hard enough, and I'd appreciate any suggestions others have for related readings. But I just kept thinking of someone who had actually experienced the holocaust walking into such a gallery and being told it's the work of a great artist. And I kept thinking of them, quite reasonably, going into shock and feeling angry and upset. Is it okay for artwork to do that? Is it okay to tell someone like that that "the artist didn't mean it that way"? Is that the point? Should we all be able to shrug it off in a post-WWII, supposedly global-village-happy society?
I'm not sure, but I'm interested in discussing it further.
Bucking Art Market Pressures at Printmaking Paradise Open Studio
Today is the first day for scholarship exhibitions at Open Studio, an artist-run printmaking gallery, studio and society in Toronto. Each year at Open Studio, three scholarships provide artists at established, emerging and just-out-of-school levels with the opportunity to make and exhibit some print-related work outside of the demands of the art market. In other words, it's not that these artists can't or don't sell work, as is often accused by those against public arts funding. Rather, these kinds of publically managed funds allow successful artists to make a work that uses all their saleable skills but doesn't have to sell. And it also allows the public to enjoy it. This year, the scholarship artists were paper-sculpture master Cybele Young, ink-drawing star Luke Painter and recent York U grad Mark Small. I wrote an essay for their exhibition, which you can find in their print brochure or read after the jump.
Image of Luke Painter's Victorian Bust 2007 from www.lukepainter.ca
Essay for Open Studio Scholarship Exhibition 2008
Cybele Young, Luke Painter, & Mark Small
By Leah Sandals
I admit—shamefully—that for some time I had little clue how the words “Open Studio” related to running a printmaking gallery and workshop. After all, galleries often take liberties with their names, or in the very least sport historical ones that have little to do with what one might find inside. London’s Serpentine Gallery has nary a snake on display, and Vancouver’s Blanket Contemporary shows painting and installation, not quilts. So I skipped over the possible meaning of Open Studio’s name even as I watched its shows.
But slowly, the name began to make a kind of literal sense to me. My first brainwave was sparked by seeing the variety of what ended up on view—everything from screenprints on record covers, such as Suzie Smith showed earlier this fall, to knitted replicas of boobs and dinks which Shannon Gerard showed last spring. My second mini-epiphany came when a friend took me into the massive printmaking studio behind the gallery—an airy, available-to-nonmembers space filled with all the heavy-machinery and acidic-chemical goodies that printmakers adore. And the third realization of this true-to-nameness arrived while preparing to write this very essay, talking to Open Studio’s 2008 scholarship recipients—Cybele Young, Luke Painter, and Marc Small—about the freedoms they enjoyed and works they planned to make for their end-of-term exhibit.
What I’ve discovered from getting to know Open Studio, as well as its practices and artists, better, is that it really does provide a very rare and necessary openness—an openness both physical and conceptual—to print-related artists in Canada. First, like most artist-run centres, artists participate in deciding what works are most relevant to exhibit. Second, unlike most artist-run centres, it has a huge space and excellent tools available for artists to make work at a reasonable cost. And lastly, through its scholarships, which offer free studio time and a related exhibition to three artists per year, it provides Toronto artists with the increasingly rare opportunity to do what they wish in a space somewhat removed from the demands of the art market.
Now don’t get me wrong as some starry-eyed ingenue; I know every artist-run centre has a raft of their own problems, internal and external, to deal with. But despite all of these, the fact remains that Open Studio really does provide openness—a key ingredient for the nurturance of creative work, creative people and creative communities. Though the art market provides important opportunities in its own right—opportunities to make money from selling art, should it suit current tastes, and opportunities to connect with collectors and associated sources of project financing—it cannot always provide a space for work that is more experimental, or searching, or experiential rather than product-oriented without turning to the issue of gallery rental fees.
The rest of this essay looks at what the Open Studio scholarship program and exhibition—one of those key technologies of openness—has meant to each of its 2008 recipients in terms of both product and process.
*
Cybele Young is an established Toronto artist best known for the small, eccentric objects she produces in folded paper—everything from movie cameras to windshield wipers are magically birthed in her capable hands from just a tweeze or two of newsprint, a sliver of washi, an inch or two of thread.
Chatting over coffee, Young reveals that even as a child she was fascinated with paper, reveling in piles of it during visits to a Japanese paper shop in Toronto’s Kensington Market. That interest in paper resurged after studies in traditional sculpture at OCAD left her exasperated at the sheer volume of materials consumed. Paper seemed a useful alternative. “Sculpting with paper feels like making something out of nothing,” she says. “It’s not precious, but it’s strong.”
Young also became engaged with paper in a different way through printmaking, which she applied first to fabric, and then to cotton rag and Stonehenge. For many years she had a small press in her basement that she used to produce prints. But after some time, she yearned to work larger—not just physically, but technically and conceptually as well.
Thorough her Nick Novak scholarship period, Young’s traditional printmaking practice in copperplate etching and chine colle, as well as her commercial sculptural practice in framed micro-objects, has expanded to include silkscreen, installation and video. On one wall of her scholarship show, a collection of silkscreen prints document, in blown-up and reimagined form, the small scraps of paper leftover from Young’s ongoing sculptural practice. On another, a series of small-scale kite forms bearing whimsical copperplate etchings of household detritus—from mops to lightbulbs to ballpoint pens—are installed. Finally, on the last wall of the space, a video of these small kites interacting with one of Young’s other sculptures, this one of a hydro tower, unfurls.
Taken together, these works—and the amusing exhibition title “You Finished With That?”—speak to an intensifying concern in Young’s practice for the environment. Of some significance is the sly way in which Young addresses these issues. In working, for example, with images of her own small paper scraps, Young creates prints that enjoyed both as examples of design as well as attempts to point out that the waste we consider “small” can be writ large collectively and otherwise. Her humour-filled drawings of discarded items both amuse and gently point at the potential transformation of everyday expectations. And her “waste kites” interacting with a hydro tower both fascinates with kinetic zest and hints at deeper concerns with energy issues.
These are small gestures for a big world, but as Young has proved so effectively in her tiny sculptural works past and present, humble need not always mean weak—it can be compelling, persistent and ingenious in its own right.
*
Luke Painter is an energetic Toronto artist whose love affair with woodcuts and etchings is longstanding. During his undergrad at OCAD and MFA at Concordia, Painter branched those graphic sensibilities into different realms. Painting, printmaking, drawing, and new media are all domains he now works in, with his India-ink-on-paper paintings recently finding a particular (and well-deserved) commercial and critical success.
No matter what his media, Painter’s work tends to emit a darkly fantastic, horror-tinged, backwoods-gothic feel. Discussing his work at a table in the Open Studio printshop, Painter talks about being influenced from a young age by films like The Shining and Firestarter, films which locate a strange, seething, supernatural danger in idyllic-seeming circumstances that range from the expansiveness of a rural resort to the diminutive body of a small, “innocent” child. Painter also speaks humorously of his childhood affection for TV shows The Addams Family, a narrative where the macabre was presented in a warm, campy way, and where beetles for breakfast, disembodied pals, and electroshock recliners are just normalized parts of life within a relatively loving family environment. He also underlines his interest in Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, another narrative—this one with a truly sweeping mythical landscape—in which good meets evil with alternately peaceable and perilous results.
In Painter’s most recent commercial show these themes took flight in two series of ink paintings. One features busts of imaginary figures that might be kings and queens of some supernatural narrative—women with swirling, snakey hair and men with ornate, shield-like collars. The other focuses on forest landscapes truncated by some unseen axe. In some, chopped-down clearings reveal decrepit Victorian mansions; in others, tree stumps grow up through a forest floor of peeling hardwood. It’s ambiguous whether these trees have been killed, or are growing like zombies—forever dead-alive, sustained by cannibalization.
In Painter’s Open Studio exhibition, enabled through the Donald O’Born Family Scholarship, the artist attempts to conjure his printed and drawn worlds in a three-dimensional realm. Instead of encountering Painter’s elaborate scenarios with eyeballs only, this exhibit allows both artist and viewer to step inside.
Painter’s transference of his eerie scenarios into installation is executed with a witty awareness of his flip-flop between 2-D and 3-D (or imaginary and actual) space. Most of the elements are flat, constructed from bendable plywood sheets. Sometimes this flatness is convincing, as when the sheets are carved to resemble wood panelling that both adheres to and peels away from the walls. And sometimes it’s concertedly unconvincing, as when used to represent streams of blood spurting through those wood-panelled walls and into “puddles” on the floor.
As with all of Painter’s work—which at Open Studio also included a series of etchings of young women in cemeteries—there’s a sense of both the real and the unreal taking place at once. Though there’s little doubt Painter will continue powerful painting work on these themes, it’s a rare and special thing to step into his world with him, to share its real space.
*
Marc Small is a talented emerging artist based in Toronto. Recently graduated from York University with a BFA, Small uses printmaking as a means of expressing himself, his identity and his personal history. As he writes in an email, “As a child, I believe I’d encountered more than my fair share of traumatic episodes which have scarred me both mentally and emotionally. [To protect myself] I soon entered a world populated only by me, myself and I.” As a result, Small says of his artwork, “This is me trying to renegotiate my way back into the world by exploring truths about myself and relations I have with the people around me.”
What’s compelling about Small’s nascent work is not just his willingness to delve into vulnerable emotional territory; he’s also clearly enamoured of printmaking in general and screenprinting in particular. This affection, he says, derives in part from being unable to part with single-edition artworks. He therefore gravitates to the medium in which he can part with some copies as well as keep a copy for himself. (When Small was a child collecting sports cards, he would, similarly, collect two sets—one for himself, and one to trade.) Further, he explains, “I like the immediacy of the screening,” he says. “In 4 hours I can have 200 prints if I want. I can just make these massive amounts of work.”
Indeed, it’s easy to see, looking at Small’s Open Studio exhibition, that he has taken very productive advantage of the time and space granted to him via the Don Phillips Scholarship. Over 200 prints line the gallery, generating a potential sense of overload. Once that passes, there’s much material to plumb; Small bases each of these prints on the “Hello, I Am…” nametags provided at conferences and wedding receptions, altering them to state “Hello, I Think…” or “Hello, You Are…” He’s also provided a variety of unconventional (if not uncommonly felt) responses to the format, including “Hello… I’m afraid of being alone. Hello… I’m tired. Hello… I think that I’m not human. Hello… I think you misunderstand my silence.”
In a way, Small’s work is particularly appropriate to its context. The Don Phillips scholarship is designed especially to provide a transition for grads from the ample resources and structure of a school environment to the scarcer provisions of the independent artist. Further, its exhibition provides an opportunity for the recent student to declare their identity as an artist and printmaker to the wider community. By creating a work that takes a complex view of personal identity and human relationships, Small demonstrates that he is consciously navigating those shifting waters of creative development. He also shows that there is much we can anticipate from him in the future—a future he will work through with support, but on his own terms.
*
Cybele Young, Luke Painter, and Marc Small are different artists with their own priorities, careers and practices. This Open Studio exhibit—in addition to standing as a testament to their strengths and skills at this point—demonstrates the strengths and skills of the organization that hosts them. Even when the door closes on this show at the end of November, both the artists and the viewers can take heart that the studio and the artists it has nurtured will, indeed, stay Open.
