Okay, second full disclosure of the week--I've never really liked the Baroque period all that much. However, I'm feeling swayed by the rave NYT and LAT reviews that "Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture" has had during its run at the Getty. With that show hitting its sole Canuck stop, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, this week, I took the chance to ring up curator David Franklin and ask him how exciting this stuff can actually be to a new millennium. The results are in today's National Post. To read that (including Franklin's comment on his current status at the Gallery) click here and go to page L4 of the digital edition, or read on after the jump.
Lights! Plaster! Action!
A new exhibition on sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini tries to imbue the Baroque artist with a little Hollywood razzle-dazzle
National Post, Nov 27 2008, pg L4
There’s a new must-see that’s gotten rave reviews in the New York Times—but you won’t be seeing it at your local multiplex. Why? Because “Bernini,” rather than being a film offering killer chase scenes, is an exhibition offering incredible (if wrapped in stone) characters. This week, the show opens at the National Gallery of Canada, its sole Canadian stop following a successful run at Los Angeles’s Getty Museum. Still, as exhibition co-curator David Franklin explains, there is something strangely cinematic about these centuries-old works. Here, Franklin tells Leah Sandals what turns Baroque into blockbuster.
Q The portrait bust can be a pretty dull, dusty art form—particularly in a digital effects era. What makes Bernini’s exciting?
A There’s many aspects. I think the human face is perennially of interest. There’s also, for me, the virtuosity of these works, which make its subjects come to life in stone. And I think ironically, in the digital age, the authenticity of these objects when seen in person generates a kind of wonder; we’re so little used to anything authentic anymore.
Q There’s something almost snapshot-like about these sculptures, with Bernini capturing split-second moments of his disarmed lover Costanza Bonarelli, or of a cerebral cardinal or powerful pope. Do you think Bernini foresaw the need for more immediate art forms like photography?
A He definitely revolutionized a previously dusty art form. Before, these sculptures had to do with permanence and stasis. But he pushed this public art form into the private realm.
And the real revolution Bernini pushed was treating each work almost like a cinematographer. Each bust becomes like a story. There’s a sense of each being different and alive that’s very new. To me, it’s almost like there’s a novel behind each sculpture. That’s what’s so original about him.
Q Bernini was also a painter and an architect, creating famous Rome sights like Fontana Trevi and St Peters Square. Were he alive today, what do you think he’d be working on?
A Oh, I think he would definitely be a filmmaker. In his own time he also designed stage sets. So I think he would be designing operas and theatre sets too. But overall working in theatre and film, no question.
Q Some of Bernini’s artworks figure heavily in Dan Brown’s bestselling book Angels and Demons. What do you think of Brown’s use of these artworks?
A I’m very relaxed about it. Some academic types get very agitated. But you just have to realize it’s entertainment and it’s to be enjoyed on that level. And frankly, in our business with all its budget cuts, anything that brings attention to Bernini or Caravaggio or Leonardo da Vinci is wonderful—especially if it inspires people to learn the truth and see the originals.
Q Earlier this year, the Ottawa Citizen reported that this Bernini show almost didn’t happen at the Getty Museum, your key partner on the project. What was the problem?
A There were disputes between the Getty and the Italian government for several years over works that were allegedly illegally excavated from Italy and smuggled out of the country. In May 2007 about 40 artworks were returned to Italy from the Getty’s collection, which resolved the dispute and made Italy open to lending artworks like Bernini’s to them again. So this exhibition is really the first major collaboration between Italy and the Getty, and we’re the happy benefactors.
Q On another political front, there’s been a lot of drama at the National Gallery this year, with rumors that you might leave. What’s your status there now?
A I don’t know how much I can say, but I’m back at the gallery and everything is fine. The way I put it is that families fight but it’s doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. I’m back and we’re moving forward—and we always just want to focus on the art.
Q Getting back to art, Bernini’s son Domenico said that his father saw all the arts as equal. Do you agree?
A That’s a difficult question. What’s exciting about an artist like Bernini is that he was very eclectic, like Leonardo. Artists today tend to make their work for themselves and sell afterwards. But artists of the Baroque thought of themselves as designers and worked on anything that came their way. They had to be really good at multitasking and being open-minded.
“Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture” opens Friday (November 28) and runs to March 8 at Ottawa’s National Gallery of Canada (www.gallery.ca).
Thursday, November 27, 2008
The National Gallery: If it ain't Baroque... oh, never mind
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
VanCity: Keeping the "Is" in Feminism
How great IS this? It's part of a new vitrine project at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver. The project, coordinated by CAG curator Jenifer Papararo, will feature feminism-inspired slogans from various artists including curator/psychoanalyst/critic Jeanne Randolph, Kate Davis, FASTWURMS, Martha Wilson, Myfanwy Macleod, Dave Dyment, Kelly Mark, Kristina Podesva and others.
There's also a comments function on the gallery's site to invite feedback. No one has written in it yet... so everyone must agree. Or web commenting's not the best way to solicit reaction for a public art piece, mebbe. Or it's only been a few days since the vitrine was installed (Nov 21). In any case, the sign makes me smile.
Now if we could only figure out how to keep the "Emin" in feminism. That might be harder. Depending on who you ask, of course.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Canadian Pop Music: It does really matter, actually
Today it hit the news that the Kenny MacLean, bassist for Platinum Blonde--or as some call them "Canada's Duran Duran"--passed away suddenly this weekend.
I was 8 years old when Platinum Blonde's "It Doesn't Really Matter" hit the airwaves, and I heard it many times, particularly being an avid listener to Winnipeg station CFRW's Top 6 at 6 and Top 10 at 10. That was even before Canada's first music video program Video Hits hit the publicly sponsored TV in 1984. I also heard it repeatedly at the roller rink, where it animated many a careening crash.
I'd like to say that it changed my life, because that would make the loss of a creative person more meaningful, and give me a really very good reason for posting it on my art blog. Or even, perhaps, that it learned me some nihilism, and that I started reading Sartre in grade 3 as a result. That would be good too.
I don't think it did have such a dramatic effect, really. However, I do think that this song is still really great, as are other Platinum Blonde hits like Cryin and (to a lesser extent) Situation Critical. Of course, I'm biased as is anyone when it comes to the songs of their youth. But at moments like this it becomes every more clear how pop music lyrics and styles can be ingrained deeply in one's brain. Now that I have many more "brain is full" moments and the old neurons are on the decline, songs just don't get remembered the same way.
Reviewing the video today, I grin at the hairstyles, wince at the misogyny (my, how times have changed... not) and wonder how much current teens and preteens would pay to get their hands on these now-retro clothes and shoes.
I won't be "Cryin" over MacLean; but I am grateful for what he produced. A chance to dance, which, as I indicated on Monday, also makes for some great art sometimes.
99 cent dish towels! 5 dollar shoes! And art, art, art!
Well, this sounds interesting. Toronto artist Iris Haussler caused a stir a couple of years back with her project The Legacy of Joseph Wagenbach, which transformed a Toronto house into a repository of sorts for a fictitious artist resident. (The project garnered lost of media attention, summarized here.)
Now Haussler's looking to reconstruct the experience of another Toronto house--this one our metropolis's house of deals and lights, Honest Ed's.
For those who aren't in the know--or who've never had to track down a cheap shower curtain while living in Maggie Atwood's Annex nabe--Honest Ed's, named for its founder, the late Ed Mirvish, is a massive mazelike discount store at the corner of Bathurst and Bloor streets in Toronto. Its signage is a Toronto psychogeography icon, while its deals attract students, new immigrants and generally rent-poor Torontonians alike.
Haussler's upcoming project at the store, called "Honest Threads", promises the following:
"Honest Threads will display garments and the memories they carry. Lent by Torontonians, each item holds a personal story revealing a glimpse of the many threads that weave our identity over time. Visitors will be able to borrow the garments and wear them for a few days, experiencing both literally and psychologically what it is like to “walk in someone else’s shoes.” At the same time, they will add new layers to the clothes’ history. Trading experiences on both tactile and narrative levels will enrich our collective perception of the place we call home. As pieces of a vast puzzle, these individual stories will render a fragmentary portrait of the city, attesting to its complex history."
This project is facilitated through the Koffler Centre of the Arts, and information about how to lend clothes to the project can be found here. The Koffler, which focuses on Jewish culture, says that "Honest Ed’s is no ordinary store but a museum in itself, blurring the boundaries between commercial, public and exhibition spaces. The place equally attests to the inspiring story of its founder, Ed Mirvish, the son of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Austria..."
A few other notes on Honest Ed's and art: Ed's son, David Mirvish, owns Canada's largest art bookstore--or at least the only one to sport a massive Frank Stella painting above its shelves. The bookstore itself was created in 1974 as an outgrowth of David Mirvish's gallery, which exhibited abstract artists and colour field painters and sculptors including Helen Frankenthaler, Hans Hofmann, Jack Bush and others. Though the gallery has since folded, David continues to hold a large collection at his warehouse, where a show is currently taking place for British sculptor Tim Scott. This year David also commissioned Ed Burtynsky to photograph the Royal Alexandra Theatre, which he and his father helped revive.
On a different tack, I discovered a contrasting, and very relevant, view of Honest Ed's via the short stories of prizewinning Toronto author Austin Clarke. In his tales of Caribbean immigrants, Clarke draws a picture of Honest Ed's that I read as a desolate place, a kind of flourescent beacon of false hope for those from abroad. The collection Choosing His Coffin is worth a look if you're interested in exploring this theme.
Also, I've noted elsewhere about Barr Gilmore's appropriation of the Honest Ed sign for this year's Nuit Blanche. And when Ed Mirvish died last year, I took a look at his wacky window displays as a strange kind of art in themselves.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Lessons on Lassitude from the New York Times
Well, goldarnit it sure hurts to be scooped by the New York Times on something happening just down the street in your own hometown. Worse hurtage occurrs when one had been thinking about writing of said thing, but just never got around to it.
Such is the case with artist Margaux Williamson's video "Dance Dance Revolutions Co", which I enjoyed at Harbourfront a couple of weeks back, and which talented Montreal writer Heather O'Neill singled out to the NYT Magazine this weekend as her favourite screen moment of the year.
What I liked about the video was: 1) It was easy to enjoy, brought a smile to my face; 2) The music was familiar to me, as it was made in part by a friend of mine, Marlena Zuber, who is part of the band Tomboyfriend; 3) It reminded me of being crazy dancing, and of all the people worldwide who find pleasure in that same harmless, joyous thing even though the world is filled with much darker things much of the time as well; 4) I had enjoyed Williamson's feature-length film Teenager Hamlet (and posted on it) earlier this year, and wondered if this often-pegged painter was finding new, more appealing (for me) strength in narrative, and in handing a starring role off to others.
In any case, it teaches a lesson to me if no one else--when you want to write about something, write about it! Slow Blogging and the rest be damned.
Oh, and another lesson -- dance, or enjoy others dancing, more often.
WACK widsom
I've realized, looking at travel costs, cash flow, and the like, that it turns out I will not make it to see WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution before it closes at the Vancouver Art Gallery on January 11. This makes me sad.
However, I am heartened by this wise interpretation, which artist Nicole Cherubini offers in her Top 10 in the Nov edition of Artforum:
"This exhibition was a gift. All my thanks to its curator, Connie Butler. It made me realize that the most progressive ideas have already been articulated, and that artists are still searching for people to listen."
Image of Magdalena Abakanowicz's Red Abakan, 1969 from the Vancouver Art Gallery
Relational Aesthetics in Review at Home and Away
Relational aesthetics--or audience-participation riffs thereof--are receiving much attention at home and away right now.
Though it's been poorly received by critics like Jerry Saltz, the Guggenheim New York's theanyspacewhatever exhibition is generating plenty of exhibition lineups with its promises of "activated spectatorship."
And in Ottawa at the National Gallery of Canada, "Caught in the Act: The Viewer as Performer" has been called "the most fun you will likely ever have in an art gallery."
These types of shows seem a fitting backdrop to a recent article by Toronto critic Carl Wilson on Darren O'Donnell, one of the T-dot's prime purveyors of relational aesthetics--or, as O'Donnell likes to posit it, "social acupuncture." The article appears in the December 2008 issue of Toronto Life magazine. (full text of the mag article here)
Full disclosure: Earlier this year I participated in a worm-can-opening blog-comment fest about O'Donnell's work, including a statement of my personal dislike for him, as well as an explanation that I don't even attempt to write about his work professionally because of that bias.
That said (and lessons learned) I'm impressed with the balanced, complex perspective Wilson takes in writing about O'Donnell, and the work of his production company Mammalian Diving Reflex. Here's an excerpt:
"In the past year, Mammalian Diving Reflex's primary project was as company-in-residence at Parkdale Public School. This culminated in the spring with a faux competition called "Parkdale Public School vs. Queen West", in which the children squared off in culinary, visual art music and other projects again the adult "artsters" (as O'Donnell teasingly calls his own tribe) who've recently been accused of gentrifying their low-income neighbourhood. The outcome struck me as at once socially worthy and artistically undercooked...
As much as I endorse O'Donnell's belief that children are complex individuals with their own perspectives and stories, his work is more intriguing when it involves adults, who are less accustomed to group activities. Bridging the profound gulf that exists between people already burdened with preconceptions, not to mention jobs and families, seems a more ambitious undertaking."
On a more vitriolic, outspoken, and anonymously authored note, Artfag.ca's latest e-cahier rips into O'Donnell's attempts at political action during this last Canadian election via the artist-org Department of Culture:
"Instead of spending time convincing voters why exactly they should be funding, for instance, artist’s travels abroad (which, to our mind, is not a hard case to make) Darren O’Donnell & Co. accuse Stephen Harper of not liking other people’s children (because he opposes the Kyoto Protocols).... Each of these videos ends with the ever-so-pithy phrase “Not Him. Not Now. Not Ever Again” juxtaposed over a photo of Mr. Harper wearing a cowboy hat. Did no one think that, should one want to sway Conservative voters, mocking their leader by showing him in a silly hat is counterproductive, as it only underscores one’s condescension to him, and by extension, them?"
