Tuesday, November 25, 2008

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.

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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.

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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

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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?"


That's, er, not so balanced. But probably not uncommon.

If anyone's read either Wilson (which I recommend) or Artfag (which I generally love but am a little iffy on this instalment), I'm interested in your thoughts.

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Saturday, November 22, 2008

Recommended: Carte Blanche, Seth Scriver, Ivan & Heather Morrison


A few quick recommendations on Queen West:

Carte Blanche 2.0 & Art Metropole: The Top 100 at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art - The Carte Blanche show, which pulls select painters from a "best-of" coffee table tome of the same name, has been hated by the Globe's Sarah Milroy, loved by the Star's Peter Goddard, and so-so'd by EYE's David Balzer.

For my part, while I heartily agree with Milroy that having dealer and show co-curator Clint Roenisch fill 5 slots in the approximately 30-slot show with his own artists is unethical and gauche [CORRECTION: Milroy got the numbers wrong; please read my correction post here.] I have to disagree with her overall dismissal of the show. For me--a non-painter, and non-painting lover--the show is an excellent introduction to some of the best in Canadian painting. It's also a large space in which to show large works, which because of the usual small-TO-space circumstance just dosn't happen enough. I also think Liss and Roenisch, large ethical qualms aside, did a good job picking prime works--I've actually never liked the work of Shelley Adler or Kim Dorland much until I saw their works here, in context of the painter-exclusive training, history and dialogue that continues to exist whether or not we art critics would rather see painters (and curators) rise to the challenge of positioning painting effectively speaking with other media.

Also, what I think is great about the show at MOCCA is the Art Metropole Top 100 in its smaller gallery. Here you have two traditions: big, exclusive, one-off, luxury, glossy painting show in one space and the small, multiple, mechanically reproductive, mail art, video, photo, performance goddam downright anti-painting show in the other. And it really really works well, I think, both separately and side by side. Should we have instead argued that Art Met archives show painting in their collection or in this show? No. There is a value to media- (or in this case tradition-) oriented shows that, again, will continue to exist whether we generalists (that is to say, journalists) like it or not.

Seth Scriver at Katharine Mulherin/Board of Directors: How does Seth Scriver make such goddam funny art? And how does he keep on doing it? I know I shouldn't ask, I should just be glad that he does, because it makes me happy to be out and about on a cold November day. His digital animations are really terrific, as a projection of past and new works shows. (Love the manual redo of the THX Dolby screen especially! Though the animations based on stories by his Northern Ontario relatives are also hilarious--with the exception of the poodle one... that was a little creepy.) Also an unexpected delight is are the Canuck in-jokes: the spelling in fake-gold corporateese of "Hoseheads, LLP" at the entrance to the show, and a canoe made out of those glued-together layers of posters that build up on big-city construction hoardings. This latter work reads to me both as a great statement on the new urban Canadian reality and as a slight fuck-you to the Canada Council, an agency that defines Canadian content as stuff generally a little more "dignified" (read dry and humor free) than Scriver's work.

Heather & Ivan Morison @ Clint Roenisch: Roenisch really should get a pass after that stunt with Carte Blanche, but the current show is too interesting to miss. For it Wales artists Heather & Ivan Morison present a show "How to Survive (The Bad Days)" "The Bad Years (How to Survive)" that includes a tree like sculpture made out of mud from Roenisch's basement; a hole in the hardwood floor so one can see artist-dug pit in said basement; a wood-burning stove in full operation; prints of isolationist-feeling desert RV's with a threatening golden rock floating in the sky; a large mylar kite reminiscent of both Edison Alexander Graham Bell and Buckminster Fuller, and a film in the basement that riffs on that Desert RV/floating fool's gold theme with psychedelic guitar. It's ascetic and it's good. Get thee to the woodlot!

Also: Michael Merrill's show at Paul Petro Special Projects, presented by collector Steven Smart, has great little paintings that riff on museology and exhibition-making. Never saw Documenta? This show's for you (and me too).

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The Alaska Pipeline, Artforum, and a case for spending less time on Youtube


So I knew I should have been reading Artforum at the airport, and not W Magazine. After posting on petroleum related art the other day, I finally got my hands on a copy of the November issue, where lo and behold I see a great project by the Center for Land Use Interpretation documenting "prime territories fo the American oil industry: Alaska, California, and Texas." Apparently the Alaska portion is on show this month at the center's HQ in Los Angeles, with shows to follow at the Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston and a show next year about the California portion at the CLUI center. The Blaffer Gallery show is called "Texas Oil: Landscape of an industry", and will include public events that are related. I'm excited for them.

Also in the Nov Artforum that's related (if, er, less polished) an ad for a show by Italian-born artist Mattia Biagi called "Black tar" taking place in the artist's Los Angeles studio (?) to Dec 7.

Finally, on my inaugural trip to the "finished" (though really, if the extruded electric plugs and humidity fogged windows be any indication, still unfinished) Art Gallery of Ontario the other night, I was reminded that Mark Dion also has some salient works on this theme. The AGO's got a good one of a stuffed polar bear sitting in a washtub of tar with amazon sounds playing on a bear-embraced boom box. Similar works showed Goodwater gallery earlier this year... I had just forgotten about them. Probably because I've been spending too much time on Youtube. Which I now know is wrong.

Image of CLUI's Texas oil project from the Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston

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Gallery picks @ Bloor & Lans: Marc Bell, Mercer Union, MIT's Fuel


This weekend's gallery picks for the National Post led me again to Bloor and Lansdowne, where cheap rent, subway access and west-end gallery district proximity have made for a triumverate of new-gallery opportunity. Granted, the rush on property has slowed since the market crash. But there's still creative fun to be had in the area at newbie Paul Bright Gallery, stalwart Mercer Union, and conscientious Toronto Free. To find out more, click here for the digital edition and go to page O7, or read on after the jump.

Image of Marc Bell's "Life is Life" from Paul Bright Gallery

At the Galleries: West End Pearls
National Post, Nov 22, Page O7
By Leah Sandals

Last time At the Galleries visited the Bloor/Lansdowne area, it seemed well on its way to becoming gallery central. Then the market, art and otherwise, crashed hard. Still, artists and art dealers are pluckish, cheap-rent-loving sorts, and this fall has seen two new venues open in the nabe. Fill up with a dollar-stretching lunch at local fave Dosa Mahal and see for yourself.

1. Paul Bright Gallery 1265 Bloor West
The newest art outlet to join Bloordale Village—opening just three weeks ago—is also the area’s first commercial gallery. Its youthful owner, Paul Bright, has run galleries of one type or another since 1998. Often working out of London, Ontario, Bright connected creative talent from the quiet Forest City to cash-rich collectors in larger metropolises. Now the part-time New Yorker has set up shop in Toronto, and is largely working the reverse dynamic: bringing a swath of savvy Brooklyn and Philly artists to Hogtown eyeballs. (Bushwick-meets-Bonsai artiste Misaki Kawai’s kooky sculptures and paintings, opening at the gallery December 18, are an ideal example.) Bright’s opening show, however, takes him back to his roots. It features another former Londoner, Marc Bell, doing essentially what Bell does best: psychedelic, R. Crumb-flavoured, comic-styled drawings that meld both cheese and cheek. Here, each drawing—originally published as a series in Vice Magazine—illustrates the lyrics for a pop song in a decidedly un-MTV-like way. Whether you’re gazing on Laibach’s “Life is Life” rendered as a series of square-headed portraits or on Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell” acted out by a half a corndog, Bell’s flair for absurdity shines through. Definitely worth a look before the December 13 close, even if you only have cash to walk away with a $10 zine rather than a $1000 sketch.

2. Mercer Union, 1286 Bloor St W
Since 1979, the artist-run gallery Mercer Union has carved itself an honourable spot in the Canadian cultural landscape. Now, with a move away from its soon-to-be-condos Queen West digs, Mercer is showing it can carve out another type of honourable spot—this time by transforming a former dollar store at the corner of Bloor and St Clarens into a high-ceilinged art haven. It helps that the building has good bones—it was originally designed by Casa Loma and Old City Hall architect EJ Lennox as a theatre, and still has some of its pressed-tin lining intact. Until November 29, Mercer’s relaunch show is presenting some other riffs on redesign and relocation. In the back gallery, Christof Migone’s installation features a disco ball stripped of its mirrors and record covers revamped to emphasize the circular form of vinyl-trapped tracks. Minimalist versions of strobe lights and fog machines further enhance the uptight-yet-punk-rock feel. In the front gallery, Gwen MacGregor and Sandra Rechico bring different modes of mapping to walks in four different cities. Their goopy, stringy Montreal map is lovely, as are the ultradense drawings that contain some 150 km worth of lines—a reproduction of the distance the artists strode in Kassel, Germany.

3. Toronto Free Gallery, 1277 Bloor St W
Back in March, Toronto Free director Heather Haynes kicked off the Bloor West gallery trend with an opening show on Creative Activism. Now, following a successful show of Black Panther posters in September, the gallery continues its focus on conscientious creativity with Rig, an exhibition on alternative energy. It’s all part of a launch for Fuel, the latest think-piece tome from MIT-TO co-pro Alphabet City. Though the show doesn’t open until Thursday, the book’s now available at across the city. Get a copy and study up to hone some conservation-loving cocktail chatter for the opening, free to all starting 7pm on November 27.

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