Saturday, February 27, 2010

Recommended & Closing Today: Takao Tanabe


A couple of weeks ago, I had planned on reviewing Takao Tanabe's Mira Godard show for the National Post, as well as a couple of other exhibitions in the (let's admit it, fairly hit-and-miss and overtly fusty/unhip) Yorkville galleries area. Because those reviews were pushed back a couple of weeks by the paper (as often happens in the media game) the review came out today, when the show is closing. Nevertheless, it's worth a look this afternoon if you can still make it. Here's my take.

Mira Godard's spotlight on senior Canadian artist Takao Tanabe, which closes today, is a treat. In addition to showing off some of Tanabe's striking abstract paintings of the 1950s and '60s, Godard does a real service to viewers by exhibiting later prints and a couple of more recent landscapes. The results provide a sense of how Tanabe's art has evolved. Small, bold, hard-edged jewels of paintings from the mid-1960s, for instance, have clear connections to the op-arty, mathematically inclined screenprints of the late 1960s. Tanabe's Landscape Fragment paintings of the late 1950s, which riffed on the graphic shapes outlined by rocks and trees, echo in recent woodblock prints of the B.C. coast. There's even a small collage, gifted to the gallery's owner in 1965, that shows off an elemental playfulness that's sometimes overlooked, given Tanabe's usually precise execution. Admittedly, some works here are stronger than others. A few 1950s paintings seem muddy in comparison to clearer, cleaner later works.

Image of Tanabe's Bands 1964 from Mira Godard Gallery

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Friday, February 26, 2010

Fashion, War and Beauty: Q&A with Wangechi Mutu out in today's National Post


Wangechi Mutu's solo show just opened at the Art Gallery of Ontario on Wednesday, right after Deutsche Bank announced her as its artist of the year for 2010. All in a week's work for Mutu, who is gearing up for a lot of big shows this year (some of her work is at the Guggenheim right now too). In my Q&A with her for the National Post, we got to touch on a some of the small aspects of her large, intense works. Here's an excerpt:

Q Your art is beautiful, but can also be difficult to look at. Why is it important for you to conjure both?

A I think the fact that we can't agree on what is beautiful and ugly is one of the things my work is founded upon. I don't go out of my way to do either one or the other, and I don't see massive divisions between them. It is hard when I ask people what they find beautiful and disturbing in my work, because I don't always agree. I'm like, "You don't find this beautiful? It's beautiful to me." But the discussion of what is beautiful and what is ugly is really deep and visceral. It's also a point of contention, because we often have beauty standards that only work in one direction.


Also:

Q You appeared in Vogue magazine last year. What was that like for you, as someone who's cut these magazines apart?

A I don't believe fashion magazines are an all-encapsulating evil. But I do think fashion plays a part in the oppression of women - you see the same kind of person in them all the time, and that's a fiction I was frustrated with because there's women of so many different cultures and sizes and shapes. So I was actually very proud to be photographed as a pregnant artist who is continuing my life with a career and a family. I think it's something a lot of women don't let be known, because for most women it is hard to be taken seriously while having a family.


For those who are interested in finding out more, I recommend reading this long-form interview Mutu did with the amazing Barbara Kruger in Interview mag a couple of years ago. Seeing the show isn't a bad idea either!

(Image of Mutu's Sleeping Heads 4 of 8 from the National Post )

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Today! Free student screening of Yoshitomo Nara film @ Reel Artists


Ample snowfall has cancelled some school buses in southern Ontario today. But I hope some students still make it out to the Yoshitomo Nara film screening at Reel Artists this afternoon. Why? I'm introducing the flick, and found it to be surprisingly sweet and touching as a story. It screens at 2:30pm at the Al Green Theatre. For more information on student ticketing (ID and some advance confirmation is required) visit canadianart.ca/raff/schedule.

Image from the film Traveling with Yoshitomo Nara from Pop Matters

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Thursday, February 25, 2010

Tonight! Face the Critic at the Drake Hotel


Tonight, two of the most reviled and debated elements in the Toronto art scene come together: art critics and the Drake Hotel. The occasion is an event called "Face the Critic," featuring Andrea Carson, RM Vaughan and myself. (Hat tip to Mia Nielsen at the Drake for organizing it all.)

I'm looking forward to the event, if only to discover what my colleagues have brought as their examples of "most loved" and "most loathed" work. The event kicks off at 7, with everyone welcome and free admission. There's also a bonus: 100 people will get free a free work of art by Nikola Nikola, in keeping with the Drake's weekly Thursday art giveaways. Come on down!

Image of the Drake Hotel by Simon P from Wikimedia Commons

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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Out today: Q&A with Eija Liisa Ahtila on Art and Cinema


Finnish artist Eija Liisa Ahtila has won worldwide renown for her experimental approach to cinema. I got to ask her more about it in a phone chat last month on the occasion of her opening a show at the DHC/ART Foundation in Montreal. Today, the National Post published a condensed take on our exchange. Here's an excerpt:

Q You've made some notable films about illnesses such as psychosis and schizophrenia. Why is it important to you to expose viewers to these mental states?

A Essentially, I'm interested in the world of people who see things and hear things that are "extra" to everyday, ordinary life. What also fascinates me is the idea of the border between who is sane and who is not. Looking at characters with psychosis and schizophrenia also gave me a chance to explore formal structures in film. In their world, I could look at really different possibilities of fictional narrative. I could make characters do things that really don't take place in our ordinary lives -- I could make people fly, for instance.


Also:

Q Do you ever still enjoy just going to the cineplex and watching mainstream movies?

A Yes, for sure. There are a lot of good new films out there. But I have to say I tend to like those films that have experimental narratives. I think that many Hollywood films don't really appreciate thinking about humans, and thinking about how we experience life. Well, maybe that's too strong. We all have our own education in watching moving images. Maybe there should just be more different ways of writing and producing drama.


Image still of Ahtila's The House from the National Post

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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Public Art Inspiration from LA: Billboards-for-Art Project


Everyone seems to be swooning over a current public art project in Los Angeles that turns billboards over to various artists. And you know what? I'm going to join right in. Given the billboard-tax-for-art and illegal-signs debates ongoing in Toronto, this has some special resonance for Hogtown. The project is coordinated by the Mak Centre for Art and Architecture and features art by Brandon Lattu, Martha Rosler, Kori Newkirk and others. It looks like the project will continue through March.

Tip of the hat to Stanzie Tooth for the suggestion.

Image of Jennifer Bornstein's billboard from the Mak Center

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Artist thoughts on Clement Greenberg: "Clem was full of shit"


Further to a previous post about art vs words, I came across this entertaining passage today. It's from Robert Ayers' interview with painter Lawrence Poons, which Ayres posted on his blog A Sky filled with Shooting Stars in February of last year. Though it seems Poons benefited from critic Clement Greenberg's writings in the 1960s, he makes clear in the exchange below what he thinks of Greenberg's approach.

Q [If] art is never finished, how can we tell whether it’s any good or not?

A The art that we’re talking about is never finished. It can’t be. It isn’t in its nature. When things are finished isn’t a willful thing. Is a Mondrian finished? No. But is a [Fritz] Glarner? Yeah. That’s why a Mondrian’s better. And Mondrian or Glarner, they have no control over this. Beethoven had no control over being that good. Impossible. It wasn’t his fault he was that good. And it wasn’t Pollock’s fault that he was that wonderful. So if somebody says, “Oh, that’s good!” you can’t get a swelled head because you know that if perchance it is any good, that’s almost the way it is – it’s by chance!

Almost every time I come back to one of these new pictures, I almost don’t remember it. It looks different every time. I don’t understand it. Well, I do understand it because I see it, and seeing is understanding when we’re talking about painting. There’s no gap between seeing and understanding.

Q Not everyone believes that, though. A lot of people think that words are very important to understanding painting. Clement Greenberg, for one.

A Clem was full of shit. And why? Because Clem wasn’t a painter, that’s all. Clem tried all kinds of writing. Clem wanted to be a playwright, or a poet, or a novelist, or a short story writer. But he was a writer in search of a subject. He realized that his gift was in language, but he didn’t have a subject that would utilize it without it being all phoneyed up with plots and stuff, which obviously was not his thing. So art became his subject, and then he could write. And it’s his writing that matters – whether he says black is blue or blue is black, it doesn’t matter. It’s how he puts it all together that makes it such a great read! And that’s Greenberg. If it hadn’t have been for his writing then he would have just been somebody else who liked Pollock, and there were a lot of people who liked Pollock. My God, even Pollock’s wife knew he was terrific!


I don't get the "even Pollock's wife" thing, but I find the rest of it interesting...

Archival image of Poons in the studio from Triangle Arts Trust

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