National Portrait Gallery to be Resurrected this Summer by Latitude 53

Remember the National Portrait Gallery debacle? It received a lot of (merited) outcry in the past few years.

This summer, Latitude 53, an Edmonton artist-run centre, intends to resurrect the NPG dream, if only in a small way. Its savvily framed exhibition is described as follows:

This summer from June 11 until July 17, Latitude 53 hosts an artist-initiated response to the Portrait Gallery of Canada fiasco that has made headlines over the last few years, culminating in cancellation and sublimation into Library and Archives Canada in 2009. Conceived by a group of Edmonton artists, this National Portrait Gallery includes work from across Canada in a vital, artist-focused collection intended as a shadow of the official project with an eye to contemporary relevance. Organizer Fish Griwkowsky says, “Instead of lamenting Edmonton’s ignored bid to house Gatineau’s treasure, we decided to build a grassroots collection in the West, calling on artists across the country to join in. The NPG hopes to revitalize, decentralize and liberate the very idea of a national portrait gallery.”

The first stage of the National Portrait Gallery, a group show opening June 11, 2010, at Latitude 53 in downtown Edmonton, includes the work of thirty artists in a variety of disciplines, includ- ing traditional painted portraiture, music, film and experimental forms. The artists include well- known Canadian names like Douglas Coupland, exciting and varied contemporary talents such as Hank & Lilly and Daniel Barrow, and a strong contingent from Edmonton and Western Canada including Kristy Trinier, Jonathan Kaiser, Terrance Houle, Brandon Blommaert, Megan Morman and many more.

It's sounds like a great idea and I'm intrigued to hear how it pans out.

Image of what might have been our National Portrait Gallery in Ottawa from the National Post

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This is My Cecil: Hotel Histories

The Cecil Hotel in Calgary has a bit of a notorious reputation. According to the CBC, police were called there 1,700 times in just one year, and there was a stabbing death there in 2008. This year Then, the City of Calgary took possession of the building, and some councillors wish for it to be demolished as part of a "revitalization" of the surrounding area.

But as artist Tomas Jonsson is attempting to show in his project This is My Cecil, there are also more complex histories of the hotel--ones that tie into struggles between the affluent and the poor, between developers and social aid agencies, between heritage and progress.

On Tuesday, May 11, Jonsson began holding regularly scheduled workshops (Monday-Friday, 5-8pm) at the Epcor Centre to to facilitate sharing of narratives around the Cecil. As Jonsson notes in an essay,

It is clear that the Cecil needs to change, but what the nature of that change can be is still a matter of debate. As a city-owned asset, all citizens own it, and have the right to present their ideas on the site and related issues. A proposal for the Cecil that embraces the complexities of the site and takes up difficult discussions is neccesary to truly understand the lived use, and what this entails. Rather than paving over, excising its recent past, the Cecil can instead work as a conduit to take this up and work through the troubled legacy of Calgary’s development and identity.

In his essay, Jonsson also notes similarities to situations in the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver; I would add there are collaries to Queen West in Toronto as well (the film Last Call at the Gladstone Hotel comes to mind). He also notes photographer George Webber's past work in documenting Cecil Hotel residents and exteriors.

In any case, Jonsson's project sounds interesting. Closing reception is May 28 at the Epcor Centre, if you'd like to talk with him about the results of his research.

1982 image of the Cecil from On Site Review

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From Ha-Ha to Horror: Sanchez Bros. Q&A out today

Carlos and Jason Sanchez's work is pretty dang dark, but in person the brother-art-duo is jovial, finishing each other's sentences with quips and goofy grins. I spoke with them a few weeks ago at Nicholas Metivier Gallery, where they're having Contact-related show of works old and new. Today the National Post published our condensed Q&A. Here's an excerpt:

Q Can you talk about where some of the works in this show came from?

A Our newest image, By the Skin of His Teeth [pictured above] was based on Jeffrey Dahmer's last victim, who got away and was seen running from Dahmer's house with one handcuff on. We tried to make it reportage style, to make it look as real as possible.

The Hiroshima image is more like a postcard. The idea was to make it look as beautiful as possible--to take this horrible thing and twist it around a bit. The gas chamber at Auschwitz was also a straight shot. They have a whole department set up to accommodate photographers --you just have to shoot at night, when it's closed to visitors. So we were there around midnight.

Friendly Fire was shot in Arizona. We had seen a press clipping of Afghan soldiers standing around a big pool of blood in the desert; the caption said something like "American forces accidentally kill eight Afghan soldiers."

And The Everyday, that was inspired by the film Children of Men. There was an explosion scene in it that was just incredible--long, handheld shots, just amazing.

You can read on here about the Sanchez's first-ever feature film project (upcoming) as well as the adolescent-humor vids they made as bored Montreal-suburb teens.

Image of the Sanchez Brothers' By the Skin of His Teeth 2010 from Nicholas Metivier Gallery

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Of Race and Representation: Q&A with Kerry James Marshall

Kerry James Marshall's first Canadian solo show opened at the Vancouver Art Gallery over the weekend, and before that he kindly made time to chat with me on the phone about some aspects of his practice, including his thoughts on images of black people (or lack thereof) in art museums. A few exchanges from our conversation appear in today's National Post. An excerpt:

Q At the age of 14, you vowed never to paint a white person. Why?

A That statement came from thinking about art history. When you read art books and go to museums, almost all the people you see in paintings are white. When you take classes at art schools, almost all the models -- at least that we had -- were white. What you do with that experience is take for granted that white-figure representation is what constitutes art. The idea of the black figure in pictures is not something that people have as part of their common experience.

So when I first started making pictures, that was what I did, too--I made compositions with white figures, because "that's what art looked like." Since then, I became interested in what people expect to see when they go to a museum. That's why I decided I would always paint black figures--to me, that has the greatest transformative effect on people's expectations of art.

When it becomes common to see black figures in art, there won't be a need to make that statement. But until then, you have to hold to a conscious effort to introduce something different into people's art-going experiences.

Image of Kerry James Marshall's Our Town (1995) from Saatchi Gallery (which reproduces some of Marshall's advice to young artists well worth reading)

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Recommended: Are Museums Nonprofit or For-Profit?

Though Toronto in general is Banksy-crazy right now (I saw a bunch of photographers huddled around one of the suspected-his fresh images on Spadina near Queen this afternoon), I'm for some reason in the title of the new documentary about him, "Exit through the Gift Shop." On the great Center for the Future of Museums blog, former Smithsonian counsel Marie Malaro has this to say about shaping the financial future of museums (though her examples are American, particularly as they relate to current US crises around nonprofits, I'd say the principles apply in Canada too):

The position the museum community now finds itself in should have been foreseen at least 30 years ago. By the early 1990’s museums were becoming more and more market oriented. The bicentennial boom of the 1970’s and early 80’s with its out- pouring of grant money for museums was over and many museums were left with new buildings and programs that were costly to sustain. The solution for many was to embrace a more entrepreneurial approach to acquiring income.

The first steps were tentative but the spirit of competition soon took hold. Museum shops were moved to center stage in museums and some even ended up in shopping malls. Exhibitions became “events” not supported by philanthropy but by corporate sponsorships which are nothing more than business arrangements with for-profits organizations. “Lending for profit” became common place and museums joined the bandwagon only to be diverted when marketers began singing the praises of “branding”. And, not surprisingly, those holding major management positions in museums began to compare themselves with managers in the for-profit world and demand similar compensation packages. It is growing harder and harder to tell whether museums are nonprofit or for-profit organizations by the way too many operate today and just about every problem now facing museums is due to the failure of museums to understand and adhere to their nonprofit status. Let me explain this sweeping statement.

We support a nonprofit sector in this country and afford it many privileges because we expect that sector to offer our society services and products that cannot be provided by our government sector or our for-profit sector. In other words, nonprofits are expected to stand apart from the other two sectors and put their special privileges (great tax advantages, government encouraged philanthropy, freedom to accept volunteer services and a public willing to volunteer,) to good use so they can provide their unique services and products to the public. When the nonprofit sector forgets what its distinctive role is (when what it offers cannot be distinguished from what the other two sectors provide) it places in jeopardy its special privileges, and the good will of the public. This is why we see so many attempts by governments to curtail tax exemptions enjoyed by nonprofits, why true philanthropy (giving without expecting anything in return) is being replaced by “deal-making" and why there is so much confusion in the profession about what a museum is....

In a nutshell, there is a bright and secure future for museums if they truly commit to their nonprofit status in both word and action and demonstrate to the public that what they offer is unique and important.

I'm not against gift shops per se; I actually like to browse them a fair bit. But I tend to worry the same way Malaro does--that museums must remember they are nonprofits and commit to that in word and in action. (This is also the basis of my continuing concerns about rising museum admission fees--museums are mandated as nonprofits to provide access, yet are shutting more and more people out economically speaking.) It is worth reading the full post here. She also has a book on museum governance, if you're interested.

Image of possible Banksy rat in Toronto from Torontoist

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Reviews: Jens Haaning's Sunshine Girls, Adam Harrison's Digital Romantics, Thaddeus Holownia's Good-Lookin Book

For my at the At the Galleries column in today's National Post, I visited three exhibitions that seemed to depend a lot on context. (What aren't art doesn't, of course... but with these three—Jens Haaning at Guelph Goodwater, Adam Harrison at Clark & Faria, and Thaddeus Holownia at Corkin Gallery) the factor seemed extra-present. An excerpt:

1. Jens Haaning at Guelph Goodwater
234 Queen St. E.
Copenhagen artist Jens Haaning often presents texts, such as highway signs, that are foreign to the country they're exhibited in. Here, his 33 Page 9 Girls continues the practice, albeit with a (rather distracting) twist: The texts are pinup-girl interviews from a Copenhagen newspaper [Ekstra Bladet], and yes, pictures accompany. One of the most fascinating things about this show -- nudity-friendliness of European journalism aside -- is the range of ways these women present themselves. Asked what their best feature is, answers range from "my ass, of course!" to "my brainy head." Some go full monty, while others are relatively demure. Overall, this feels like an anthropological document of Western womanhood -- a realm that has many possibilities, but many prescribed limits, too. Though some of these women work in auto-body shops, and others plan careers as teachers, the fact is that each receives media attention because of her relatively nubile body and her willingness to bare it. While that reality is reflected in local "Sunshine girls," geographic distance and a gallery setting prompt viewers to consider that, er, truth with more seriousness than they might usually. To May 22.

Image of Copenhagen newspaper Ekstra Bladet from spiesesedler.dk

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The Charmaine Wheatley Pamphlet that Broke My Heart, and a Few Other Nice Things At Art Metropole

I don't drop by Art Metropole nearly enough. This is the thought that occurred to me when I did at long last stop by the other day to see what might be worth a read while standing and holding my bag. Here's what I found:


Charmaine Wheatley's 30% of Buffalo
A few times in the past on this blog I've noted the fact that I can be a sucker for artworks that are reading/writing-oriented, since these are two of my primary interests. 30% of Buffalo falls firmly into this category, but it's something I think others who are less biased to print than myself would also enjoy... or should, dammit! In this zine/graphic novel/booklet, Charmaine Wheatley offers drawings of and stories from adults who are learning how to read in Buffalo, NY. (The title comes from the stat that apparently 30% of Buffalo residents are functionally illiterate.) I finished this book angered at the public school system (and/or lack of funding for literacy supports in same) and so, so impressed with the so many unsung volunteers and nonprofit workers who engage in trying to help adults read and write. Above and beyond, I was very touched by the stories of the learners who were willing to speak to Wheatley. Frank, funny and true, true, true.


Micah Lexier: I'm Thinking of a Number by various authors
OK, so when it comes to publications, Micah Lexier is no slouch. The man knows his bookworks pretty well. I'm thinking, as an example of the reverse-knockout text project he did for Border Crossings #112, or that collaboration with Colm Toibin and 1334 public school students from a few years back. Anyway, I'm thinking of a number is more a publication about Lexier than by him--it's a survey of his works including essays by AA Bronson and Garry Neill Kennedy. Being all browsy and standy in the shop and all, I didn't actually get to read said essays, but I was impressed by the sharp-looking design and printing and the range of works reproduced. (For those who are extra keen, there's a Toronto launch for this book May 17 at Type.)


Two Boiler Suits and a Playlist: A Guide for Primates by Bill Burns
I actually saw this book at YYZ before I saw it at Art Met, but no matter--it's good in both places. In this small paperback, Burns lists the supplies provided to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and provides simple line drawings thereof. It's has a bare-bones, children's-picture-book feel that absolutely works. Why? Because we all know it must completely suck to be at Guantanamo Bay, in so many horrific ways, and probably some banal ones too. But bringing it back to the details of simple supplies, of the physical details of life, of a "kit" for imprisonment, as it were, Burns makes that experience real in a way that the abstraction of "Guantanamo Bay" does not. For instance, I did not know that there were special spherical-design toothbrushes provided to prisoners nowadays (I presume it's harder to make a shiv out of these guys?). Two orange boiler suits--one to wash and one to wear, how.... convenient? Yes, I liked the emphasis on practicalities there. As an added touch, Burns includes a playlist of songs played to Guantanamo prisoners. I can't recall the entire list right now, but it is far from peace-inducing, and also provides that "daily life" dimension of reality I mentioned previously. For bigger spenders, Burns has also produced a box set including some of the records from the playlist. I'm a bit cool on those discs, but I do like the large IKEA-style drawings of watchtowers and prison cells that Burns includes in that larger multiple, which is titled Guard Tower Plans, Prison Cell Plans and the Songs of Guantanamo Bay.

Fuck Death Mug
I have no idea what the Fuck Death Foundation is, but I sure do enjoy their ephemera.

Image 1 & 2 from Charmaine Wheatley's website, image 3 from NSCAD Press, image 4 & 5 from Art Met

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