CORRECTION - Sunday September 25, 2011 - As a reader helpfully pointed out in the comments below, there is an error in this At the Galleries column. The original text states incorrectly that Winnie Truong was the winner of the 2010 OCADU Drawing & Painting Medal. In 2010, Truong actually won the W.O. Forsythe Award from OCADU, and the correct winner of the 2010 OCADU Drawing & Painting Medal was Vanessa Maltese. I very much regret the error, and any confusion it may have caused. My editors at the National Post have been notified in order that a correction be run there as well. Again, my apologies for this inaccurate statement.
Sooooo many painting shows going on in Toronto right now! For my lastest National Post gallery column, up now at Posted Toronto and out in tomorrow's print edition, I look at three such shows I recently enjoyed: Mark Crofton Bell at General Hardware, Rajni Perera at 129 Ossington and Dil Hildebrand at YYZ. An excerpt:
Mark Crofton Bell at General Hardware Contemporary
1520 Queen St. W., to Oct. 8
The luminescent quality of Mark Crofton Bell’s oil paintings — and the dreamy, slightly surreal scenes they render — made Peter Doig’s internationally famed canvases an inescapable reference point for me while visiting Bell’s exhibition at General Hardware. Nonetheless, there is much to be enjoyed in Bell’s paintings in their own right. The thin layers of oil paint that he uses to build up each image convey a simultaneous sense of lightness and depth, a delightful combination that keeps you looking. Yet that considerable visual pleasure often gives way to a scene that feels slightly off — a hallway crowded with dogs, say, or a sky dark with swarming birds. This more sinister underpinning to Bell’s images is elucidated in an exhibition essay by Shannon Anderson, which explains that a colourful image of balloons on water is based on the story of a drowning victim, and that a puff of cloud above a lake, classic wilderness-scene material, at first glance, is based on a photograph of a North Korean explosion. Once I became aware of such sources, a tension was set up in myself between wanting to look longer, and wanting look away — particularly when it came to the cell-like images in the gallery’s basement. That dynamic was reinforced on the second floor in an assortment of Bell’s delicate watercolours, which are often more explicitly drawn from news photos of riots and other disturbing incidents. Whatever your take on Bell’s possible influences, his mix of wondrous technique and worrying content is a hard one to forget.
For the other reviews, plus a couple of other recommendations, read on at Posted Toronto.
Also, I came across a link recently that will be of interest to many who do arts reviewing -- it's by a PhD student studying the concept of "quality" in the arts and who's been researching how literary critics evaluate books differently in writing and in spoken word. The article, "Morals and Mean Reviews," by Phillipa Chong, is up at the Toronto Review of Books. Chong says she will soon be expanding her field of research into art criticism and movie criticism, and I look forward to seeing what her results yield!
(Image of Mark Crofton Bell's painting Double Phenomenon via Akimbo.ca)
Friday, September 23, 2011
CORRECTION Three Painting-Show Reviews: Mark Crofton Bell @ General Hardware, Rajni Perera @ 129 Ossington, Dil Hildebrand @ YYZ
Thursday, September 22, 2011
The DIY Red Carpet Treatment: Q&A with Vincent Chevalier out in today's National Post

Following on the celebrity-crazed heels of TIFF, I was even more powerless than usual to resist the charms of Montreal artist Vincent Chevalier's satirical twist on fame: The Red Carpet Treatment. With prior performances in Finland and Montreal, and a current one in Kitchener as part of CAFKA, I think Chevalier's cheeky gesture is definitely autograph-worthy. Chevalier took some time to chat with me on the phone about the project this week, and the condensed Q&A is out in today's National Post. An excerpt:
Q How does your project The Red Carpet Treatment work?
A I'm in Kitchener for 10 days, until the 26th. And for those 10 days I will be walking on this piece of red carpet, which is about my height and my width. Everywhere that I go for that period in outdoor space - doorstep to doorstep - I move forward by putting the carpet in front of me, then taking two steps, then turning around and picking it up, then putting it in front of me, taking two steps, turning around and picking it up, then putting it in front of me, and so on. In indoor spaces, I roll the carpet up and put it in a little bag and walk normally. So I'm always arriving on the red carpet in every place that I go.
Q Wow. Why did you start this project?
A I'm interested in the way that celebrity is taken for granted and given a lot of attention. Obviously, there's also a lot of capital and labour that's put into the whole production of celebrity; there's a whole slew of people working to put that red carpet down for the Academy Awards - people who "don't have names, don't have personalities." The only personalities that shine through are those of the people on the red carpet itself. I wanted to create something that collapsed the privilege and the labour of all that into one gesture. So I'm the producer and the product of my own fame. This is my fourth day in Kitchener and people have already begun to recognize me.
For more--including info on a possible evolution of the project-- read on at the Post. Check Chevalier's website for images from past performances too. And to catch Chevalier in person, check out the streets of downtown Kitchener until September 26th. Again, his presence there comes courtesy of CAFKA, the Contemporary Art Forum of Kitchener and Area.
(Image of Chevalier performing The Red Carpet Treatment in Finland in 2009 from his website)
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Richard Barnes Q&A out in today's National Post
American photographer Richard Barnes has spent more than a decade photographing in museums, and prompting questions about their role in contemporary culture. Some of the striking results are on display at Bau-Xi Photo in Toronto until September 24. (A comprehensive view of his projects is also on display in his book Animal Logic, available nationwide.)
Last week, Barnes spoke to me over the phone about some aspects of his practice. The resulting Q&A is out in the print edition of today's National Post. An excerpt:
Q You’ve been photographing in museums for some time now. Why?
A When I was a student just out of college, I was the photographer for an archaeological excavation in Egypt. Over years of doing that, I started to become interested in the trajectory of what we were taking out of the ground and where it eventually ended up. That led me to photographing in the Cairo Museum, which is an amazing place. Slowly, my interest turned to natural history museums. How we define ourselves through collections, whether they’re individual or national, is something I find fascinating. And the fact that most of what we collect in museums ends up in deep storage—that 90 percent is hidden—is fascinating to me as well.
Q Where did you take some of these photographs?
A Man with Buffalo was taken in Ottawa at the Canadian Museum of Nature; I was working with a Missouri man who goes around the world and does restorations of dioramas. Academy Animals with Painter was taken in San Francisco at the Academy of Sciences. They’d had a fire and were repairing smoke damage, and I happened to be there to photograph something else when I walked by and thought, “My god, that’s curious—animals all covered in plastic.” That was the start of this project. Overall, I’m interested in the theatricality of museums, in the things that are choreographed for you as you walk through, especially dioramas. They’re quite moving for me.
Q How are they moving, exactly?
A Well, I find it paradoxical, the fact that we go out into nature and kill an animal and bring it back and reanimate it behind glass. It’s odd. And dioramas are magical. When I looked at them as a child, and now as an adult, I’m still taken in. I know these animals are dead, but for me, in a sense, they’ve come back to life.
To read the rest, seek out today's Arts & Life section of the National Post.
A very cool thing coming up for Barnes: National Geographic will be publishing his photos of what he calls "living dioramas"--Civil War reenactments. He photographed these reenactments with Civil War-era tintype technology, but, since his first rounds looked too much like what he called a "Civil War trove" he made sure to include images of contemporary spectators on the later rounds of the project. I got a peek at the photos and they are very cool. I advise keeping an eye out for 'em!
I also like the way that Barnes, later in the interview, insists on the validity of what a viewer brings to an artifact, rather than simply giving over to the meaning that has been "choreographed" for it.
(Image of Barnes' Man with Buffalo via Bau-Xi Photo)
Thursday, September 15, 2011
"I'm fascinated with the problem of art in the suburbs": Trevor Copp profile now up on Yonge Street
My education in different art forms and different parts of the city continued this August with some visits to Kitchener and Burlington to meet Trevor Copp, founder of Tottering Biped Theatre, one of the first--if not the first--contemporary professional producing theatre based in the City of Burlington.
Copp loves avant-garde theatre but also loves living in the suburbs/small cities surrounding Toronto. So he decided to bring the former to the latter.
An excerpt from the resulting article, published yesterday on Yonge Street:
At first, this August evening in Burlington's Optimist Park seems like a typical suburban midsummer night's dream: Two adult slo-pitch teams compete on a diamond, a passel of dog walkers stroll lawns and a few errant balls thwack softly into tennis-court nets.
But in a two-storey cinder-block building at the edge of the park, history is being made.
Inside, First Dance, one of the first—if not the first—professional contemporary plays to ever originate in Burlington, is premiering to a rapt audience. The chatty audience hushes as the house lights dim to reveal a man shaving—a ritual interrupted by the arrival of another man who carefully proceeded to dip, twirl and lift the first while shaving off the rest of his stubble.
Moving from this intimate moment to scenes set in salsa clubs, small-town backyards, Algonquin lakes and 1980s-era World Wrestling Federation matches, this funny, poignant play is far from typical summer stock fare. Tracing the story of a young gay man trying to determine a suitable "first dance" for his upcoming wedding, the production deals with same-sex marriage, homophobia, the politics of ballroom dance and (yes) real life in the suburbs.
"I've become fascinated with the problem of art in suburbia," says Trevor Copp, the performer and co-creator of Tottering Biped Theatre (TBT), which brought First Dance to fruition. "Suburbanites allocate their sense of culture to the city. They feel like we're just an adjunct of the city, that our life is just sort of a surrogate thing, a temporary life between commutes. And I have a problem with the sense that our stories are not legitimate."
For more, read on at Yonge Street Media.
(Image of Tottering Biped founder Trevor Copp and First Dance co-creator Jeff Fox via Yonge Street)
Friday, September 9, 2011
TIFF Art Thoughts up at Posted Toronto
TIFF is very celebrity friendly, but it's also got an art angle in its Future Projections and Wavelengths programs. Today, Posted Toronto (the Hogtown-centric blog of the National Post) published my art recommendations for the fest. An excerpt:
There’s serious, yet seriously enjoyable, works at Future Projections this year — many by Toronto artists. At the top of the heap is Elle Flanders and Tamira Sawatsky’s terrific Road Movie, showing at 51 Woleseley St. Demonstrating that there’s often more than two sides to every story, Road Movie’s layered look at life in Israel and Palestine unfolds across six screens on three wall-like structures. Though some might find the premise heavy-handed — one side of the “walls” features stories from travels with Israelis, the other side tales from journeys with Palestinians — this duo weaves an experience that is elegant and unexpected.
Also strong is Nicholas and Sheila Pye’s show Light as a Feather Stiff as a Board at Birch Libralato (129 Tecumseth St.). The Pyes may have split romantically, but their collaborative art practice continues to chug along here with a characteristically dreamy brew of sensual and painterly psychic dramas. In the central work, The Flower Eaters, one artist eats a rose, while the other plucks petals from their mouth — a mythical, ancient-seeming premise remade Gen Y style.
Finally, veteran filmmaker Peter Lynch’s Buffalo Days gives the ROM’s gloomy Spirit House (100 Queen’s Park) some much-needed, well, spirit, marrying views of Alberta landscapes with an evocative soundtrack of Blackfoot drumming. Also promising: When David Rokeby’s electronic installations work (like his light cube at Telus House) they’re wondrous. When there’s technical glitches, not so much. Fingers crossed for his effort at the Drake Hotel (1150 Queen St. W.).
For more (including James Franco and Mr. Brainwash) read on at Posted Toronto or look in tomorrow's print edition of the Post's Toronto section.
(Installation view of Elle Flanders & Tamira Sawatsky's Road Movie by Tom Blanchard and via the National Post)
Monday, August 29, 2011
Framing Canada's Farm Workers: Q&A with Meera Margaret Singh
Goldarnit, I really like Meera Margaret Singh's photographs. She has some up right now at Harbourfront Centre--part of a commission to document the Ontario Greenbelt. Singh tackled the project by doing portraits of migrant workers, immigrant farmers and women farmers in the Greenbelt.
Part of what I like about these portraits is they do an excellent job of making me consider the individual histories behind occupational roles--kind of like August Sander in reverse, mebbe?
So I was happy Singh was able to take some to time to chat with me about this Farmland series a few weeks ago. The resulting condensed Q&A came out in last Thursday's National Post. An excerpt:
Q: When you were commissioned to photograph the Ontario Greenbelt, you decided to focus on female farmers, immigrant farmers and migrant workers. Why?
A: My first degree was in anthropology, and I love working with portraiture and with people. I’m also interested in suspension, whether it’s physical or psychological, and in displacement. So when I started researching and realized how many migrant workers were living in the greenbelt — people who spend eight months here and then re-adapt to their homelands each year — I gravitated toward that. And when I actually started cold-calling farms, I was introduced to immigrant farmers, and some of those were really powerful women. So I branched out. Overall, I wasn’t interested in doing an exposé or a documentary; I was interested in pulling people aside from work and interrupting that routine for a period of time.
Q: In your images, I see these people quite forcefully as individuals, rather than as workers. Who’s the individual in your photo Patricia?
A: Patricia was shot in this big greenhouse for begonias and cacti. When I went in, the light was so beautiful. There were predominantly Mexican workers, but also women from Cambodia, Vietnam and Southeast Asia, and a few Jamaican workers, too. I saw this very shy woman who, at the same time, had this strength in her. I work very intuitively; I can really be drawn to somebody and not understand why. Patricia didn’t even make a lot of eye contact. But the moment I was one on one with her, it was like she became this goddess or something! I was really happy that her strength came through. And then the moment the camera was put away, she went back to her routine. I like these odd, out of the ordinary moments.
For more details, read on at the Post's Ampersand blog. For more images of Singh's work, check her website.
(Image of Meera Margaret Singh's Patricia courtesy of the artist)
Artists in the GTA: Nothing but the Besque
Catching up on publications I missed while on vacation, on Wednesday Yonge Street Media published my profile of Mississauga-raised hip-hop artist Besque. An excerpt:
He's toured with Grammy-winning reggae artist Sean Paul, opened for Wu-Tang Clan's Raekwon, and released albums on three continents. But as he gears up for a fall of singles releases, Juno-nominated hip-hop artist Besque (formerly known as Arabesque) is still happy to call the GTA home. "I know it's so cliche, but there's no place, really, like home," the Mississauga-based Besque says over the phone during a recent trip to New York City. "Touring, I'd visit all these homogenous societies. You come back to Toronto and you feel the mosaic -- there's nothing really like it."
Besque has been spending parts of his summer in the stark opposite of blingy, marquee-name environments: namely, nonprofit organizations serving the poor and homeless in New York, Washington and Toronto's own Moss Park. The aim is to create a video and brief documentary for "Not Enough Love," one of Besque's fall singles.
"[Not Enough Love] is basically looking at poverty and how people have become so desensitized to the homeless," he explains. He hopes the video and doc will show some of what's most impressed him in these places -- "the bond between the [shelter] volunteers and the folks that they're serving. They have strong relationships, even genuine friendships, which I've found pretty incredible."
To find out more about Besque's fusion of play and politics (including his fun tribute to 80s TV), read on at Yonge Street.
(Image of Besque by Ryan Couldrey via Yonge Street Media)