View on Canadian Art

Although it’s the common model, art galleries don’t need to be commercially-driven. In Toronto, many galleries have a hard time, since the market for contemporary work isn’t strong compared to cities like London and New York.

The current work by painter Elizabeth McIntosh on view at Goodwater.
Image courtesy goodwater gallery.

But that’s why alternative models present possibilities that are often more interesting. Goodwater Gallery in Toronto is one such space. Artists are invited to create projects in the space that aren’t tied to the need to sell work. You won’t find nice 40x 50” framed works on the walls at Goodwater.

The current show, by the excellent Canadian painter Elizabeth McIntosh, doesn’t use paint at all. Instead, the main wall is covered, floor to ceiling, in sheets of coloured paper, thumbtacked in patterns. The back wall is covered, similarly in black paper. It’s an unusual show, for a painter.

We walked in and sat down with gallery owner John Goodwin, who showed us some images on his iphone of the installation process. McIntosh made many experiments with various colours and arrangements of backdrop paper that was purchased from a photography shop down the street, and Goodwin documented them all. Seeing these images is important to the exhibition, so you’ve got to ask.

More from the show. Image courtesy Goodwater Gallery.

What makes Goodwater so interesting is that it shifts the awareness of art from the final product (the painting) to where the real value is – in the artistic process.

The real value of ALL art is in the process of creation, not in the final object. The one who gains most from art is the artist – this is where the focus should be. The focus on the market has corrupted contemporary visual art. This needs to change, and Goodwater is a place that supports that change.

Elizabeth McIntosh, Untitled (Sectioned Composition - Triangles & Parallel Lines), 2008.
Image: diazcontemporary.ca

Elizabeth McIntosh, Untitled, 2007. Image: diazcontemporary.ca

Goodwater provides a theatre for artists, a place - like a temporary studio – where they can free themselves and create. And visitors are fortunate to witness the result.

Elizabeth McIntosh is represented by Diaz Contemporary. Click HERE to see more of her incredibly formed and balanced paintings.

We heard the rumours, we knew it was just a matter of time…before another art-themed reality tv series hit the airwaves.

This time, Sarah Jessica Parker is producing, not that that makes it seem any less like the typical, American-idol style competitive program.

13 artist contestants will compete for a gallery exhibition, a cash prize and a sponsored national tour.

Continue reading →

Sarah Anne Johnson: House on Fire
Art Gallery on Ontario, Toronto
July 4 - 23 August, 2009

Sarah Anne Johnson, House on Fire, 2008, Chromogenic Print. Image: bulgergallery.com

Winnpeg-based artist, Yale grad and 2008 Grange Prize winner Sarah Anne Johnson debuts a new exhibition titled House on Fire at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

The last time we saw Johnson’s work, it was 2007’s Galapagos Project at Toronto’s Stephen Bulger Gallery. We loved her use of different media including sculpture and photography, and the push-pull between them.

Continue reading →

Don Ritter presents his excellent installation Vox Populi in a group show at the Kunsträume Burg Eisenhardt, in Belzig from July 5-September 27, 2009.

Vox Populi, interactive video and sound installation, 2005. Image: aesthetic-machinery.com

The exhibition’s theme is Democracy, and Ritter’s piece is an interactive video installation in which a large projection of a crowd yells “speech, speech,” and encourages the viewer/participant to speak from a lectern. As the viewer/participant begins to speak (either their own words or various speeches provided, by John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, George W. Bush and others) their text scrolls across a teleprompter and the crowd responds - either with hostility, support or ridicule.

Continue reading →

VoCA was at the opening of Joshua Neustein’s contemporary response to the Dead Sea Scrolls, the fascinating new show now open at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum. Despite having had some trouble with the powers at the ROM, who apparently wanted to place stanchions everywhere, the artist and curators were able to get the installation up and it looks great.

Margins, Neustein’s installation that responds to the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Royal Ontario Museum, presented by the ICC and the Koffler Centre of the Arts. Image courtesy the artist.

Neustein lives in New York and Tel Aviv, and is known for his environmental installations and Post Minimalist torn paper works, as well as his series of large-scale map paintings. He is considered to be one of the founding fathers of Environmental, Conceptual Art into the Israeli scene.

He is known for his 1971 Jerusalem River Project action, a site-specific “sound sculpture” made for the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, in which 55 speakers installed across 2 kilometers of a desert valley played the looped sounds of a river.

Continue reading →

Andy Warhol had it right…the notion of celebrity speaks volumes about our culture and VoCA thinks it’s important to be aware of the implications. How will this change our culture in future?

Michael Jackson by Andy Warhol made the cover of Time. Image: timeinc.net

Some interesting notes:

Aside from whether heart attack or impending media pressure killed Michael Jackson, it took 18 minutes (!!!) for the story of his death to break. Jackson died at 2.26pm, LA time. At 2.44pm, TMZ informed the world of his death (more on that HERE.)

Click HERE for a slide show of Michael Jackson immortalized in art.

Continue reading →

Saturn Return 30th Anniversary party
Mercer Union, Toronto
Friday July 10, 2009
Earlyish ’til lateish

These days, when it’s so important to think local, it’s especially important to support your local art scene. Mercer Union Artist Run Centre in Toronto is celebrating it’s 30th anniversary on July 10 with Saturn Return.

Come out and support Toronto’s artists - Mark your calendars now!

In astrological terms, a 30-year interval equals the full orbit of Saturn around the sun.

Continue reading →

Conceptual artist Ian Wallace is a very big deal in Canada, particularly in Vancouver where he is regarded as the father of the conceptual photography movement - his students included Jeff Wall and VoCA favorite Rodney Graham. Wallace has won the Molson Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts.

His works often bring together the photo, the painting and the object.

A piece by Ian Wallace. Image: saatchi-gallery.co.uk

Continue reading →

In The Trees: Works from the Battat Collection
Battat Contemporary, Montreal
July 2 – August 15, 2009

Ed Pien, Night Gathering, 2005. All images courtesy Battat Contemporary.

Montreal’s newest collector-led art space, Battat Contemporary, run by the collector Joe Battat, opened in March 2009 and has quickly made a name for itself by mixing Battat’s interest in Old Master drawings with cutting edge contemporary pieces.

Continue reading →

VoCA went to Montreal and by far the best thing we saw was Michal Rovner’s wonderful installation Particles of Reality, her first solo exhibition in Canada, at DHC Art Foundation. The exhibition, which opened in May and runs through September 27, begins with the same video works projected onto Petri dishes that the artist showed at the 2005 Venice biennale’s Israeli pavilion.

Michal Rovner, a close up shot of Datazone, 2003. Image: musesphere.com

We were struck by her work then, but this exhibition is even better. Rovner’s videos of tiny, abstracted human beings, swaying and dressed in black derive meaning from the way they are exhibited. The people are choreographed in patterns so that in Data Zone (2003), a group of long tables embedded with illuminated Petri dishes, they look like Chromosomes.

Continue reading →