LOVED: OCAD

Even as the very idea of the art college is being re-assessed, even as we are experiencing the consequences of pushing generations of eager students through a standardized system that seems to defeat the purpose of artistic creativity, the Ontario College of Art and Design is doing exciting things.

Are art colleges necessary? Young artists today may be better served by doing a secondary degree in something other than art. The problem is that it all starts to look the same.

OCAD is one school that seems to be broadening its reach, examining itself and looking to build on its best qualities. Community outreach (exemplified in their Nuit Blanche programming) and celebration of their alumni (ditto), with an impressive roster of international speakers are turning the Ontario College of Art and Design into one of the more interesting art venues in Toronto.

The exhibition by alumni including Ian Carr-Harris and David Rokeby on Nuit Blanche was a success. Those who made it up to the 5th floor were rewarded with Rokeby’s floor projection depicting the tracked movments of bodies crossing the busy courtyard below Wil Alsop’s ‘tabletop’:

Another example was the lecture, Encounters in the Disunited States, by New York Guardian correspondent Gary Younge last night.

He spoke about politics as determined by point of view – and he gave examples: A Democrat and a Republican, each with a child fighting in Iraq, were equally able to justify their respective political allegiances by a desire for a quick end to the war.

I was reminded of the excellent HSBC ads plastered all over London’s Heathrow airport:

Check out the HSBC Airport ads HERE

This idea has greater implications for art – because art is about point of view. The HSBC ads contrast a photograph of man on the moon (reality) with a child’s drawing of a man on the moon (fabrication/fiction.) But contemporary art asks whether the photograph is any more reliable than the child’s drawing. Certainly the photograph cannot be accepted as truth, but how about the actual event?

MEANWHILE, AT RYERSON

The School of Image Arts has announced that it will build a new Photography Gallery and Research Centre to house its Black Star Historical Black and White Photography Collection. The Centre will also house the Mira Godard Study Centre, named after the Toronto art dealer.

The new museum-quality 10,500 square foot space will house, exhibit and provide scholarly access to the photography collections.

Along with the new centre, Ryerson will debut a new Master of Fine Arts in Documentary Media in fall 2007. This is designed to compliment its existing graduate programs: Photographic Preservation and Collections Management.