1. Liberal leader Stephane Dion says he would restore $22.8 million in cuts made to programs linking arts promotion to diplomacy and that he would support international tours by Canadian artists and their work, in an article published in the London Free Press.

Read the full article HERE

2. Working Back at the Belkin Satellite gallery, Vancouver September 1 — 30, 2007

Gareth Moore · Kerri Reid · Kara Uzelman

Opening reception:
31 August, 8 —10 p.m.

Drawing from archeology, anthropology, and traditional craft, artists Gareth Moore, Kerri Reid, and Kara Uzelman manipulate found objects, turning once discarded things into sculpture.

KARA UZELMAN’s excavation of her Strathcona backyard resulted in a series of sculptures made from her findings, which she sold at a garage sale. Since then she has been using the unearthed objects as source material. In Working Back she will present a re-formed installation based around this project.

Toronto-based artist KERRI REID makes multiples of damaged utilitarian objects that she has discovered abandoned in her neighbourhood, before fixing them up and exhibiting them all together.

GARETH MOORE’s photographs of sculptures made from rubbish will become part of sculptural forms that draw attention to the images as archive.

Kerri Reid, Custom Cover, 2006. Cover, tarp, 3 photographs. Image: orgallery.org

1. This brilliant and hilarious article by Blake Gopnik in the Washington Post is a must-read. Gopnik makes a convincing case for why a local auto-body shop’s mural is High Art. Or does he?

Blake Gopnik’s High Art mural. Image: Richard A. Lipski/The Washington Post

“At some 40 feet across, our picture has the scale to beat the giant postwar paintings of modern masters such as Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman. It’s also got truly modern colors: A background of the most acid yellow-green, with figures on it in a baby blue, generates a color-clash Picasso would be proud of.

Speaking of Picasso, our picture plays almost cubist games with space and perspective: A car hovers in midair, suspended in — or on? — the void of that green background, while below it stands a mechanic figure almost out of a futurist painting by Fernand Leger. Or is that worker standing in front of the car? Or simply farther down the picture plane, in a space all of his own? The ambiguities only add to the painting’s force.”

Fernand Leger: “The Mechanic”, 1920. Image: academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu

Read the article HERE

2. DHC Art Foundation in Montreal has awarded its first production grant to New York-based Canadian artist Nancy Davenport, for a project that will be installated at the 2007 Istanbul Biennial, September 8 - 4 November, 2007.

The installation, titled Workers, is a moving DVD frieze depicting Norweigian workers and their out-sourced Chinese counterparts in a representation arising from issues of globalization.

3. The Sobey Art Award shortlist exhibition at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, from September 15 - December 2, 2007.

5 artists, each representing one Canadian region, have been shortlisted for the annual $50,000 Sobey Art Prize, awarded to an artist 39 years old or younger who has shown their work in Canada in the previous 18 months. This year’s shortlist is:

Michel de Broin - Quebec

Michel de Broin, Black Whole Conference, 2006. Image: micheldebroin.org
Jean-Denis Boudreau - Atlantic

Ron Terada - West Coast

Ron Terada, Palm Tree, 2004. Image: preview-art.com

Shary Boyle - Ontario

Rachelle Viader Knowles - Pairies and the North

Rachelle Viader Knowles, You & Me, 2006. Image: uregina.ca

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Richard Bradshaw. Image: cbc.ca

VoCA joins all of Canada in mourning the sudden death of Richard Bradshaw, the conductor and general director of the Canadian Opera Company.

Mr. Brashaw had just won what he called “the Thirty Years’ War”, completing the building of Toronto’s new opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, designed by Diamond & Schmitt Architects.

The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto. Image: torontolife.com

“Everything in Canada is in place — we could lead the world artistically,” Mr. Bradshaw had said. “We are a great and rich country and getting richer, but we have Third World investment in the arts.”

He was leading the change…let’s hope it continues apace without him.

Things are looking up!

Canadian collectors have stepped up and bought David Altmejd’s installation from Venice for the Art Gallery of Ontario. Toronto collectors George Hartman and Arlene Goldman purchased the multifacted mirrored installation on the AGO’s behalf, where it will be installed at the centre of the newly Gehry-renovated contemporary galleries.

David Altmejd, The Index (detail) 2007. Image: andrearosengallery.com

Read the full article in the Globe and Mail HERE.

While the worldwide hype around contemporary art in the past few years has led to the increased power of commercial galleries - one hears of Chelsea gallerists deliberately withholding work from not-illustrious-enough collectors - it has also led to the increased power of the buyer. Charles Saatchi has set the standard, and with more collectors opening their own museums, attracting media attention and publishing catalogues before selling work at auction, sales results for new work by young artists have gone through the roof.

This trend may be nearing its end - see Eli Broad’s comments below - but in the meantime, many collectors have become more knowledgable and are consequently working directly with artists, nurturing often temporary projects in the style of public art organizations like Artangel in the UK and New York’s Creative Time, and often installing them off the beaten art-world track.

Mike Nelson’s upcoming work for Creative Time, A Psychic Vacuum. Image: creativetime.org

Canada has yet to embrace this trend, but Francesca von Habsburg, daughter of the legendary late art collector Baron Hans Heinrich , is something of a pioneer. She has erected a pavilion on the island of Lopud, off the Dalmatian Coast, which is a collaboration between Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson (who made the huge amber sun in London’s Tate Modern in DATE) and architect David Adjaye (See VoCA below).

Read about the commission HERE

Olafur Eliasson, The Weather Project, Tate Modern, 2003. Image: londonphotos.org

Read the article on on Bold Commissions HERE.

Dealer extraordinaire Larry Gagosian, meanwhile, contrary to what you might expect, is averse to one-off sales, preferring to work over the long term with collectors.

“Mr Gagosian is a master not just at selling, but, even more importantly, at selling to the right collector at the right price; for it is not just the deal that is at stake but the global market perception of that artist. For this reason Mr Gagosian avoids what he calls “impatient money”, which sees art only as a quick investment. It is this ability to understand art as a matter of love as well as money that has given Mr Gagosian so much power—not just to make himself a fortune but to shape the taste of a generation.”

Read the full article on Mr. Gagosian HERE.

Daniel Jackson, 10,000 To A Point Somewhere, Blues No.1, 2007. Image: danieljackson.info

Projex-Mtl Galerie moves to their new gallery space in the Belgo building, Montreal.

The gallery opens with the exhibition
Conceptions Generees/Generated Conceptions from August 23 - 23 September, 2007
featuring work by Yoshiyuki Abe, Daniel Jackson, Manfred Mohr and Georg Muhleck.

Find the gallery website HERE.

VoCA was pleasantly surprised to see the inclusion of Daniel Jackson’s work. He was one of the very few (like, five) works of art that we liked at last year’s Scope Art Fair in New York. He also shows with Carter Presents in London.

Daniel Jackson, installation view of a show at Carter Presents, March 2006. Image: danieljackson.info

Manfred Mohr, P1011-G, 2005. Image: emohr.com

Yoshiyuki Abe, r23017, 2000. Image: pli.jp

Mega-collector Eli Broad. Image: bloomberg.com

“Many of the buyers of contemporary art have been hedge-fund managers and other investors who obviously are having a difficult time and have lost lots of money. The art market will soften, and an adjustment in values will take place, but it may not happen for six months to a year” says American billionaire art collector Eli Broad.

“Typically, when there are adjustments up or down in the art market, it follows what happens in the securities and real-estate market…”

Read the rest of the article HERE

1. Check out the article on Toronto gallerist Nicholas Metivier in the summer issue of Toronto Life magazine:

The Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto. Image: metiviergallery.com

Art Wars
By Trevor Cole

Together they ran Toronto’s most prestigious gallery. But their relationship was strained, at best, and she refused to make him a partner. When the protégé had had enough, he opened his own place, and the big-name artists followed. How Nicholas Metivier kicked Mira Godard off her throne.

2. The offer-you-can’t-refuse art market: ARTnews dissects the current boom:

An ARTnews cover. Image: feldmangallery.com

What happens now that billions of dollars were spent recently, including $72.8 million for a Mark Rothko and $71.7 million for an Andy Warhol, at the sales? Is the sky the limit? How high is up? When will the bubble burst? Or will it…?

Read the full article HERE

3. Art-Book Fair and Sale at Mercer Union, Toronto

Sunday August 19th
Noon to 5pm

Free Admission

Image and Inscription, published by YYZ books. Image: artpost.info

Publishers, dealers, artists and authors including Art Metropole, Apollinaire’s Bookshop, The Art Gallery of York University, Bywater Brothers Editions, Mercer Union, Parasitic Ventures Press, YYZ Books and many others.

Rare titles! Out-of-print books! Not-even-yet released books! Door prizes! Deeply-discounted titles! Copies of Art Forum for a quarter!

Click HERE for more info.

This is a good article by Donovan Gauvreau in today’s issue of the American Chronicle:

Appraising Art: An Art in Itself

Image: patrickkingassociates.com

The appraisal of artwork can be effected for several reasons, but the two most common ones are: the owner wishes to sell it or the owner wishes to insure it. In brief, the art market can be broken down into two segments, retail and secondary. The retail segment consists of pieces sold by art galleries, art dealers and other art professionals. The secondary segment consists of all art pieces sold through other avenues such as auctions, estate sales, flea markets, garage sales, and art wholesalers. Appraising art requires expertise. In order to properly assess an art piece, you should involve a professional or someone in the art industry…

Read the full text of the article HERE

1. Mike Cameron: The Unfiltered Gaze
Summit Gallery, Banff Alberta
September 1st - 23rd, 2007

Mike Cameron, The Panoptic Gaze, 2007. Image: courtesy Summit Gallery

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 1st, 6-9 pm

Victoria-based artist Mike Cameron elicits a comprehensive view that reflects a world of surveillance, paranoid political movements, and global uncertainty that is as relevant during the cold war and McCarthyism as it is today…

Mike Cameron, The End of a Dream, 2007. Image: courtesy Summit Gallery

Click HERE for more info.

2. Dean Drever: Big Guns
Udell Contemporary, Calgary Alberta
September 6 - 22, 2007

Work by Dean Drever. Image: courtesy the artist

Dean Drever, THIS IS NOT GOING TO BE OK. Image: othergallery.com

Click HERE for more info.

3. As it Seems: a group exhibition
Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto
September 6 - 20 October, 2007

Roy McMakin, Chest of Drawers, 2000. Image: art-word.com

This exhibition takes its starting point from the slippery state of ‘seeming to be’. Sentiments like ‘nothing as it seems’ or ‘exactly as it seems’ apply to all of the works in the show, sometimes shifting from one to the other with sustained viewing or a change in perspective. These perceptual complexities can apply to the truthfulness in the imagery, the instability of media, enigmatic processes or the precariousness of affect. ‘Seeming to be’ doesn’t indicate truth, or artifice either – it’s a personal response to something nuanced and enigmatic.

Axel Lieber, Min Konstruktiva Vardag, 2003. Image: omkonst.com

Click HERE for more info.

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VoCA is already looking towards the fall - here are a few exhibitions to look forward to:

1. MONTREAL: Marc Quinn at DHC Art

October 5, 2007 - January 6, 2008

Marc Quinn, Selma Mustajbasic, 2000. image: artregister.com

Click HERE for more info.

2. TORONTO: Greg Girard at Monte Clark Gallery

September 22 to October 14, 2007

Greg Girard, Fuzhou Lu Mailboxes, 2005. Image: monteclarkgallery.com

Click HERE for more info.

3. WINNIPEG: Edith Dekyndt at Plug-In

September - February, 2007

Edith Dekyndt, A is hotter than B, B is hotter than C, C is hotter than D, 2006 (Video still).
Image: edithdekyndt.be

Click HERE for more info on the artist.

4. CALGARY: Alex Janvier at the Art Gallery of Calgary

August 31, 2007 to January 5, 2008

Alex Janvier, The Insurance on the Teepee, 1972. Image: artbank.ca

Click HERE for more info.

5. VANCOUVER: Douglas Walker at the NEW Jennifer Kostuik Gallery

September 13 - 30, 2007

Douglas Walker, Untitled #851, 2006. Image: douglaswalker.ca

Click HERE for more info.

PLUS: VoCA will preview the best of Nuit Blanche Toronto, September 29, 2007 and of Mois de la Photo Montreal, September 6 - October 21.

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