VoCA was forwarded the following email, titled eXponential Future press release and its unexamined assumptions
It refers to the group exhibition of young Vancouver artists currently on view at the Belkin Gallery at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Click HERE to see the exhibition.
Tim Lee, The Jerk, Carl Reiner, 1979. Image: coolhunting.com
VoCA would have thought that it’s a healthy sign how – in contrast to Toronto – Vancouver galleries continually celebrate their own artists. But apparently there are some disgruntled – jealous? – voices around…What amazes VoCA is that these people, whoever they are, don’t have the chutzpa to make themselves known.
Why hide behind anonymity? If you don’t like something, stand it behind it! That’s how you get a dialogue going. Otherwise, you risk appearing petty.
Here’s the email:
POST#1
feedback.vancouver
In an attempt to intervene in the lackluster state of arts criticism in Vancouver, we, a group of artists, educators and curators, have developed a feedback system that is committed to honesty and rigor. Anonymity allows us to say the things that the institutional politics of art makes prohibitive.
eXponential Future press release and its unexamined assumptions
We appreciate the opportunity to revisit the concept of an emerging artist show as a follow up on 6: New Vancouver Modern. While the first one had its problems (don’t get us going), eXponential Future has us running from your “complex reality of urban life” for the hills.
When you state “Vancouver artists continue to be better known in the U.S. and Europe than they are in their own city,” better known by whom. The unexamined assumptions and biases underlying your proposal are egregious. Who exactly is your audience? It apparently is not the local arts community who are already acquainted with the selected artists in eXponential Future. If you were interested in introducing Vancouver artists to the city, the Belkin exhibition would include a public program that remedied our alleged lack of awareness.
Alex Morrison, every house i’ve ever lived in drawn from memory, ongoing project since 1999,
HB pencil on paper. Image: mercerunion.org
Further, the claim that this exhibition is an “overview of the new artistic thinking of our time and place” seems a bit grand, especially when your selection represents artist who do not directly engage with the Vancouver urban landscape.
And don’t get us going on Tim Lee whose work we have seen enough of to last three parallel eXponential Futures. But more than anything, we thought the days of archaic curatorial premises grounded on notions of exploration and identification of local trends was a thing of the past. It just makes us wonder who has an investment in identifying the next hot little things.
dazed and confused,
Vancouver 911
Althea Thauberger, Northern, 2005, 35mm film transferred to HD. Image:altheathauberger.ca
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...
18 comments ↓
hi there, love your blog but could you please identify my work correctly? the image you have here is labeled as ‘homewrecker’ where as it is actually an image from a piece of mine called ‘every house i’ve ever lived in drawn from memory’. thanks for writing about the show… if you need more current images, feel free to take from catrionajeffries.com
thanks,
alex
Andrea, the exhibition is not at the downtown Satellite, as you claim, but at the big Belkin on the UBC campus.
I have no idea who “Vancouver 911″ is, but I do think the text you quote raises some valid questions.
I have a signed, lengthy, non-anonymous and contentious review of the exhibition forthcoming in BORDER CROSSINGS and on Anodyne.
Best regards,
Christopher Brayshaw
YVR
Oops - apologies to both of you! VoCA does endeavor to be precise in its information…
Thanks for your comments - keep ‘em coming!
I like the new speech bubbles for comments.
I think that, when done well (ie. artfag), anonymous bits of vitriol can be a healthy component to the discourse of contemporary art. Contrary to your suggestion that the writer(s) of this letter are merely jealous and lacking in chutzpah, I think that there are some legitimate reasons to remain anonymous, particularly when attacking the establishment. There’s precedent here, and we’ve all seen the kind of punishing force that the Vancouver art world can marshal when pushed (a certain Canadian Art article comes to mind). This ghost writer even begins by explaining, “Anonymity allows us to say the things that the institutional politics of art makes prohibitive.” I would agree.
Unfortunately, the couple of short paragraphs we get come across as feeble and amount to little more than sour grapes. Is the show’s premise a bit shaky? Arguably so. Does the selection of artists feel more familiar than the press release suggests? I’d agree with that. It seems that the only statements strong enough to merit the mask of anonymity are those denouncing the selection of Tim Lee–hardly shocking considering he’s one of the best-known artists internationally of his generation. (Though it does seem that negative assessments of the artist tend to surface more in private conversation than public discourse).
Am I wrong to expect such a clandestine approach to really cut established figures at the knees, to name names and propose divergent possibilities? This letter isn’t dramatic enough to justify the author’s name being left out. Let’s have more venom, more fiery rhetoric and more rumour mongering! Or, let’s just have your name.
I think there should be MORE anonymity in criticism, not less. No anonymity = too many people who don’t critique things properly because they’re afraid of never receiving another arts council grant. It’s so lame.
Why is it that critique is seen as attack? Criticism is an asset -not an assault.
I am currently an MFA Art Practice student at Goldsmiths. The most valuable asset on the course is the spirit of critique and HONEST poignant discussion around successes & shortcomings of student work, as well as a look into the state of Critique in the art world at large.
C’mon Anonymous -if you opt out of the possibility for further discussion - what’s the point of making a comment public in the first place? If we are in a system where to voice an opinion is risking being blacklisted from the Grants system- this is all the more reason to make one’s voice known.
Hey Jennifer, is an anonymous critique really more “proper” than one attributed to an author?
Well said, Tasha!
where is the feedback system located?
the vancouver feedback group has started a blogspot….
http://vancouverfeedback.blogspot.com/
You guys have reduced art criticism to one question - Who are you? Congrats. C’mon! Stick yer necks out.
I see no valid reason why Vancouver911 needs to identify itself by name(s) although “we, a group of artists, educators and curators” leads me to believe there’s three of them. What I don’t understand is why they haven’t responded or attempted to engage in any dialogue on the subject they’ve broached. They’re anonymous by their own choosing for reasons of openly speaking their collective mind but have obvious short-sighted aspirations to what they can achieve by posting a simple statement and one brief critique. If you, Vancouver911 want to achieve anything, use the anonymity you’ve created and say more. I’m at least interested and couldn’t care less who you really are. But leaving it as is - well, is somewhat boring and reminiscent of playground squabbles of name calling and running away.
The only reason to remain anonymous is if you’re taking on Scientology or some other powerful and litigious group.
I’m inclined to agree about the inclusion of most artists in the show (”Oh, so-and-so again??”), at the same time as a graduating BFA student establishing a written/critical practice alongside the visual work, I understand a want or need to get work out there beyond what has been established and agreed-upon by the art scene, but is this a way of playing what amounts to King of The Hill?
At the same time, it’s hard not to percieve the missive as a “middle-child” thing: Marsha! Marsha! Marshaaa! But people are talking and hopefully looking beyond it as mere player-hatin’ and addressing some questions that I think need to be asked. It’s unfortunate that the critique is formatted as, and can be read as an attack.
I want to thank you for making me aware that there are others dissatisfied with “state of the art” that we have been forced to suffer for the last forty years. Mind bending bad art and excruciatingly boring ‘performance’ art shoved down our throats annually or biannually simply because there is someone who knows the right people and how to manipulate the art bureaucracy.
You seem to ignore the fact that the Canada Council for the Arts is run by a corrupt clique who WILL blacklist you, should you dare to criticize one of them. What more proof of corruption do you need than the recent award of a Governor General’s award worth $60,000 to Eric Metcalf, who, for the last 40 years has made his art living off a kazoo wrapped in paper mache and has a permanent home at the Western Front, bought and paid for by the Canada Council.
bill bissett, a supposed Canadian icon, got a lifetime achievement award last year, worth $2,500. I can think of a whole list of other significant artists who deserve the governor’s award more that Eric Metcalf and if you went through the list of recipients you would probably see a few more that have no right to be there.
The Council is shrouded in secrecy, these ‘peers’ so called are never named, nor who chooses them to be ‘peers’ or why. Who creates the list of this peerage?
People get shows through who they know, who they are friends with, who they schmooze with, what group or gallery they belong to. Tim Lee, is an excellent example of that. There is a historical basis for artists careers that have been created and maintained by funding from the Council.
I don’t worry about being blacklisted, this happened years ago, when I was fighting for the funding to keep our social / environmental / arts media group going and Tom Sherman changed the name of the section from Arts and Media to Media Arts. Wonder at the subtleties of that.
Is this about ambition? Isn’t Tim Lee just being ambitious? Of course these days success is partly about where you go and who you know. That’s a given. Isn’t it a romantic notion that an artist will be ‘discovered’ while painting quietly in his studio? With so many artists being churned out by art schools every year, don’t you have to schmooze if you want to get ahead?
re. 911 and ‘punishing force of Vancouver art world ,Canadian Art article ‘:a self-absorbed and uninformative piece of writing gets defended because it vents some mean-spiritedness which apparently some share in a Your football team sucks sort of way.It should have appeared as a blog not in a national quarterly,where it has lowered the bar for more art critique based on grudges against where people live or their somehow having attracted critical interest -this 911 being the latest, in which “don’t get us going “functions as proof.
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