Your Cultural Concierge! VoCA offers critical commentary on the Canadian art scene, with a focus on Toronto. Featuring exhibition previews, critics picks, interviews and in-depth articles on art in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Halifax.
May 9th, 2008 — Architecture, Artists, Exhibitions, Painting, Video/New Media
Between Observation and Intervention: The Painted Photographs of Melvin Charney
The Americas Society, New York
May 1 - July 31, 2008
Melvin Charney, Cities on the Move… The Swinging Burbs…, 2003-06, oil pastel and acrylic.
Image: metiviergallery.com
VoCA was quite taken with the exhibition of Melvin Charney’s architectural, city-inspired paintings at Toronto’s Metivier Gallery in April 2006. Now a major exhibition of the artist’s work has opened at the Amercias Society in New York.
May 8th, 2008 — Architecture, Artists, Exhibitions, First Nations/Inuit, Ottawa, Photography, Winnipeg
OTTAWA:
Carlton University Art Gallery
Michèle Provost: Selling Out
Ron Giii: Hegel’s Salt Man
Nanuit: The Polar Bear in Inuit Art
5 May – 24 August 2008
Ron Giii, Atomicus Removing The Atomic Space, 1985. Image: paulpetro.com
RON GIII: Coming from the University of Toronto, this survey exhibition of the brilliantly-named Ron Giii’s work features early work, performance documentation and other ephemera, a selection of his voluminous writings, and more recent drawings and oil stick paintings.
May 7th, 2008 — Artists, Events/Talks, Exhibitions, Photography, Sculpture/Installation, Vancouver
VANCOUVER:
Moodyville at Presentation House Gallery
May 3 - 15 June, 2008
An image by Dan Siney. Image: tinyvices.com
Moodyville is a group exhibition featuring work by:
Karin Bubaš - click HERE
Jim Breukelman - click HERE
Babak Golkar - click HERE
Mike Grill - click HERE
May 6th, 2008 — Artists, Exhibitions, Halifax, Montreal, Sculpture/Installation, Video/New Media
HALIFAX:
Kelly Mark: Stupid Heaven at MSVU art gallery
Continuing through 1 June 2008
Kelly Mark, I Really Should…(Neon) - 2001. Image: kellymark.com
Kelly Mark is a VoCA favorite, and this exhibition, which originally showed at Toronto’s Hart House gallery, is now touring. We have seen it and it is great. Mark makes funny, whimsical pieces that say a lot about human nature and the way that societal constructs shape our behaviour. She uses her cat, and often her television to create her multilayered pieces.
May 5th, 2008 — Artists, Exhibitions, Photography, Toronto
Coming up this week on VoCA: A selection of recommended exhibitions across the country.
TORONTO:
Barbara Probst at Jessica Bradley Gallery
Exposures
May 8 – 7 June, 2008
Barbara Probst. Image: gfineartdc.com
The New York-based German photographer “breaks the photographic moment into several points of view through the use of multiple cameras in a single shot.” It’s surprising and charming for the viewer to be suddenly placed inside perspectives other than their own. And it’s not that often – anymore - that photography is able to surprise.
May 4th, 2008 — Articles, Collecting, News: Canada, Vancouver
In a move perhaps inspired by the spate of American, European and Chinese collectors opening up their own spaces, the dashing Canadian collector Bob Rennie will open his own private museum to showcase his collection of contemporary art.
Collector Bob Rennie. Image: rennie.com
May 2nd, 2008 — Exhibitions, Photography, Toronto
VoCA was at the opening of the MOCCA show Between Memory & History: From the Epic to the Everyday in Toronto last night.
Alessandra Sanguinetti, from the series The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of their Dreams.
Image: danielazoulaygallery.com
The exhibition was, as always, an interesting mix of artists. The overriding theme that we got from the best works on view was that beauty exists in the mundane, the poor, the special, the creative aspects of the everyday.
The best work on view was the slideshow by Nan Goldin, Heartbeat from 2000-2001. With Bjork’s sombre, prayerful soundtrack based on a Greek Orthodox mass, these slides of couples living and loving are so touching – and truly beautiful in their normalcy.
May 1st, 2008 — Exhibitions, Photography, Toronto
This May, Toronto gives itself over to all things photo-based, from gallery exhibitions throughout the city to public installations, films on photography and more.
Click HERE for the CONTACT website.
Bert Teunissen, Nuit St. Georges #1, 24/4/1998 14:23. Image: bertteunissen.com
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...Read full bio