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.
July 31st, 2008 — Exhibitions, Ottawa, Painting, Sculpture/Installation
1. LE SALON: CELEBRATING 35 YEARS OF THE FIRESTONE COLLECTION OF CANADIAN ART
The Ottawa Art Gallery
2 August to 9 November 2008
Jean-Paul Riopelle, Perspectives, 1956. Image: tate.org.uk
The Firestone Collection of Canadian Art is a significant art collection that spans the modern period (1900-1980). Originally established by collectors O. J. and Isobel Firestone in the early 1950s, the collection contains approximately 1,600 works by a number of influential Canadian artists.
July 30th, 2008 — Art market, Collecting, Events/Talks
So…is art a wise investment or not?
Commercial galleries and auction houses would certainly have you believe so - and they have the skyrocketing sales to prove it. The much-ballyhooed ‘crash’ has so far failed to materialize.
Kim Dorland, Yellow Dress, 2007. Image: kimdorland.com - A wise investment?
And yet as far as many wealth managers are concerned, “The conventional wisdom is that art collecting should not be viewed primarily as an investment. Robert C. Elliott, senior managing director at Bessemer Trust, says, “Bessemer counsels clients to treat art as a passion investment, rather than as an investment whose primary function is to produce an attractive return.”
July 29th, 2008 — Artists, Calgary, Exhibitions, First Nations/Inuit, Montreal, Painting, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto
1. Dean Drever: Bear Minimum
Michael Klien Gallery, Toronto
August 2 - 30, 2008
Dean Drever, She Loves Me She Loves Me Not (Bullets). Image: douglasudellgallery.com
Dean Drever continues his examination of power and violence in this show, which takes as a theme the Kodiak bear.
Drever is a member of the Haida Nation and Haida culture acknowledges the bear as an embodiment of a supreme being having both extraordinary physical and supernatural powers.
Bear Minimum presents the Bear, life sized and hand carved.
Check out more on the website HERE.
July 28th, 2008 — Artists, Nuit Blanche Toronto 2008, Toronto
Zone B at this year’s Nuit Blanche Toronto extends from Queen Street down to the Lakeshore, from Simcoe Street in the West end and Church Street in the East.
Wayne Baerwaldt, director and curator at the Illingsworth Kerr Gallery at the Alberta College of Art and Design, will curate the zone and he has proposed a series of performative events and installations that will “skewer audience expectations by blurring the line between artist/performer and audience member.”
Here are VoCA’s top three must-sees for this zone:
1. Horroridor, 2008 by Kelly Mark
“In a nightmare, you can’t change the channel.”
Kelly Mark, REM (video installation), 2007. Image: ireallyshould.com
Prepare to be disturbed. A long corridor installed under Union Station filled with videos of hundreds of people screaming. A nice allegory to how you probably feel every day if you’re a commuter.
July 25th, 2008 — Art market
“Art advisory is almost like a concierge service for big collectors: sourcing works of art and suggesting what to buy and then, when to sell; bidding at auction on their behalf; advice on framing and restoration; helping clients who have agreed to loan items to a museum or gallery and completing all the paperwork that goes with that,” says Helen Macintyre, art advisor.
“Another part of my work is advising hedge funds, banks and corporations that are keen to invest in the art market, whether they have £1 million or £50 million to spend…”
Read the full article HERE
July 24th, 2008 — News: Canada, Toronto, Video/New Media
Wavelengths is a curated presentation of the best in recent international avant-garde film and video at the Toronto International Film Festival (September 4 - 13, 2008.)
This year’s Wavelengths features 26 films and videos by renowned and emerging artists, including James Benning, Olaf Nicolai, Pat O’Neill, Nathaniel Dorsky, Jennifer Reeves, Ben Russell and Jean-Marie Straub.
This year’s lineup reflects the remarkable staying power of 16mm and highlights the use of 35mm among emerging artists.
TICKETS NOW ON SALE.
For dates and screening times, please click HERE
The six Wavelength programmes will run from Friday September 5 to Monday September 8, 2008 at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall, 317 Dundas Street West ( McCaul Street entrance).
Wavelengths 1: Films by Nathaniel Dorsky and Jean-Marie Straub
Image: tiff08.ca
July 23rd, 2008 — Miscellaneous thoughts on art, Toronto
Are you in Toronto?
‘Cause the hippest artist-run centre in town…Mercer Union…is moving from Queen West - which it helped establish as art Toronto’s art hood - up to greener pastures at Bloor and Lansdowne (1286 Bloor Street West).
They’re celebrating the end of one era and the start of a new one with one of their legendary summer parties!
Stay tuned for news on the move and opening exhibitions.
For Mercer Union’s website, please click HERE.
(A disclaimer: VoCA sits on Mercer’s board of directors - but don’t let that stop you…it’s gonna be a wicked party!)
July 22nd, 2008 — Artists, Exhibitions, Painting, Photography, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg
1. SAMUEL ROY-BOIS: Let us, then, be up and doing; With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, Still pursuing; Learn to labor and to wait
Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver
June 13 – August 24, 2008
Samuel Roy-Bois, J’ai entendu un bruit, je me suis sauvé/I heard a noise and I ran, 2003.
Image: samuelroybois.com
ARTIST TALK: Thursday, July 24th at 7pm
July 21st, 2008 — Architecture, News: International
Gehry’s 2008 Serpentine pavilion. Image: artdaily.org/Iwan Baan
London’s Serpentine Gallery, whose program of internationally renowned architect-designed summer pavilions has seen constructions by Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Oscar Niemeyer and Toyo Ito, among others, grace its front garden, opens the latest pavilion, designed by Frank Gehry.
July 18th, 2008 — Architecture, Interviews, Toronto
The Art Gallery of Ontario is set to re-open in November with a brand new renovation by architect Frank Gehry, a new curatorial strategy and a new logo.
VoCA likes the Warhol-esque new logo. We read it as the white letters sitting on top of a colourful background of (art) history. It seems appropriate.
The logo. Image: artmatters.ca
Not everyone agrees, though. Click HERE to read what Sarah Nicole Prickett had to say on Torontoist.com, and some of the ensuing commentary.
In the interest of fairness, VoCA spoke with AGO logo designer Kevin Sugden, of Bruce Mau Design about the gallery’s new identity:
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...Read full bio