VoCA gives you the heads up on three major exhibitions coming to Canada this fall…

1. WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution

Vancouver Art Gallery

October 4, 2008 - January 11, 2009

The exhibition catalogue cover. Image: moca.org

VoCA loves ‘feminist’ (female, women’s) art. This comprehensive exhibition is not to be missed! You’ll see work by VoCA favorites Chantal Akerman, Lynda Benglis, Valie Export, Ana Mendieta, Annette Messager, Louise Bourgeois, Judy Chicago and Yoko Ono, among many others.

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Toronto writer Don Thompson’s book The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art subjects today’s global art world to an economic analysis.

Image: akademika.no

Thompson, an economist and professor of business who regularly lectures on art, attempts to de-mystify the value of contemporary art - why such exorbitant prices (nearing $150 million) are paid for works which are, ostensibly, nothing more than paint on canvas, dead animals, unmade beds and other flights of artistic fancy…

Click on the thumbnail to read my review in Quill & Quire:

Buy the book - in our opinion a must-read - right HERE.

Illustration: Allen Crawford of Plankton Art Co. Image: timeout.com

A new report - done in collaboration with the federal government - argues for the importance of Canada’s arts:

Canada’s arts community has been given a big boost in its fight against government funding cutbacks in a form of an new economic report arguing that culture is a major contributor to national wealth and prestige.

The 60-page study from the Conference Board of Canada, a private-sector think-tank that did the study in collaboration with the federal government, argues that culture generated $84.6 billion in direct and indirect economic benefits last year, or 7.4 per cent of total gross domestic product.

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Liberal leader Stephane Dion - a man who understands the importance of culture..we hope.
Image: voiceofcanada.files.wordpress.com

Liberal party leader Stephane Dion has finally responded to the unbelievable Conservative party cuts to cultural programs:

“Harper seems to not understand that we need to be stimulating those programs. We must encourage different arts and culture…”

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1. RADIANT DARK

August 26 - October 19, 2008

Cambridge Galleries, Cambridge Ontario

Loyal Loot Collective’s Log Bowls. Image: loyalloot.com

Just when we were wondering when a multi-disciplinary exhibition would come along that combines art, design and architecture, here it is, courtesy of Shaun Moore and Julie Nicholson of MADE in in Toronto.

MADE is a design shop in Toronto that specializes in young Canadian design. Taking the current trend toward gothic luxury, the two have brought together 29 designers including:

Andrée Wejsmann – click HERE
Loyal Loot Collective – click HERE
Molo Design – click HERE
Propellor Design – click HERE
Tamara Rushlow – click HERE
And many more…

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Ryan Mcginness’ book Sponsorship: The Fine Art of Corporate Sponsorship. Image: thegiantpeach.com

With the increasing economic slowdown in the US affecting banks and corporate sponsors of contemporary art, Anthony Haden-Guest asks whether banks will jettison their investments in the art world—their sponsorship of major events, institutions large and small?

At stake are tens of millions of dollars in funding. Read the full article from Portfolio.com, right HERE.

VoCA wonders what the ramifications will be here in Canada.

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Image: toothpastefordinner.com

1. HERE’S WHAT THEY’RE SAYING IN CALGARY:

Wait a minute. If our dynamic Canadian culture is in such demand all over the world, then surely the world will beat a path to its door and pay full freight to watch the likes of Les Grands Ballets, if not Holy F—.

Was this another story of our splendid arts community banding together to combat the heartless, uncultured Harper Conservatives?

Read the full article from the Calgary Herald HERE.

2. AND HERE’S WHAT THEY’RE SAYING OUT EAST:

With new cuts to culture and arts funding, the Conservative government is showing once again its complete disrespect toward our country’s cultural institutions and a flagrant lack of vision that is hurting our arts community and culture

The Conservatives are now showing clearly what they have in mind for Canada’s arts and culture. The lack of explanation for the cuts and the silence of the Heritage minister is unacceptable.

Read more HERE.

3. THE LIBERAL PARTY SPEAKS UP - FINALLY

Liberal Heritage critic Denis Coderre has criticized the government for not being forthcoming with information about cuts to a slew of arts-and-culture programs.

“A Liberal government … will reinstate all those programs and [Canadians] will have … a true structural vision of what culture should be for our country,” he said, in a telephone interview from his riding in Montreal.

More on Liberal plans in THIS Globe and Mail article.

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In case you missed it, here’s a link to the latest on the Canadian culture cuts - from today’s Globe and Mail:

“The Tories are committed to cutting $44.8-million in spending on arts and culture by April of 2010…”

Click HERE for an article that basically amounts to a long list of cultural programs to be cut.

Yesterday, VoCA spoke with curator Barbara Fischer, whose proposal of London-based artist Mark Lewis was selected as Canadian representative at next year’s Venice Biennale - arguably the most important and high-profile art biennale in the world.

Ms. Fischer expressed concern over the cuts and suggested that the future of Canada’s pavilion is in danger, since about one third of the money needed for the pavilion comes from government funding programs.

Nota bene: In 2001, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller won a coveted prize at Venice for their installation, The Paradise Institute, which helped to catapult them into the stratosphere of global contemporary artists.

VoCA was trawling other art blogs looking for Canadian-related content when we found THIS article, courtesy of Tyler Green’s Modern Art Notes - see our blogroll on the right.

Edward Burtynsky, Silver Lake Operations #2, Lake Lefroy, Western Australia, 2007.
Image: metiviergallery.com

Photographer Ed Burtynsky. Image: blog.longnow.org/stone ink gallery

“Photographer Edward Burtynsky made a formal proposal for a permanent art gallery in the chamber that encloses the 10,000-year Clock in its Nevada mountain.

The gallery would consist of art in materials as durable as the alloy steel and jade of the Clock itself, and it would be curated slowly over the centuries to reflect changing interests in the rolling present and the accumulating past.

Photographs in particular should be in the 10,000-year Gallery, Burtynsky said, “because they tell us more than any previous medium. When we think of our own past, we tend to think in terms of family photos.”

Edward Burtynsky, Silver Lake Operations #1, Lake Lefroy, Western Australia, 2007.
Image: metiviergallery.com

Read the full article HERE.

Burtynsky is represented by Nicholas Metivier Gallery in Toronto. Please click HERE for gallery website.

…says Carol Vogel in the New York Times. Dasha Zhukova, the 27-year-old girlfriend of mega collector Roman Abramovich is set to open a new contemporary art space in Moscow. The Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture already features an enormous installation by (VoCA favorite) Montreal’s Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.

A light installation by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer in the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow.
Image: nytimes.com

Check out our interview with him HERE.

Read Vogel’s article HERE and FlashArt’s take HERE