Check out this article on how Prime Minister Stephen Harper is trying to repair the damage caused by his cultural slash-and-burn:

“The new funding will reportedly include $100 million for arts festivals, music, and comedy across the country and $60 million for the Cultural Spaces Canada program, which constructs and maintains theaters, museums, and other cultural buildings….”

Hmm….Mr. Nice Guy? Image: dailyseagull.com

Click HERE to read the full update, and HERE for VoCA’s previous posts on the government arts cuts.

The National Post reports on the Independent Media Arts Alliance’s reaction, HERE.

…And reports back, next week.

From the streets of New York City. Image: firstrung.co.uk

Stay tuned for reports on the Calder exhibit at the Whitney, Chagall and Russian Jewish Theatre at the Jewish Museum, VoCA favorite Pipilotti Rist at the MoMA and maybe a couple other things…

After he launched Stuart, a social networking and portfolio showcase site for artists, and just when we were wondering what Charles Saatchi would get up to next, we’re entirely unsurprised by what he’s done. He’s launching a sort of Big Brother-slash-American Idol for emerging artists.

The world of young contemporary art(stardom) is already a circus by any measure, so why not declare it such with a reality television show?

Collector, ad man and UK celebrity Charles Saatchi. Image: artespain.com

Of course, it’s not the first art-related reality show. In 2006, New York dealer Jeffrey Deitch launched Artstar on Gallery HD, a specialty 24-hour channel devoted to the visual arts. Click HERE for the website and HERE for the New York Times’ take on the show.

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Aurélien Froment: Théâtre de poche and The Apse, the Bell and the Antelope
Pavilion Projects, Montreal
Screening and dinner at Dépanneur Le Pickup

Aurélien Froment. Image: maisondescartes.com

January 31, 2009
7pm
$ 25

VoCA highly recommends you check out this one-night-only event, featuring two works and a meal with Parisian artist Aurélien Froment, who makes a diverse array of works including documentary, fiction, manuals and assembled ready-mades.

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Jeppe Hein
The Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver
January 30 – March 29, 2009

Jeppe Hein, Moving Neon Cube, 2004. Image: euroassistance.com

This is Danish artist Jeppe Hein’s first exhibition in Canada. His work often appears Minimalist, but then goes on to engage the viewer in surprising ways, reminding us of Max Dean’s robotic chair and other pieces.

Jeppe Hein trained as a carpenter in Denmark and worked as assistant to the Danish/Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. He’s now based in Berlin.

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“Art is my life, and the life of my people. I want my work…to live and carry on the rich tradition of our people. I have always felt the importance of passing on my knowledge and my skills….Our art connects us to our past and intertwines us in the present and makes way for the future.”

First Nations artist Walter Harris. Image: canadacouncil.ca

Canadian First Nations artist Walter Harris was hereditary chief from the Gitksan First Nation in northwestern British Columbia. He worked in silver, gold, metal, limestone, silk screen graphics and wood, as well as carving totem poles for his home village of Kispiox in 1971, 1972, and 1978 and for Ottawa, Paris, Japan and Vancouver.

In 2003, he was awarded the Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts and in 2005, Walter Harris he received Officer of the Order of Canada.

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Is Cambridge/Waterloo the new arts capital of Canada?

With rumours of the Venice Biennale crossing the pond, the Musagetes Foundation, the excellent Cambridge Galleries – currently showing a nice exhibit of Italian design maverick Enzo Mari‘s work – and the Perimeter Institute, the region is getting behind the arts in a way that leaves other regions in the dust.

Enzo Mari: 16 Pesci Wooden Puzzle (Sedici Animali). Image: nova68.com

This year, the Perimeter Institute continues its excellent series of talks, which last year hosted filmmaker Peter Greenaway, by bringing in Iranian-born photographer and filmmaker Shirin Neshat.

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The Audio Dome at NSCAD. Image courtesy NSCAD.

The Audio Dome is a glass, bell-shaped venue for sound art at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. It’s located at the north-facing entrance of the Port Campus in the Loggia and is situated approximately 8 feet from the ground allowing the speaker to focus the sound downward for a single listener.

Selected works will be played on a continuous loop for one week. New work will be presented every Monday to correspond with the exhibition schedule at the Anna Leonowens Gallery. Works selected for the Audio Dome will be promoted through the gallery’s newsletter.

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ARTISTS’ FLEA MARKET
Saturday, January 17th and Saturday, January 24th, 10 am – 6 pm.
Board of Directors, Toronto

A ‘real’ flea market in Amsterdam. Image: z.about.com

At a time when everyone – surely – is tiring of the never ending art fairs popping up around the globe, and there is an excess of mediocre contemporary art being produced, it seems the timing is right for galleries to address the situation – and what more perfect way than with a flea market?

This community-based project will involve 10 ‘vendors’ at a time will set up selling art, collectibles, craft, second-hand goods and food items.

Just like a real flea market, you never know what you might find.

Incidentally, “In Relational Art, the audience is envisaged as a community. Rather than the artwork being an encounter between a viewer and an object, relational art produces intersubjective encounters. Through these encounters, meaning is elaborated collectively, rather than in the space of individual consumption.”

More on the concept of Relational Aesthetics HERE.

It reminds us of Martha Rosler’s fantastic piece, Garage Sale, which was staged in 1973, and which we saw at its re-installation at the ICA London in 2005.

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VoCA would love to see a Canadian cultural institution bring The Puppet Show, on view from Saturday at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, here.

It originated at the ICA at the University of Pennsylvania and will travel next to the Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Washington (May 16 – September 13, 2009). See it if you can!

The Puppet Show poses a larger cultural question: Why do puppets matter now?

Hand puppets made by Paul Klee; in the collection of Felix Klee. The centre puppet is a self-portrait. Image: britannica.com/felix klee

The exhibition takes as a point of departure one of the first episodes of avante-garde art history: Alfred Jarry’s 1896 play Ubu Roi that was conceived as a puppet show. Ubu’s reign continues with the work of the South African artist William Kentridge in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company.

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