Montreal’s Nuit Blanche is a night of arts, culture and entertainment that takes place in the middle of a week-long Montreal High Lights Festival, which runs from February 19 – 1 March 1, 2009.

Nuit Blanche takes place from the evening of February 28 through the morning of Sunday, March 1.

The event is divded into zones – Click HERE for Part One, with our picks for the QUARTIER VIEUX-MONTRÉAL ET QUAI DU VIEUX-PORT. Below, are our picks for the QUARTIER DES SPECTACLES ET CENTRE-VILLE, the QUARTIER PLATEAU MONT-ROYAL and the ART SOUTERRAIN:

QUARTIER DES SPECTACLES ET CENTRE-VILLE

1. UQAM GALLERY: Manon De Pauw

This exhibition of one of Quebec’s brightest art stars will feature photograms, photographs, video performances, performance set-ups, single-channel videos and multi-channel video installations, manipulation of accessories, materials and colours, unfurling gestures, hands and bodies, and use of surfaces of inscription like paper, tables, screens and lightboxes …

Manon De Pauw will improvise with sound artist Nancy Tobin in an open workshop. They will construct an audio and visual space together, employing the intensity of colours and frequencies, and manipulating both visible and invisible materials.

Please click HERE.

Continue reading →

We have been busy promoting the Canadian Art Reel Artists Film Festival, which launches this weekend in Toronto, with fourteen films on art and artists.

An installation shot from David Lynch’s art exhibition. Image: re-title.com

Below, we recommend our top three festival highlights:

The Canadian premiere of Herb and Dorothy, about New York collectors Herb and Dorothy Vogel, who, in the 1960s, lived on her salary and devoted his entire salary – as a postal worker – to collecting work by then-unknown artists such as Richard Chamberlain, Pat Steir, Richard Tuttle, Chuck Close, Robert Mangold, Sol Lewitt and others…

Watch the trailer HERE.

Continue reading →

There appears to be some confusion over recent cuts announced to arts and culture in British Columbia.

Image: Wikimedia.org

Here’s how Plank Magazine breaks it down:

For the upcoming fiscal year, the provincial government in BC is reducing its spending on arts and culture by 40% from $19.5 million to $11.9 million.

Plus, the income from the new $150 million BC150 Cultural Fund endowment was reduced by 40% from approximately $8 million per year which it was supposed to generate. Due to the economic downturn, this year the Fund will bring in $3.3 million this year (and likely about the same in the next few years to come).

Not to mention that the government is not putting up any money for capital expenditures for arts and culture – compared with the $90 million spent on capital projects last year.

HOWEVER…

Continue reading →

The 53rd Golden Lion awards for Lifetime Achievement will be awarded to Yoko Ono and John Baldessari at the opening of the Venice Biennale in June.

The unbelievably fabulous Yoko Ono. Image: arstechnica.com

Curator Daniel Birnbaum says: “Yoko Ono and John Baldessari have shaped our understanding of art and its relationship to the world in which we live. Their work has revolutionized the language of art and will remain a source of inspiration for generations to come.”

Continue reading →

Here are VoCA’s picks for Montreal’s Nuit Blanche. The night of arts, culture and entertainment takes place in the middle of a week-long Montreal High Lights Festival, which runs from February 19 – 1 March 1, 2009. It’s the event’s tenth anniversary!

Josée Pellerin, Chapitre Un : Louis (2008). Image: galerieorange.com

It’s worth going to Montreal for.

We have chosen our top three (or so) recommended installations and exhibitions to take in on the night – from Saturday, February 28 through Sunday, March 1.

The event is divded into zones – here are our picks for the

QUARTIER VIEUX-MONTRÉAL ET QUAI DU VIEUX-PORT

Continue reading →

Collector of art and art books (and friend of VoCA) Bill Clarke continues his tour of his bookshelves:

A Young Man of Extraordinary Personal Beauty by Gareth Jones/Oscar Wilde; 2007

4. A YOUNG MAN OF EXTRAORDINARY PERSONAL BEAUTY by Gareth Jones; 2007. Published by Four Corners Press, London.
This book is the first in a series of classic British novels being reprinted by Four Corners Press, which is inviting young artists to oversee the designs. British artist Gareth Jones was commissioned to design a text of Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Grey. Throughout the text, Jones places advertisements for Gitanes cigarettes from the 1970s that feature male models, transporting the story to more recent times visually. The entire publication, from its baby blue cover to the models’ heavy moustaches and earrings, is clever, kitschy and sexy.

Continue reading →

A few weeks ago, we recommended artist books as a more affordable (and under appreciated) alternative for art collectors. Imagine our surprise to discover that art collector and friend of VoCA Bill Clarke was also a collector of art books.

Here, he gives us a tour of his bookshelves:

Robert Indiana: Trilove (1969). All images: courtesy Bill Clarke

1. TRILOVE by Robert Indiana; 1969. Published by Edition Domberger, Stuttgart, in an edition of 210 signed and numbered copies.

American Pop artist Robert Indiana isn’t known as a book artist but, in the late ‘60s, he produced this small edition of two poems accompanied by a charming lithograph of his iconic LOVE image in a blue, green and white variation. The first poem, written in ‘55 , is fairly conventional, but the second, revisited by the artist for this publication, is a playful experiment in which he reconfigures the word ‘LOVE’ into different typographical arrangements. Indiana considered the print the third poem of the book, hence the title Trilove. Indiana’s limited edition prints, let alone his paintings, are beyond the reach of most of us, so this book was a relatively affordable way for me to obtain a piece of his work.

Continue reading →

We were going to post a rumour that we have heard – that the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art has let go Sue Jeffries, their enthusiastic curator of Modern & Contemporary Ceramics.

We also heard that they might be closing their entire contemporary department, but now we hear that this is NOT true and that they will continue curating contemporary exhibitions.

VoCA says: Thank goodness!

Shary Boyle, Snowball,2006. Porcelain, china paint. Image: todayandtomorrow.net

As the worlds of art and design increasingly blend, there are more and more amazing things happening in ceramics. In recent years young designers have collaborated and reinvented the designs of traditional firms – witness the avant garde Dutch design team Studio Job and their Biscuit collection designed especially for Royal Tichelaar.

Continue reading →

In his (VoCA recommended) book Art Power, Boris Groys argues for the emergence of the curator as an important figure in art today. Noting that originally, art became art through decisions made by museum curators rather than artists, he goes on to say “Sacred objects were once devalued to produce art; today, in contrast, profane objects are valorized to become art.” It is therefore necessary to have curators. “The artwork needs external help, it needs an exhibition and curator to become visible.”

It seems curatorship has, again, stepped into the limelight.

Peter Callesen, Bound to be free, 2008. Image: helenenyborg.com

We will see what curator Daniel Birnbaum has in store for us at this year’s Venice Biennale in June, but from what I hear from Leah Sandals, who was in Madrid recently for ARCO, the city’s museums had some pretty interesting exhibits on, including one that looks fascinating on the subject of Shadows.

Continue reading →

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai with John Martin, Director of Art Dubai.

The report, Globalisation and the Art Market, Emerging Economies and the Art Trade in 2008 takes a detailed look at the growing importance of China, Russia, India and the Middle East in the art market in recent years. It also examines the past and possible future effects of the current world economic climate on international art buying.

Read the full article from Art Daily, right HERE