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.
The Canada Prize for the Arts may be the most important thing to happen to the cultural landscape in this country, ever.
…And yet many in the arts, especially in Quebec, are crying. Image: osmoothie.com
Considering that our country’s visual arts have been viewed as a cultural backwater (probably by ourselves, mainly) ever since the American Armory Show of 1913 passed us by, it’s about time that the spotlight shone on Canada.
Ok, ok, we know it’s not a prize specifically for Canadians. But the bigger picture is what matters. Canada will be seen as a place where relevant culture happens.
A major problem for Canada is that our world-class artists often have to go abroad to receive proper recognition. This is why the cuts to travel grant programs were so deplored by cultural organizations and artists - click HERE for past VoCA coverage of government arts cuts.
One of Toronto’s more interesting public artworks, Douglas Coupland’s War of 1812, at the corner of Fleet and Bathurst streets. Image: nationalpost.com
At meetings of the Toronto Public Art Committee (of which I’m a member), we hear art consultants propose the latest public art projects for the city. These projects can present a challenge to both the consultant and the jury that chooses the artist, since it can often seem like a mess of compromises, when what you really want is a wonderful piece of art for Toronto. I know this because I’ve been a jury member and the process can be frustrating, to say the least.
As investment banks grapple with billions of dollars in losses…they are facing growing pressure from shareholders and the taxpayers who have bailed them out to justify their often sprawling art collections…
Art market confdence graph. Image: wealth-bulletin.com
Read the full article, which includes info on some of the world’s top corporate collections, HERE
Click HERE for a more in-depth analysis of the current art market.
We read this book last year, and are now are using it as a reading in a critical writing class. It engages some fascinating questions about art, and criticism.
Boris Groys writes, in his excellent book Art Power:
“In place of the critic in the name of society arose social critique in the name of art: The artwork doesn’t form the object of judgment but is instead taken as a point of departure for a critique aimed at society and the world.”
So the nature of the art object has changed. This isn’t news - art has long been political and since Duchamp, anything has been valid as art. Furthermore, film, video and new media routinely engage and talk back to the audience.
Writing in the Globe and Mail on the recently released report by Hill Strategies Research for Canadian Heritage, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, James Adams says:
The poorest-paid Canadian artist category is that of female visual artist, with average earnings in 2005 of $11,421…
The Starving Artist’s Survival Guide, by Marianne Taylor, Laurie Lindop, Paul Weil. Image: amazon.com
Aboriginal artists are especially poor earners – just $15,900 on average, 30-per-cent lower than the average for all artists.
(Artists are) better educated than most Canadians. The Hill study reports that 39 per cent of all Canadian artists have at least a university degree at the bachelor’s level, whereas for the overall labour force the percentage is 21.
Read the Globe article HERE and the full report HERE.
When Women Rule the World: Judy Chicago in Thread
The Textile Museum, Toronto
Feb 11 - Sep 7, 2009
Judy Chicago, Judy Chicago Birth Tear 1982. Image: textilemuseum.ca/donald woodman
VoCA loves feminist art, and VoCA loves Judy Chicago.
We last saw her work at the WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at the VAG in December (click HERE for VoCA post), where her paintings were some of the strongest in the show.
We admire the way she is able to distill so many apsects of what femininity is into an abstract painting, or an embroidery, yet she does it without Tracey Emin’s anger, or Sarah Lucas’ irony.
Following on from our recent question of whether artist flea markets are the new art fairs, Winnipeg artist/dealer Paul Butler has launched a website, which is “a collectively determined, autonomous art economy where economic value is determined through the consensus of peers.
It exists to facilitate connections and to create a network through which artists can trade their art.”
Alexander Calder: The Paris Years, 1926 - 1933 on at the Whitney until February 15, 2009 is a small and perfectly formed show on the seven years in Paris that defined the artist’s career.
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...