Reverse Pedagogy is an experimental, nomadic art school started by Winnipeg artist Paul Butler at the Banff Centre last year, in which participants were asked to direct the residency collectively.

The canoes, before leaving for Europe. Image: reversepedagogy.com

The goal – which VoCA loves, see our post on art schools HERE – was to create an experiment in which students would teach each other without hierarchical pedagogical models.

“Reverse Pedagogy was a sanctuary from the pressures and responsibilities that come with being a professional artist…”

For one week in June, during the chaotic opening days of the 53rd Venice Biennale, the residency decamps to Venice where they have rented an enormous palazzo, inside which they will camp out – literally. Led by the artist Dean Baldwin, who is well-known for his mini-bar, the participating artists can be seen as a microcosm of some of Canada’s most interesting and interested artists (mostly from Toronto), including VoCA favorites Paulette Phillips, Kelly Mark, Paul Butler, Robin Simpson and Maryse Lariviere of Pavilion Projects, and Jon Sasaki.

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Paolo Veronese and the Petrobelli Altarpiece
29 MAY – 7 SEPTEMBER 2009
The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Paolo Veronese, The Petrobelli Altarpiece (reconstruction). Image: churchtimes.co.uk

If you’ve ever wondered about how paintings are restored, there’s a great video on the National Gallery of Canada website where Stephen Gritt, Chief Conservator explains the history of Veronese’s The Dead Christ Supported by Angels, which is presently being restored.

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France sells the Louvre’s illustrious name to the UAE for $555 million as Abu Dhabi begins construction on the Jean Nouvel designed museum.

Jean Nouvel’s design for the Louvre in Abu Dhabi. Image: pushpullbar.com

Read Carol Vogel’s article in today’s New York Times, HERE.

Despite the fact that France may have prostituted herself, the curator’s mandate is to create a “universal spirit”, embodied by groupings such as a sculpture of Christ, a Buddha and a Koran in close proximity.

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Noise Ghost: Shary Boyle and Shuvinai Ashoona
May 28 – August 23, 2009
Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Hart House, University of Toronto

Shary Boyle, self portrait, 2006. Image: sharyboyle.com

Toronto artist Shary Boyle, who is well known for her delicate figurines (often championed on VoCA) is paired with Cape Dorset artist Shuvinai Ashoona, who first came to our attention a few years ago, and did a fantastic collaboration with John Noestheden titled Earth and Sky for Nuit Blanche Toronto last year.

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“(The recession has) brought up a lot of questions about what I’m doing and whether I want to keep doing it,…I’m not really qualified to do much of anything else. I’d have to go back to school. I don’t see the possibility of making a steady income in the near future. I don’t think I can sustain it….”

Read the full article from the New York Times, HERE.

Oakville is almost an hour’s drive outside of downtown Toronto, and Oakville Galleries is one of VoCA’s favorite regional galleries. Gairloch Gardens is a beautiful, lakeside garden on the shores of Lake Ontario that makes the drive to Oakville worth it even without art in the garden.

Audiences enjoying the Tree Listening Project. Image: alexmetcalfe.co.uk

British artist Alex Metcalf’s Tree Listening Project is currently on in the gardens. A project that “links both science and art by engaging the public with what happens inside a tree, and to excite and inspire a keen interest…”

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Coming up on VoCA:

-BOOKS: Rogues’ Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money That Made the Metropolitan Museum, by Michael Gross

-PREVIEW: Canada’s other contribution to the Venice Biennale, Reverse Pedagogy, featuring a bunch of crazy Canucks paddling canoes through the canals of Venezia…

-JAMIE’S AREA: The Food Series

-THE WINKING CIRCLE: The Eccentrification of the World!

…And more. Stay tuned…

Painter Graham Peacock has been teaching painting at the University of Alberta since 1969, when he arrived in Canada from England.

Graham Peacock, Valor, 2003. Image: grahampeacock.com

Perhaps not strictly speaking underrated, Peacock has been exhibiting throughout Canada on a regular basis since 1971. In 2003 he had an exhibition of recent work at the New New Painting Museum in Toronto, and in 2005 had a retrospective at the Ernest Poole gallery in Edmonton.

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VoCA was sad to hear that the excellent Vancouver architect Arthur Erickson – rated by Phyllis Lambert as Canada’s finest – has died.

Erickson’s Hugo Eppich House, designed 1979. Image: arthurerickson.com

Take a tour of his wonderful homes and buildings on his comprehensive website, HERE.

Erickson’s Graham House, designed in 1962. Image: arthurerickson.com

Read the full obituary, HERE.

VoCA’s not going to the Venice Biennale this year, but we received news of a fantastic-sounding event on the Island of San Giorgio, in the Palladian Refectory that we highly recommend checking out, if you’ll be there.

Paolo Veronese, The Wedding at Cana. Image: wga.hu

Theatre, moviemaking and art combine in this extraordinary sounding multimedia performance by the Dutch director – whose The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover remains one of VoCA’s favorite films. The Wedding at Cana is part of Greenaway’s ongoing project where he ‘visits’ nine classic paintings, from Renaissance works to paintings by Picasso and Jackson Pollock.

A still from The Cook, The Thief…, 1989. Image: wired.com

Greenaway presents an interpretation of Veronese’s masterful banquet scene using cutting edge images, lighting, music, voices ans sounds, and the idea is to ‘make visitors relive the episode of the marriage feast at Cana where Christ accomplished his first miracle, as narrated in the Gospel of John.’

Greenaway will point out the painting’s scores of characters and moments in an on-going crescendo culminating in the narration’s pinnacle: the miracle of water turning into wine.

This is the third project – the first was of Rembrandt’s The Nightwatch at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, followed by Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper in Milan in 2008.

Opening hours: Every day on the hour, from 11am – 7 pm (Thurs and Fri, 11am – 9 pm)
Venue: Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Palladian Refectory
Address: Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice
Admission: 10 Euro

Click HERE for more info.