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.
July 9th, 2009 — Architecture
This year’s Serpentine Pavilion was unveiled yesterday – it’s the annual temporary architectural commission in the gardens of London’s Serpentine Gallery.
This year’s pavilion, seen from above. Image: serpentinegallery.org
The pavilion was designed by Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA (architects of New York’s New Museum) and will be on view until October 18. Events, lectures and parties will be held under the pavilion’s silver roof all summer until then.
July 8th, 2009 — Art News: Canada, Collecting, Montreal, Toronto and region
The annual ARTnews collectors list is out, and there are no big surprises. Over half the major collectors featured are from the United States, followed by Germany, the UK, Switzerland and other Western European countries.Most focus on contemporary and modern art, though Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Old Masters are also popular.
Jativa Master (also known as the Master of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin), The Crucifixion, late 1400′soil on panel lined with fabric. Gift of Joey and Toby Tanenbaum to the AGO, 1995Four Canadians make the list: Continue reading →
July 7th, 2009 — Performance art, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto and region
The 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion
The Art Gallery of York University, Toronto
September 15 – 6 December, 2009
This fall, in Toronto, General Idea comes back from the dead:
In an attempt to resurrect Toronto’s oft-forgotten cultural history, the Art Gallery of York University is going to reconstruct The 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion, a work by Canadian art collective General Idea, or as they put it: “restore the Pavillion to the shell of its past glory.”
Test Tube, 1979. Felix, Jorge, and AA are discovered at the Color Bar Lounge of the Pavillion in this made-for-television video. They discuss the relartion of the artist to the public and the media, as well as issues of consumerism and celebrity. Image: facebook.com
The Ruins of the 1984 Miss general Idea Pavillion, 1977. Image: facebook.com
The Pavillion was destroyed in a fire in 1977, and its construction and destruction will be documented at the AGYU by the recreation of two of the group’s key exhibitions, Going Thru the Notions and Reconstructing Futures, which were first exhibited at the Carmen Lamanna Gallery in 1975 and 1977 respectively.
July 3rd, 2009 — Painting, Toronto and region
Although it’s the common model, art galleries don’t need to be commercially-driven. In Toronto, many galleries have a hard time, since the market for contemporary work isn’t strong compared to cities like London and New York.
The current work by painter Elizabeth McIntosh on view at Goodwater.
Image courtesy goodwater gallery.
But that’s why alternative models present possibilities that are often more interesting. Goodwater Gallery in Toronto is one such space. Artists are invited to create projects in the space that aren’t tied to the need to sell work. You won’t find nice 40x 50” framed works on the walls at Goodwater.
The current show, by the excellent Canadian painter Elizabeth McIntosh, doesn’t use paint at all. Instead, the main wall is covered, floor to ceiling, in sheets of coloured paper, thumbtacked in patterns. The back wall is covered, similarly in black paper. It’s an unusual show, for a painter.
July 2nd, 2009 — Art News: International, Upcoming Events & Exhibitions
We heard the rumours, we knew it was just a matter of time…before another art-themed reality tv series hit the airwaves.
This time, Sarah Jessica Parker is producing, not that that makes it seem any less like the typical, American-idol style competitive program.
13 artist contestants will compete for a gallery exhibition, a cash prize and a sponsored national tour.
July 2nd, 2009 — Photography, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto and region, Winnipeg
Sarah Anne Johnson: House on Fire
Art Gallery on Ontario, Toronto
July 4 – 23 August, 2009
Sarah Anne Johnson, House on Fire, 2008, Chromogenic Print. Image: bulgergallery.com
Winnpeg-based artist, Yale grad and 2008 Grange Prize winner Sarah Anne Johnson debuts a new exhibition titled House on Fire at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
The last time we saw Johnson’s work, it was 2007′s Galapagos Project at Toronto’s Stephen Bulger Gallery. We loved her use of different media including sculpture and photography, and the push-pull between them.
July 1st, 2009 — Sculpture/Installation
Don Ritter presents his excellent installation Vox Populi in a group show at the Kunsträume Burg Eisenhardt, in Belzig from July 5-September 27, 2009.
Vox Populi, interactive video and sound installation, 2005. Image: aesthetic-machinery.com
The exhibition’s theme is Democracy, and Ritter’s piece is an interactive video installation in which a large projection of a crowd yells “speech, speech,” and encourages the viewer/participant to speak from a lectern. As the viewer/participant begins to speak (either their own words or various speeches provided, by John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, George W. Bush and others) their text scrolls across a teleprompter and the crowd responds – either with hostility, support or ridicule.
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...Read full bio