“An art gallery is like a single-cell organism: it is the crudest but also the most essential life form in the art-world food chain. It is among the easiest of public forums to start up…

Luanne Martineau, Gobbler, 2005. Image: trepanierbaer.com

…At the same time keeping a gallery going is usually fairly hard, and can seem impossibly daunting when sales slump. As small operations, galleries are…canaries in the coal mine, as they have often been called. So it made sense, as the bottom fell out of the art market last winter, that many people predicted galleries would start closing fast and furiously.”

This is from an article by Roberta Smith from the New York Times. Check it out HERE.

Graham Gillmore, Turns You On, 2005. Image: monteclarkgallery.com

Because Canada’s contemporary art market pales in comparison to that in the U.S., we don’t, perhaps give it much thought. But now’s a good time to set aside a budget to buy some art. $2000 would do nicely, and there’s the Toronto International Art Fair coming up, as well as excellent exhibitions opening this month. Here are some of our picks:

MONTREAL
Wil Murray: “We Pet Your Cat To Death?” at Galerie Push
Amy-Claire Huestis: Landscape with Bombers at Battat Contemporary

TORONTO
Spleen and Ideal: Katie Pretti at Le Gallery
Edward Burtynsky: Oil at Metivier Gallery

CALGARY
5th Anniversary and Kim Dorland: Canadian Content at Skew Gallery
Luanne Martineau: What Widens Within You Walt Whitman at Trepanier Baer

VANCOUVER
Graham Gillmore: Refusalon at Monte Clark Gallery
Anna Plesset: Headlines at Jeffrey Boone Gallery