There’s so much happening in the Canadian art world, it can be difficult to keep up with it all. Here’s a reminder of some places you can hear excellent talks, watch videos and read thoughtful commentary. On OCAD’s website, check out videos from their excellent speaker series, including talks by the critic Hal Foster, Jamelie Hassan and Vandana Shiva. Jamelie
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Click HERE for a questionnaire with Vancouver artist Jeff Wall in this month’s issue of Frieze magazine. “I get so much from looking at great works, but some days – or even some months – I get more from not looking at them. You experience the art also by being away from it and not seeing it.” – Jeff Wall
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We hear that national critic Sarah Milroy and Toronto ‘Gallery Going’ writer Gary Michael Dault are going freelance at Canada’s largest-circulation national newspaper the Globe and Mail, leaving a big dark hole where the visual arts writing used to be. Image: dspace.mit.edu However, R.M Vaughn, the writer/artist/poet/critic who currently writes a film/celebrity interview column for the paper, will take over
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Get ready, Toronto! This year, the city’s much-loved “All Night Contemporary Art Thing”, Nuit Blanche, takes place on October 2, 2010 from 7 pm to 7 am. Agnès Winter, Monument to Smile, 2007. Image: hustlerofculture.com It should be good, with a great lineup of curators, each of whom will curate a section of downtown. We have high hopes for McMaster’s
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Last week we posted HERE part one of our conversation with Douglas Coupland. In this post, Coupland talks about his collecting habits, coming from a “guns-and-ammo” family, his interest in nuclear culture and his new TV mini-series, among other things. Douglas Coupland’s tiny cubes of 100 stamps. Image: VoCA Coupland brings out a bowl filled with small cubes of 100
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Last night, we went to a panel discussion, hosted by the Canadian Journalism Foundation, titled Arts Journalism: Staying Critical in the Digital Age. The panel: Taylor, O’Regan, Al-Solaylee and moderator Bronwyn Drainie. Image: courtesy Roger Cullman Moderated by Bronwyn Drainie, Editor of the Literary Review of Canada, the panel featured Kamal Al-Solaylee, Assistant Professor at Ryerson and former theatre critic
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Last week at his beautiful, art-filled Ron Thom designed home in Vancouver, VoCA sat down with artist-slash-writer Douglas Coupland to get his views on everything from Warhol to techological obsolescence to City of Toronto love. “All young artists secretly think they’re the next Warhol,” says the Generation X author. Douglas Coupland. Image:anthonygeorge.com Here are some highlights: VoCA: Douglas Coupland, are
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We returned from Vancouver to the news that Brian Jungen has won the $25,000 2010 Gershon Iskowitz award at the AGO, and that the $50,000 Sobey Art Prize longlist has been announced. Vanessa Paschakarnis, Shield for a Human, 2009. Bronze. Image: erhard-metz.de Most regions have a pretty clear shortlister for the Sobey (I’m thinking either Isabelle Pauwels or Jeremy Shaw
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This is a lovely sculpture outside Vancouver’s convention centre overlooking Burrard Inlet. Titled The Drop, it “pays homage to the element of water and the untamable forces of nature which are omnipresent in Vancouver.” It’s by the German public art group Inges Idee, four artists – Hans Hemmert, Axel Lieber, Thomas Schmidt and George Zey, and it’s their first installation
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Stay tuned for an interview with Douglas Coupland, author, artist, fan-of-Warhol and recent author of a book on McLuhan. Some of Coupland’s recent artworks.
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...