I went out to Oakville for the opening of Un-home-ly, director Matthew Hyland’s first major exhibition with the gallery.

Paulette Phillips, Homewrecker, 2004. All images: VoCA

I am told that Matthew’s background is in feminist studies, so it seems fitting that his curatorial career at the gallery should begin with a show of feminist work. The show is the first in a series of exhibitions about contemporary feminist art, the next to be in 2012, which will explore feminist gestures towards utopia.

Jin-me Yoon, Intersection6, 2010.

Jin-me Yoon, Intersection6, 2010.

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The Inuit artist Kananginak Pootoogook has died.

Kananginak Pootoogook

A work by Kananginak Pootoogook. Image: fortport.com

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Toronto is changing dramatically these days, as anyone who lives downtown can tell you. Seemingly hundreds of condo towers are going up, and the city centre is filling in nicely.

Queen West. Image: realestatebrothers.com

I was at an opening the other night and I could just tell that there were condo-dwellers scattered among the artists in the crowd. It made me wonder about the effect of the influx of a group primed for objets d’art – how will this affect the local market? Already Queen Street West and Queen West West, and Dundas West and Liberty village are full of artists, galleries, studios, workshops and boutiques.

The creative scene has been thriving for a few years now, and the local media is responding.The city finally seems to be comfortable in celebrating our own, whether local fashion designers like Jeremy Laing, local artists (Shary Boyle, Kristan Horton among many, many others), musicians, chefs, bartenders, architects and designers.

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Three artists – all women – have been awarded prizes by the City of Montreal.

Alana Riley, At the Blackwatch, 2004-2007. Image: redbull381projects.com

Alana Riley is an artist whose work I’ve been keeping an eye on.  She has won the Prix Pierre-Ayot, which is presented by the city in collaboration with the Art Dealers Association (AGAC), to an artist under the age of 35.

Riley, who is represented by Joyce Yahouda Gallery, receives $5000, plus $500 to go toward an exhibition of her work, and the City of Montreal will acquire one of her works.

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Winnipeg artist Daniel Barrow has won the 2010 Sobey Art Award. The prize awards $50,000 to a visual artist under the age of 40. I had a feeling he’d win, having been passed up for the award in 2008.

Daniel Barrow, Flaying, 2010, from his show at the Art Gallery of York University. Image: livewithculture.ca

Daniel Barrow at work giving a projection performance. Image: livewithculture.ca

Daniel Barrow, Kiss Me Before I Die, 2010. Image: jessicabradleyartprojects.com

Please see more of Daniel Barrow’s work on his website, HERE. He shows with Jessica Bradley Art & Projects in Toronto, where he will have an exhibition from November 20 — December 23, 2010.

I just got a press release from theartmarket.ca, a newly launched website that bills itself as “a game changer”.

Image: VoCA

The idea, conceived by two friends, Merete Kristiansen and Kate Barron of Vancouver, is to provide “an innovative and comprehensive guide to the Canadian art world”, by hosting free profiles of artists, galleries and related events.I hope that they get things rolling soon.

With a name like The Art Market, they’ll really have their work cut out to feature what’s happening across the country. I know, because that’s pretty much what VoCA set out to do four years ago.

On the site you will find a searchable database, which will presumably soon be filled with, as they say, profiles for artists, arts organizations and their events. Their release may have been a little premature, though. I searched “installation” “conceptualism” for the years 2000-2010 and it came up with… nothing.

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I was interested to read THIS article, from the Hamilton Spectator, about a recent symposium on culture and city-building.

Like many cities worldwide, Hamilton – a steel town outside of Toronto – is hoping to reinvent itself through creativity and culture.

Hamilton – Steeltown. Image: emeraldinsight.com

The symposium was organized by the Imperial Cotton Centre for the Arts, a not-for-profit creative industries advocacy group. A city report totals the city’s cultural resources as the starting point for a long-range “cultural master plan” that would establish cultural communities and revitalize downtown Hamilton.

The article also mentions that Hamilton is being profiled in the report, Ontario in a Creative Age: “Our goal must be to harness and use our full creative talents, to grow the businesses and industries of the future, to use our openness, tolerance, and diversity to gain economic advantage, and to invest in the infrastructure of the future in ways that enable more innovation and economic growth. Ontario can and must take a high-road strategy for economic prosperity in which all Ontarians can participate. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to build a vibrant economy for the creative age.”

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Is fashion art? Or ‘only’ craft?

The Montreal fashion designer Denis Gagnon. Image: bestioledemode.com

It’s a discussion that comes up every once in a while, usually when an exceptionally talented fashion designer comes onto the scene. And it presumes that craft is somehow lesser than fine art. But I don’t think it’s any less relevant or important, it is just different. Craft relates to objects which have a use, while visual art is the pure transformation of emotion or thought into a language. But why shouldn’t artists or craftspeople be able to use the language of craft to express an artistic sentiment?

Consider Japanese Living National Treasures, who preserve the tradition of such crafts as ceramics, textiles and lacquerware at the very highest levels. I believe fashion is a craft that can become art. It certainly did in the hands of Alexander McQueen.

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The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia will celebrate the life and art of Canada’s best known living painter with an exhibition of selected works that will showcase his prints and sketches – an important part of Colville’s practice.

Alex Colville, Family and Rainstorm, 1955. Image: cybermuse.gallery.ca

Alex Colville
Through February 20, 2011
The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia

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It’s good to hear that designers – and design curators – seem to finally be thinking more in terms of what we need, rather than just what we may want.

Adaptive Eyeglasses. Joshua Silver (British, b. 1946), Adaptive Eyecare Ltd. and Oxford Centre for Vision in the Developing World_CVDW. Image: egodesign.ca

Now that the extreme overload of commodities in the world has reached the point of Freeganism, a reconsideration of design is long past due. Of course, that’s what we’ve all been saying for years, and it’s what Bruce Mau was arguing in his brilliant, if awkwardly curated, exhibition Massive Change at the AGO a few years ago.

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