It’s design week in Toronto. Tonight, I just got back from the Gladstone Hotel’s ‘alternative design event,’ Come up to my Room, or CUTMR.

Founded by the fabulous Pamila Matharu and the Gladstone’s Christina Zeidler, CUTMR works because the rooms are small, and the artist/designers can literally take their idea and run with it. It’s refreshing to see such unfettered creativity.

Co-curator Jeremy Vandermeij being interviewed by Artsync TV. All images: VoCA

Last year was exceptional – I blogged about that HERE and this year was almost as good. The first installation I saw, and the best by far – to my eye, anyway – was by Dennis Lin. Last year, I had visited Lin’s studio and seen all the delicate metal mobiles and translucent wooden lighting fixtures for which he is known.

Dennis Lin’s fantastic installation.

For the Gladstone, Lin, inspired by having recently moved his studio, arranged a large number of studio works inside a cube made up of steel shelving units, wrapping the entire thing in cellophane. It was marvelous, like an enormous box of jewels. It was like the opposite of minimalism…a sort of self-contained maximalism. Brilliant.

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In honour of Marshall McLuhan’s 100th birthday year, a new website, Marshall McLuhan Speaks, launched today, which allows viewers to literally hear the communications guru speak, through video clips.

McLuhan’s Understanding Media. Image: canadiandesignresource.ca

In the clips, you can hear McLuhan himself on his best-known sayings, “the medium is the message”, “global village” and others. And there’s an intro by the novelist Tom Wolfe.

McLuhan’s Gutenberg Galaxy. Image: amandinealessandra.com

Interestingly, McLuhan, who studied at Cambridge and taught at the University of Toronto among other universities, had a lifelong interest in the number 3, as in the trivium – the three ways: grammar, logic and rhetoric – which he studied at Cambridge.

Check out the website – a fantastic resource – HERE.

This morning, I met with Jeffrey Melanson, Mayor Rob Ford’s special advisor on the arts. We were introduced through the wonderful Will Huffman, at the Toronto Art Council.

Jeff Melanson. Image: 123nonstop.com

Though we had originally planned an interview, he asked to wait to answer my questions and instead suggested that we meet for coffee. The first thing you notice about Melanson is that he’s extremely tall and friendly, but he’s also clear and quite convincing.

Melanson outlined his plans and challenges (big challenges) for arts and culture in Toronto, and while I’m not allowed to say what we talked about – yet – suffice to say that the visual arts community can be sure that he is working on our behalf. He seems to have a fairly strong vision.

Bear in mind the huge amount of bureaucracy that he is up against, not to mention pressures from all sorts of interests.

As he pointed out, the city is polarized and I think that it’s important for all of us to keep an open mind when it comes to Rob Ford’s administration. I’m not pro-Ford, and I didn’t vote for him (nor did Melanson, in fact) but that doesn’t mean that he’s not open to Melanson’s plans for arts and culture.

Having spoken with him, I’m confident that he’s focusing on the right areas, and that he’ll be good for the arts.

I’m hoping that in the next few weeks I’ll be able to post the originally planned interview.

Stay tuned.

For now, HERE are Martin Knelman’s thoughts in the Toronto Star from a few weeks ago. Here’s hoping we move forward, not back.

The third biennial national portrait competition, the Kingston Prize, is accepting submissions until April 29, and this year, the prize is being doubled to $20,000.

Marina Dieul, Le défi, oil on panel. Image: kingstonprize.ca

The prize is a wonderful project of the Kingston Art Council (and by the way, it’s supported by the W. Garfield Weston Foundation.)

Andrew Valko of Winnpeg won last year’s Kingston Prize with this piece, titled Personal Surveillance. Acrylic on panel.
Image: kingstonprize.ca

Portraiture is interesting for many reasons. Portraits are a true document of the times. It’s certainly not the most hip kind of art being made today – that’s what the Sobey Art Award is for – but it’s a lot more accessible to audiences than some of the cute conceptualism out there.

And when the works of 30 finalists goes on display at the Royal Ontario Museum from November 10, 2011 to January 2012, audiences will have an opportunity not only to see some outstandingly skillful works, but will also learn a lot about artists from across the country. As Oscar Wilde recognized, “Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”

Gerard Kuehl, Martha Otuk. Graphite. Image: kingstonprize.ca

Prior to the ROM, there will be a preview exhibition of the works in Gananoque, Ontario and in February 2012, the show will travel to Drummondville Quebec.
Looking back at submissions from past years, it’s clear that Canada boasts some astounding portrait artists.

Click HERE for the Kingston Prize website.

The landscape of museum buildings across Canada is about to be given new life, as more institutions secure government and private funding to allow them to expand with sexy architecturally designed spaces.

The Art Gallery of Alberta, in Edmonton. Image: arnewde.com

Last year, the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton unveiled a fractured new building by Gehry alumnus Randall Stout. Of course, there’s also the ongoing hullabaloo about the relocation of the Vancouver Art Gallery. (A report going before city council today suggests that the future VAG location at 688 Cambie Street be shared with office towers that would help pay for the site – more on that HERE.

Also, it seems that the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia may soon have a brand new building, as will the Art Gallery of Saskatchewan. In Nova Scotia, governments are investing in a feasibility study that the federal government has agreed to invest $60,000 towards. This is great news for the largest gallery in Atlantic Canada, which apparently holds some wonderful Nova Scotia folk art, as well as being home to the $50,000 Sobey Art Award.

Meanwhile, across the prairies, the Art Gallery of Saskatchewan (formerly the Mendel Art Gallery) is going ahead with its $66 million new gallery. $13 million will come from the federal government for that. The 85,000-square-foot gallery is scheduled for completion by 2015 with construction beginning in 2012. KPMB will design the building, with Winnipeg architects Carter Smith.

With Montreal’s Musee des beaux arts by Moshe Safdie and the CCA by Peter Rose, Ottawa’s National Gallery by Safdie, Toronto’s AGO and ROM by Gehry and Libeskind respectively, (not to mention KPMB’s Gardiner Museum) Edmonton’s new gallery by Randall Stout and the upcoming buildings mentioned above, Canada’s contemporary art scene will have a lot to live up to. And I’m sure it will, very well.

Regular readers will know I’m a big fan of the late American artist Paul Thek. Recently, we stopped off in New York over the holidays to see the exhibition of work by the late, great American artist at the Whitney (on the last day of the show.)

Paul Thek – shown in Andy Warhol’s Screen Test. Image: accessibleartny.com

I’ve long been aware of Thek’s work through some collector friends who had some early, 60s pieces and in 2008, I traveled to Hamburg for the opening of the first Thek retrospective at the Falckenburg Foundation. That invitation came – kindly – from AA Bronson (see blog post below), whose work with General Idea was also part of the exhibition.

Paul Thek, Untitled, 1966 from the series Technological Reliquaries. image: linea-journal.com

I blogged about that show HERE But the Whitney show, the first American retrospective of Thek’s work, was different, and in some ways, better. The curators included some significant pieces from the Falckenburg collection, but they introduced some contextual pieces that gave the viewer a greater sense of Thek, the man. I discovered that he was the subject of one of Andy Warhol’s famous ‘screen test’ films, and more importantly, that his famous Technological Reliquary works, in which glistening, life-like wax sculptures of human limbs are encased in a super-modern, often fluorescent Perspex boxes, were an attempt to inject ‘humanity’ into the prevailing Minimalism of the day.

Artist Paul Thek, with his effigy, “Tomb”. Image: stevekasher.com

And, that his ‘Headboxes’, which often involved chairs with shoulder mounts, were created to further this approach by allowing the head of the wearer to occupy the space of the ‘art’. Fascinating, when you consider how seriously and successfully he was in pursuing the advancement of art.

Paul Thek, Untitled (Diver), 1969-70

The show is named ‘Diver’ in reference to the Diver figure in a slab from the Tomb of the Diver in Paestum, Italy, which he knew about when living in Rome, and identified strongly with it as an artist diving into the great unknown, trying to find his way.

Perhaps most impressive about Thek is that, in 1967 he created The Tomb, an effigy of himself inside a ziggurat, which he displayed and then re-displayed in different form many times. The piece became known by critics as the Death of the Hippie. Fro Thek, showing the piece was like burying himself, and it showed many times.

Paul Thek, Unititled (Self-portrait), 1966-67 from the series Technological Reliquaries. Image: bjws.com

I think that many young artists are resistant to getting this close to their art, or perhaps I should say that the current trend seems to be for artists to distance themselves from their art. But I think art is much more successful when it is brave, unafraid, unrestrained…almost dangerous. Plus, I really admire Thek’s willingness to be subservient to the art – to place the importance of his art over his own.

The exhibition catalogue has some excellent essays. I recommend it – you can buy it HERE.

If you haven’t heard about the AA Bronson brou-ha-ha by now….

Canadian artist AA Bronson. Image: flickr.com

Well, let’s just say that the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, which is showing the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, exploring art by and about homosexuals, has caved to pressure by Christian activists and removed video piece, A Fire in My Belly, by the late artist David Wojnarowicz that included some images of a crucifix crawling with ants.

David Wojnarowicz, A Fire in My Belly, 1987 (video still). Image: realartways.org

In protest, Bronson has asked that his piece in the show, titled Felix, June 5, 1994, be removed. The photograph shows Bronson’s former partner, Felix Partz, shortly after he died of AIDS. So far, Bronson has managed to get the National Gallery of Canada, which donated the piece to the show, on his side, but to no avail – so far, the NPG is not budging.

AA Bronson, Felix, June 5, 1994. Image: torontolife.com

Tonight, AA sent me a letter written to the NPG by the lawyers that he has now retained, demanding that his piece be returned by January 17, or the Wojnarowicz video replaced, otherwise they “are instructed to institute any necessary legal proceedings as may be necessary to enforce our client’s rights without further notice or delay.” The letter is cc’d to Bronson, the National Gallery of Canada’s director Marc Mayer, and the lawyers.

The exhibition is on at the NPG until February 13, and you can see the missing video HERE.

It’s a powerful piece and I wish AA Bronson good luck in his fight. It’s well worth it.

Stay tuned…