My first impression, at this year’s emerging design exhibition at the Gladstone Hotel, which is titled Come Up To My Room, was that it wasn’t quite as strong as the past few years.

UA Collective. All photos: VoCA. Click on images to enlarge.

Looking through my photos, though I’m not sure that’s the case. The work is different, more conceptual perhaps. Overall, it’s more white so at first it all appears very similar. But really there is a broad range of intriguing beginnings of ideas that one hopes are pursued further by the artist-designers who created them.

Gareth Bate. Click on images to enlarge.

Gareth Bate. Click on images to enlarge.

There was promising young artist Gareth Bate, whose installation Jewel Net of Indra consisted of portraits painted on small silver mirrored discs. Figures as varied as Bob Marley and Terry Fox were featured – their only similarity being their celebrity.

Wendy Fok. Click on images to enlarge.

Wendy Fok. Click on images to enlarge.

Geo-Cognition by Wendy Fok was a spare installation of what looked like an exaggerated moulding curving around the floor and walls of one room. This was offered as a kind of riddle “There are 4 cities here – can you find them?” asked the designer. The answer is in the shadows, which depict the skylines of cities including Hong Kong and Manhattan. Interesting how closely the brain and the eyes are connected.

[R]ED[U]X LAB. Click on images to enlarge.

[R]ED[U]X LAB. (detail) Click on images to enlarge.

Two rooms – all white – by Ryerson’s [R]ED[U]X LAB and VAERY STUDIO, transform their spaces almost entirely. The first involves fabric stretched over a series of custom fabricated plastic bits bound together with elastic bands. When I was in the room, one of the designers was asked where they envision this piece being used in an interior. They don’t, they answered. It was more about experimenting with spaces, seeing things differently, which seemed to be a theme that ran throughout the show.

VAERY STUDIO. Click on images to enlarge.

The second room used the window as a focal point from which fabric stretched dramatically outward. The actual room was completed transformed. Very simple, very effective.

UA COLLECTIVE. Click on images to enlarge.

UA COLLECTIVE. Click on images to enlarge.

UA COLLECTIVE. Click on images to enlarge.

One installation, by UA Collective, featured a printing press of sorts. The walls were papered with printed kraft paper featuring fun, of-the-moment sayings like ‘LESS IS A BORE’ and ‘WHAT ARE YOU SUSTAINING?’

Interstice Studio. Click on images to enlarge.

Interstice Studio. Click on images to enlarge.

In the lobby was a neat idea for what I can only call ‘wall jewellery’. It was actually a ceiling installation made by Interstice Studio, a shimmering net of paperclips. Lovely.

Last but not least were two wildcard objects. In one room was a busy little installation by Tinsel & Sawdust, (below) but what I loved was how the painting and carpet seemed to be mirror images of one another. An idea with tons of potential, IMHO.

Tinsel & Sawdust. Click on images to enlarge.

Lost Nation Design. Click on images to enlarge.

And then there was this crazy piece (above) by Lost Nation Design. There were faint lights glittering inside the canvas sac. I have no idea what it was actually for, but it sat at the end of the hallway like an exotic creature. Huh.

Although I don’t blog about public art in Toronto, since it could create a conflict with my position on the City of Toronto Public Art Commission, that doesn’t stop me from blogging about public art elsewhere.

The entrance to the new Sofitel Hotel in Vienna. Image: VoCA/Scott Barker

I was in Vienna, Austria recently and saw the most fantastic use of art in Jean Nouvel‘s new Sofitel hotel. Surprisingly unremarkable from the outside, there was an artwork by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist that greeted us at the hotel entrance and really wowed us on the rooftop restaurant. I’m not sure if they have a percent for art program there, which we have in many cities across North America (it gives one percent of project costs over to public artworks in newly built properties) but the hotel owners really gave an impressively enormous amount of space and visibility over to the artwork.

The awning over the hotel’s entrance was lit up from underneath with an image that has viewers peering into Pipilotti’s magical ‘heaven’. You literally see up her nostrils. Then, you enter the very black elevator up to the roof top lounge and restaurant.

The restaurant ceiling. Image: VoCA/Scott Barker

The entire restaurant – from the chairs to the carpet, walls and bar is covered in matte, dark grey. The only colour exists in a spectacular ceiling mural by the artist that covers the ENTIRE ceiling, which is also punctured with small circular video screens. Through the screens you can see Pipilotti cavorting around, sticking her fingers down to pull you up into the ceiling.

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It’s better late than never for some highlights from this year’s Venice Biennale.

Flying into Venice. All photos: VoCA

Having been to several Venice Biennales in my life, I almost always prefer the pavilions where the artist addresses the architecture of the pavilions in which the art is housed. The first Biennale was held in 1895 and there are only 30 permanent national pavilions in the Giardini. This year, there were 89 participating countries, many of whom exhibited in off-site pavilions throughout Venice.

The whole concept of the pavilions in the Giardini is, to my mind, rather outdated, and art has clearly moved on from such constraints. Many of the pavilions are architecturally designed to best showcase painting or drawing shows like this year’s contribution from Canada. Luckily, Vancouver artist Steven Shearer managed to give Canada’s little pavilion, wedged in between Germany and Great Britain, some oomph with an enormous billboard and d-i-y shed-like entrance.

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So I was just in Venice, to see the Biennale. Art-wise, there wasn’t much that really wowed me, so I’ll start with the fantastic newly-restored Olivetti store in Piazza San Marco. Designed by the late, great Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa (one of my favorites) in 1957-58, the space has been turned into a stunning museum space by the city. They even got the original models of Olivetti typewriters that were on display when the shop opened.

But the shop was never designed to be simply a shop. It was intended as a ‘business card’, that would showcase Olivetti’s attention to detail and affinity for good design, which was legendary. (Ettore Sottsass designed their amazing Valentine, in 1969.)

Despite his brilliance, Scarpa was apparently difficult to work with, often taking years longer to complete projects that was originally agreed.

But I think it’s clear in retrospect that it would have been worth the wait.

All photos by Scott Barker. More after the jump…

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So, Vancouver artist Steven Shearer will represent Canada at this year’s Venice Biennale, which opens June 4 and continues until November 27, 2011.

Steven Shearer, Nash, 2005. Image: museomadre.it

Torontonians might recall an exhibition of Shearer’s work at the Power Plant in 2007, which I believe was curated by former Power Plant curator Helena Reckitt (now critic/curator in residence at the University of Victoria in Wellington, New Zealand).

So what might visitors to Canada’s pavilion expect to see?

Shearer is going to build a nine-metre high, free-standing mural that will act as a false front for the rather dimminuitive Canadian pavilion, bringing it up to the scale of the surrounding British, German and French pavilions. I’ve always thought it strange that our pavilion was designed by an Italian architect. It’s embarrassing as its size next to the others (it was built in 1958) insinuates Canada’s place as ‘only’ a colony.

More, after the jump…

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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.

Art makes a great gift. People don’t always realize how inexpensive some books and multiples are, and isn’t it better to support local art scenes than buy from major corporations? I think so.

Here are my top picks for Canada’s best art shopping:

1. ART METROPOLE. Started by General Idea in 1974, Art Met continues to specialize in the sale of artist multiple, artist books, video and more. Much of it is very affordable and rather unusual. Gold-plated replica of Peaches’ teeth on a chain, anyone?

Peaches. Image: robotdancemusic.com

Peaches’ teeth, on a chain. Image: artmetropole.com

Check out the comprehensive website, HERE. It’s fun to browse.

2. CANADIAN MAGAZINES.

Support Magenta, a newish online publication, or buy a subscription to the excellent Vancouver journal Fillip, or to Toronto’s artist-run magazine Hunter & Cook.

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I was impressed by the Vancouver architect Bing Thom, who I heard speak last week at the Sustainable Suburbs conference in Toronto.

Vancouver architect Bing Thom. Image: vancouverism.ca

Thom’s Arena Stage at the Mead Centre for American Theatre. Image: archdaily.com

Not only has Thom just designed an improbably well-received Arena Stage at the Mead Centre for American Theatre in Washington D.C., which encases the original brutalist architecture very elegantly, he has just received a commission from Miami mega-collectors Don and Mera Rubell.

The new gallery and mixed-use development is to be set on the site of an abandoned school, and will presumably house part of the 1500-piece Rubell Family Collection.

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Douglas Coupland’s Digital Orca in Vancouver. Image: jaunted.com

This Thursday, I’ll be at the Sustainable Suburbs conference in Toronto. While it’s not about art, it will feature many architects and urban planners discussing the future of our communities, which has an impact on art.

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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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