Your Cultural Concierge! VoCA offers critical commentary on the Canadian art scene, with a focus on Toronto. Featuring exhibition previews, critics picks, interviews and in-depth articles on art in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Halifax.
February 27th, 2010 — Art fairs, Art News: International, Collecting, Toronto and region, Upcoming Events & Exhibitions
Tomorrow, Sunday, February 28, in Toronto, the Canadian Art Reel Artists Film Festival will host the first tribute to the legendary Swiss art dealer and founder of Art Basel, Ernst Beyeler, who died Thursday at his home, aged 88.
Ernst Beyeler in his gallery office, 22 May 1982. Image: beyeler.com
October 22nd, 2009 — Art fairs, Art Market, Collecting, Painting, Toronto and region, Upcoming Events & Exhibitions
…In London:
Sales were up at Frieze art fair in London apparently, but collectors are bargain-hunting. Artists continue apace, and you’ve got to hand it to Swiss artist Christoph Buchel for bravely exhibiting a pair of his old, worn socks on the floor of Hauser & Wirth, for sale at €20,000. Not sure if they sold.
Christoph Büchel Socks, 2009. Image: artfagcity.com
Editions are big news. White cube gallery in London exhibited as White Cube Editions at the Zoo art fair, offering affordable but highly branded prints and multiples by artists.
One of Damien Hirst’s Blue Paintings that are being slammed by critics in London.
Image: slamxhype.com
The latest trend seems to be blatant piss-taking (Hirst on Francis Bacon, Elmgreen Dragsett on Giacometti, the Korean artist Gimhongsok on Jeff Koons, or one of Stephanie Syjuco’s artists who have copied Gimhongsok’s copy of Koons.) This seems to point to a lack of creative inspiration among artists, perhaps a fatigue of having to create new, inspiring artwork. It’s as if they are creating lesser, imitation editions of great work and it’s an interesting trend to keep watching.
In related news, in THIS op-ed in the NYT last week argued that today’s conceptual art will go the way of the dodo bird. It’s craftsmanship and technical skill that will serve art in the long term, not “witty” conceptual ideas. VoCA thinks the writer certainly has a point.
…and in Canada:
September 4th, 2009 — Art fairs, Art Market, Calgary and region, Collecting, Montreal, Painting, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto and region, Vancouver and region
“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:
March 19th, 2009 — Art fairs, Articles by Andrea Carson
Check out my article on the Art Expo, Toronto’s “kinder, gentler art fair for tough times” in today’s Globe and Mail – click thumbnail after the jump.
It’s a good place to discover work by artists who may not have gallery representation. Many are from abroad – expect to see work from India, Japan, Israel, Germany and Korea.
A mixed-media work by artist In Hyuck Song. Image: art-zurich.com
To read my article, click the thumbnail twice to enlarge:
February 17th, 2009 — Art fairs, Art Market
Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai with John Martin, Director of Art Dubai.
The report, Globalisation and the Art Market, Emerging Economies and the Art Trade in 2008 takes a detailed look at the growing importance of China, Russia, India and the Middle East in the art market in recent years. It also examines the past and possible future effects of the current world economic climate on international art buying.
February 4th, 2009 — Art fairs
Following on from our recent question of whether artist flea markets are the new art fairs, Winnipeg artist/dealer Paul Butler has launched a website, which is “a collectively determined, autonomous art economy where economic value is determined through the consensus of peers.
It exists to facilitate connections and to create a network through which artists can trade their art.”
Work from theuppertradingpost.com
Originally invitational, now it’s gone public.
January 16th, 2009 — Art fairs, Art Market, Toronto and region
ARTISTS’ FLEA MARKET
Saturday, January 17th and Saturday, January 24th, 10 am – 6 pm.
Board of Directors, Toronto
A ‘real’ flea market in Amsterdam. Image: z.about.com
At a time when everyone – surely – is tiring of the never ending art fairs popping up around the globe, and there is an excess of mediocre contemporary art being produced, it seems the timing is right for galleries to address the situation – and what more perfect way than with a flea market?
This community-based project will involve 10 ‘vendors’ at a time will set up selling art, collectibles, craft, second-hand goods and food items.
Just like a real flea market, you never know what you might find.
Incidentally, “In Relational Art, the audience is envisaged as a community. Rather than the artwork being an encounter between a viewer and an object, relational art produces intersubjective encounters. Through these encounters, meaning is elaborated collectively, rather than in the space of individual consumption.”
More on the concept of Relational Aesthetics HERE.
It reminds us of Martha Rosler’s fantastic piece, Garage Sale, which was staged in 1973, and which we saw at its re-installation at the ICA London in 2005.
December 5th, 2008 — Art fairs, Art Market
Dealer Angela Westwater offers her thoughts at Art Basel Miami Beach. From a recent issue of the Art Newspaper:
“The art market is only part of the art world. The turmoil in the global economy distracts us from where the true value of art really resides – its sustaining benefits as spiritual sustenancy and cultural legacy.”
– Angela Westwater, Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York
December 3rd, 2008 — Art fairs, Toronto and region, Upcoming Events & Exhibitions
VoCA’s favorite retail design guru Murray Moss speaks to the New York Times as Design Miami opens in tandem with Art Basel Miami Beach et al, which the Times appropriately calls “a cultural caviar-stuffed buffet.”
Studio Job, Bavaria Screen, 2008, (Courtesy of Moss Gallery, New York). Image: nytimes.com
Read the full article HERE.
Incidentally, Studio Job, the cutting-edge Dutch designers who designed the screen above, will speak in Toronto on February 6, 2009 as part of the Azure Trade Talks. Please click HERE.
December 1st, 2008 — Art fairs, Art Market, Collecting, Thoughts on art
This Thursday, Art Basel Miami Beach gets under way, as do the vast number of alternate fairs, and the entire design section that has emerged as a compliment to all the art.
It remains to be seen what the effects of the economic downturn will have on the fairs – and the hype. Stay tuned.
Tim Noble and Sue Webster, $, 2001. Image: ps1.org
‘‘Today I’m standing in a house full of art,” says Alan Roth, 33, publisher of 944 Magazine and president of TAI Entertainment, a party promoting and marketing company. “I can’t believe I have all this work.‘
Check out this article from the Miami Herald on local “starry-eyed” collectors HERE.
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...Read full bio