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.
May 19th, 2009 — Articles by Andrea Carson, Calgary and region, Edmonton, Halifax and Eastern Canada, Montreal, Ottawa, Thoughts on art, Toronto and region, Vancouver and region, Winnipeg
How relevant are art schools today? Do artists really require education beyond basic technical training? Do art institutions hinder, rather than help the creative expression of artists today?
Bruce Nauman, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign), 1967.
Image: truthinart.wordpress.com
And what does Bruce Nauman think?
Read my opinion piece on the brand new news website, The Mark.
Click HERE.
May 4th, 2009 — Articles by Andrea Carson, Books
Karen Engle’s book Seeing Ghosts: 9/11 and the Visual Imagination takes an intriguing, and – she argues – much needed look at the artworks and ephemera that surrounded September 11.
Eric Fischl, Tumbling Woman. Image: artnet.com
You probably haven’t given much thought to Eric Fischl‘s sculpture Tumbling Woman, which was placed and quickly pulled from Rockefeller Centre when it became clear that a woman in mid-fall wasn’t an appropriate memorial (no closure).
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:
January 2nd, 2009 — Articles by Andrea Carson, Painting, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto and region
Here’s my piece on the New York artist Ryan McGinness, who showed his graphic paintings and incredible perspex sculptures – which, we think are a near-perfect marriage of dynamic form, colour and transparency delivered with frothy lightness – at Artcore in Toronto in October. It’s in the current issue of Azure magazine.
Ryan McGinness, In-progress maquettes for sculptures, acrylic on acrylic, 2008. Image: ryanmcginness.com
Click the thumbnails, and click again to enlarge the text:
November 27th, 2008 — Articles by Andrea Carson, Collecting, Painting, Photography, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto and region, Video/New Media
Check out my reviews in the special Toronto section of the December 2008 issue of ARTnews.
Image: artnewsonline.com
Click each thumbnail twice:
Click HERE to go to the ARTnews magazine website.
October 30th, 2008 — Articles by Andrea Carson, Books, Painting, Underrated Canadian Artists
This book is devoted to Canadian women artists from the 19th to mid 20th centuries. It should be necessary reading for anyone who is interested in Canadian history, and/or Canadian art.
Please don’t let the cover design dissuade you! Keep reading!
Independent Sprit, by A.K. Prakash. Image: fireflybooks.com
“It’s tempting to assume that Canadian women artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries were second-rate, given taht the male-dominated canon of art history has portrayed them as such, simply by exclusion. Independent Sprit helps dispel such tendencies. A.K. Prakash, art advisor to the Thomson family, the Prime Minister’s Office, the Canada Council, and UNESCO, among other, argues convincingly – at times reverentially – for the significance of the 36 artists profiled in this revealing four-part compendium…”
October 16th, 2008 — Articles by Andrea Carson, Interviews, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto and region
Click HERE for my article on the sculptors for Azure’s DesignLines magazine. They’ve just reworked the language of the traditional children’s jungle gym for their new city commission at Lee Centre Park in Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto. Their design-y pieces reference Modernism using such unusual materials as Ikea furniture and bicycle tire.
Christian Giroux and Daniel Young, Mao, 2008. Image: cdgy.com
Christian Giroux and Daniel Young, Fullerene, 2003. Image: aceart.org
Click on thumbnail to enlarge my article:
Click HERE for the artists website.
CDGY are represented in Toronto by Diaz Contemporary – click HERE.
VoCA sat down with Christian and Dan to talk about their work:
VoCA: How would you describe your artistic practice? You have made many sculptures, but also a film and a comic-book inspired print.
CG: We are primarily sculptors.,,our collaboration is born of shared sculptural interests. Our concern is still sculpture, but we’re not confining ourselves to making objects. It’s a hard question. Have we taken a sculptural approach to film? Yes. It’s a typology of comparison between the vocabulary of building construction and the sense of a moment of life in the city. Not just form but the social parameters that shape that form…Also in the history of sculpture…we research how we go about making work. It doesn’t always come naturally. It’s a way of thinking about forms.
DY: We’re interested in the fabrication process..the fabricators – we represent their realm, the industrial base. As you get to know a tool, it guides your process. No one masters anything anymore, it’s all super specialized.
October 10th, 2008 — Articles by Andrea Carson, Books, Photography
Last night, Magenta Publishing launched it’s latest issue of Flash Forward – an annual compendium of young photographers from the US, the UK and Canada. The launch kicked off with a well-curated exhibition of winners at Lennox Contemporary last night in Toronto. (Don’t let the image of a wax Celine Dion put you off!) The show runs until October 26, 2008.
I wrote the foreword, and in the coming days VoCA will be featuring a selection of our favorite artists featured in the book.
Jolie Dobson, Nuclear. Image: joliedobson.com
Jolie Dobson, Deadland. Image: joliedobson.com
Please see below for my introductory text:
From photography’s earliest days, when W.H. Fox Talbot experimented with Calotypes at Lacock Abbey, England, to the exotic imagery of 19th century travel photographers Maxime du Camp and Auguste Salzmann through to its application in 21st century news media, the camera has functioned, as Marshall McLuhan observed, as an extension of the eye. With this extension came a transformation of the world from a personal time-based experience into a series of singular, consumable moments whose original context is always lost to the ambivalent gaze of its recipient.
October 2nd, 2008 — Art fairs, Art Market, Articles by Andrea Carson, Collecting, Toronto and region, Upcoming Events & Exhibitions
Le Kick, Yves Tessier, casein on wood, 3.5 x 5.5 inches, 2001-07. $800 at Projex-Mtl at TIAF.
Have a quick read of my piece in today’s Globe and Mail on all the things to see, do and purchase at this year’s
Art Toronto, which runs October 2 – 6, 2008:
Click HERE for my article or click on the thumbnail below:
September 10th, 2008 — Articles by Andrea Carson, Montreal, Photography, Sculpture/Installation, Video/New Media
Gwenaël Bélanger, Chutes (amas), 2003. Image: graff.ca
In this piece for Art Review magazine, we single out our picks for “Next Great Quebec Artist” from the recent Quebec Triennale in Montreal.
Read our full review on artreview.com, HERE
Manon De Pauw, Fantasmagorie lumineuse, 2008. Image: canadianart.ca
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...Read full bio