From James Adams in yesterday’s Globe and Mail:

“When its September, 2007, online sale resulted in gross revenues of about $600,000 on 156 lots, (Heffel Fine Art Auction House) started to think seriously about going with a separate live auction (for post-war and contemporary art) and “concentrate more on this growing component of the market,” noted Nina Kim, Heffel’s director of postwar and contemporary art…”

For the rest of the article, please click HERE.

Tom Thomson, View from a Height, Algonquin Park, Fall, 1916.
Auction Estimate: $800,000-1,200,000
Price Realized: $1,207,500

While the Canadian auction ’scene’ may seem laughable next to the inflated numbers bandied about in the U.S and the U.K these days, we are finally seeing increased interest in Canadian art since 1945, which is great because it has, for so long been terribly undervalued.

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“What separates true artistic development from mere rehashing?” asks Artforum’s Brian Sholis in his review of Canadian art star Brian Jungen’s new show at Casey Kaplan in New York.

Artist Brian Jungen. Image: voyage5capefarewell.com

“Some artists focus exclusively upon a narrow set of concerns but manage to find nuanced and varied expressions of them. Jungen, though formally creative, seems to be on intellectual autopilot.”

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…is in need of a revamp, writes Richard White in the Calgary Herald.

Jeff De Boer, When Aviation was Young – Tower 1, 2002, Calgary International Airport. Image: jeffdeboer.com

He spoke with Tom Tittemore, chair of the Calgary Public Art Board (CPAB) who has a plan.

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In a move perhaps inspired by the spate of American, European and Chinese collectors opening up their own spaces, the dashing Canadian collector Bob Rennie will open his own private museum to showcase his collection of contemporary art.

Collector Bob Rennie. Image: rennie.com

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Marni Soupcoff on Canada’s biggest mistake: The $7.5-billion that Canadian governments lavish on the arts every year

Image: nationalpost.com

Marni Soupcoff from the National Post thinks that the Canadian government should stop funding the arts altogether.

After all, “Let’s be honest — who makes up the majority of the audiences of symphonies, art galleries and ballets? It’s middle-class and rich people who can afford to pay for their own entertainment.”

VoCA doesn’t necessarily agree with her article, but we think she has a point.

Should the government continue funding the arts? Or not?

Read the full article HERE

The Guardian digs up the seemingly never-ending debate over the death of art criticism:

Read the article HERE

Raoul Hausmann, The Art Critic, 1919-1920. Image: cti.itc.virginia.edu

The Guardian Art Blog picks up the story with readers comments:

Check it out HERE

VoCA would love to hear your comments!

The show confirms impressions of a new, gray mood among younger artists, one at odds with the recent prevalence in international art of both commercial glitz and festivalist brass. Call it a decline in producer confidence…

Read the article by the New Yorker’s Peter Schjeldahl HERE

Simon Starling: Cuttings (Supplement) at the Power Plant, Toronto

March 1 – 11 May, 2008

Simon Starling, Infestation Piece (Musselled Moore), 2007/8. Image: thepowerplant.org

The Power Plant will open a retrospective of British conceptual artist Simon Starling with a newly commissioned work made for The Power Plant, part of the gallery’s Commissioning Program launched in 2006.

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Pixel power: Virtual art online commands high prices in the real world

An MFA graduate exhibition in Second Life. Image: www.deanterry.com

Second Life, the virtual world that mimics the real world, has held art auctions fetching big prices. And curiously “real world” galleries have sold artworks based on online creations — capturing the image, enhancing it and transferring it to canvas. (Those pieces reportedly sold for $10,000 each.)

Read the full article HERE

1. Carol Vogel on the enigmatic Jasper Johns:

Read the article HERE

More info on Mr. Johns HERE

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