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.
January 27th, 2008 — Articles, Video/New Media
A new kind of 21st-century art is on the rise, according to Holland Cotter in the New York Times.
When you have YouTube at your disposal, he asks, who needs Chelsea?
Read this article from the New York Times: HERE
Watch All My Churen by Kalup Linzy HERE:
For Canada’s take on video, check out Video Art in Canada HERE
January 14th, 2008 — Articles, News: International
Why I collect: Collectors reveal what drives them – an excellent article from the Wall Street Journal:
For the full article, please click HERE
Oscar Neimayer, Novomuseu, Curibita, Brazil. Image: Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz
For this year’s Sao Paolo Biennale (October - December 2008), director Ivo Mesquita has revealed that he intends to organise an exhibition with no works of art.
January 11th, 2008 — Articles, News: International
Philippe de Montebello. Image: tfaoi.com
“it is the mystery, the wonder, the presence of the real that is our singular distinction and that we should proudly, joyfully proclaim.”
- Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
January 8th, 2008 — Articles, Artists
Exquisitely contrived disorder
By Jackie Wullschlager in the Financial Times
Published: December 14 2007
Jeff Wall, Picture for Women, 1979. Image: courses.washington.edu
What happens if a politicised conceptual artist loves beauty? The Canadian artist Jeff Wall launched his career with “Picture for Women” – a clever photographic reprise of “A Bar at the Folies Bergère” – in the 1970s, a time when aesthetic seduction roughly approximated to the evils of capitalism. Wall was too intelligent, innovative and ethically committed to ignore the current sensibility, but too finely tuned as an artist, and too steeped in art history’s pleasures, to accept the taboo on beauty. So he came up with a method of image-making that referenced Manet as well as Donald Judd, Cézanne as well as Dan Flavin, and revolutionised late 20th-century art photography.
January 4th, 2008 — Articles, News: International
The 2007 Biennale curator shares the triumphs and frustrations of organizing the world’s most famous exhibition with the Art Newspaper:
Read the interview HERE.
December 21st, 2007 — Articles
December 10th, 2007 — Art market, Articles
Gustav Klimt, Giuditta I. Image: dipintiautenticita.com
The booming art market means that crime really can pay, especially if you know how to knock up a phoney Picasso or dodgy Dali….Read more in this article from the Independent:
Click HERE
A recent copy of Giuditta I. Image: dipintiautenticita.com
For more information on determining authenticity of contemporary artworks, please click HERE
December 5th, 2007 — Articles
Norval Morrisseau,The Offering, acrylic on satin, 1976. Image: coastline-publishing.com
Aboriginal artist Norval Morrisseau has died. The only First Nations artist to have had a solo show at the National Gallery of Canada, (in 2006) in 1978 he was appointed to the Order of Canada.
Norval Morrisseau, Shaman’s Ride. Image: thebucketshop.com
Norval Morrisseau, Copper Thunderbird: Merman Ruler of Water. Courtesy National Gallery of Canada.
Image: cbc.ca
Norval Morrisseau, Double Headed Snake, 1974. Image: bau-xi.com
57 x 68 in.
For more on Norval Morrisseau, please click HERE
For more information on Shamanism, please click HERE
November 29th, 2007 — Articles, Artists, News: International, Photography
Scott McFarland, Orchard View, Early Spring; Rubus discolour, Prunus nigra, Prunus serrulata, 2004.
Image: monteclarkgallery.com
In her review of the New Photography 2007 exhibition at New York’s MoMA, the New York Times‘ Martha Schwendener had this to say about Vancouver artist Scott MacFarland’s work:
Mr. McFarland’s picture of a young family watching a keeper feed porcupines at the Berlin Zoo could be a (Jeff) Wall from around 1989 or a student facsimile. (It’s no surprise, then, to discover that Mr. McFarland once worked as Mr. Wall’s assistant.)
Mr. McFarland’s photographs of nature controlled by human beings — an orchard digitally manipulated to present all four seasons at once or a series merging different areas in a botanical garden — recall Thomas Struth.
Mr. McFarland’s aesthetic and techniques feel overly familiar and dated.
October 22nd, 2007 — Articles
Eli Broad with his art collection. Image: forbes.com
1. American billionaire contemporary art collector Eli Broad, who has amassed an 1,800-piece collection and will have a wing of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) named after him in February, thinks art prices are heading for a fall:
Read the New York Post article HERE
Fully fledged art star Cecily Brown. Image: boston.com
2. Young artists, don’t despair. Read this handy program for attaining Art Stardom — no student loans, art bins or social skills needed!
On Artnet.com. Click HERE to read the full article.
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...Read full bio
