I was in New York last weekend, to see friends but also to see the Maurizio Cattelan retrospective the day before it closed. It has gotten quite a bit of attention for its unusual installation. The work was hung entirely from the ceiling, down the central atrium, with absolutely nothing on the walls of the notoriously difficult gallery. It transformed Frank Lloyd Wright’s museum into a theatre, which made strangely perfect sense.

The viewer/audience on the ramp, looking into the atrium. All images: VoCA. Click images to enlarge.


The atrium, filled with works hung from a metal scaffold. Click images to enlarge.

The show had been hailed as a must-see by art critic friends of mine, but also panned by Peter Schjeldahl in the New Yorker.

The view from above. Click images to enlarge.

Untitled, 2007. Click images to enlarge.

My first impression was one of awe. It was amazing to see the work all suspended, particularly since some pieces were huge. Cattelan’s famous sculpture of a life-size horse coming out of a wall backwards was there, complete with a small piece of wall, for full effect.

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Him, 2001. Click images to enlarge.

In all, it was messy and certainly didn’t do the work any favours. It was also dark – that day, snow had accumulated on the gallery’s skylight. I had seen numerous pieces over the years properly installed – sometimes brilliantly curated, as with Him, the kneeling Hitler at the Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation in Toronto a few years ago. Then there was the Pope being hit by a meteorite at the Royal Academy’s notorious Apocalypse show in London in 2000; the miniature Cattelan on a tricycle that was exhibited roaming the Giardini of the Venice Biennale in 2003 and Turisti, an early work consisting of many taxidermy pigeons that was installed on rafters above the gallery-goers, also at Venice. And on and on.

Untitled, 2009. Click images to enlarge.

Turisti (Tourists), 1997. Click images to enlarge.

The jumble of work, none of which you could really get a proper look at, reminded me of the visual information that is coming at us from all directions through tv, print, advertising, art and the internet. There’s too much and either you have to select what to focus on or be overwhelmed. It was the same here.

Frustratingly, the accompanying guide, which claims to feature a diagram showing each work in the exhibition, does not in fact show every work. Key pieces are left out.

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Charlie, 2003. Click images to enlarge.

Untitled, 1997. Click images to enlarge.

Now, 2004. Click images to enlarge.

I also found it brave of Cattelan to risk his work being seen as junk. He must have been sure that the curatorial concept would overshadow the works themselves, but as Schejdahl points out, many of the pieces depend on proper curating to give them their strength. Some of his works are truly unforgettable. But not here. The art is actually rather forgettable here. I’m not sure I would have enjoyed the show had I not been already quite familiar with it.

La Nona Ora, 1999. Click images to enlarge.

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Novecento, 1997. Click images to enlarge.

But at the end of the day, it was an intriguing concept for a difficult space, and it did create a witty, double-take inducing, rather grand spectacle, which is what Cattelan is all about, and which both audiences and institutions seem to love.

There’s all kinds of art out there.

One of the things that I find so exciting and inspiring about my new project ARTBOMB is seeing art by such varied artists, from the not-so-art-educated to the very highly educated. There is an enormous range of work, which is what makes art (as a language) so incredible and potentially mind-opening.

All work by Erika Stanley at Galeria Valanti. All images: VoCA

Another thing that achieves this is travel. Seeing art being made in other locations, with other influences for other markets is often inspiring. This was definitely the case years ago when I first saw contemporary Chinese art for instance. And again when recently in Costa Rica, where I was introduced to the Galeria Valanti.

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The other day, I visited artist Paulette Phillips at her home in Toronto, to be interviewed for her upcoming artwork. Called The Directed Lie, it involved being put to the test – the lie detector test.

Me with Paulette Phillips, undergoing the polygraph. All images: Scott Barker/VoCA

Phillips has trained as a professional polygraph technician in the United States, and owns a polygraph machine, which is cleverly disguised as a suitcase, but it’s the real deal. I don’t know why, but I surprised that it was such an authentic experience, complete with blood pressure and respiration monitors, and carefully considered questions.

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I visited artist Josh Malcolm in his studio this afternoon. His large oils on canvas were everywhere, and I found them very intriguing. They are very high energy – Malcolm says he’s inspired by European and American expressionist painting. But they’re quite different, and quite challenging. At first glance, they looked, to me very modern…but sort of unfinished.

In the studio. All images: VoCA

Cartoon limbs stuck out everywhere in an homage to Phillip Guston, and there are raw, stripey brushstrokes at funny angles across many canvases. I was struck by one piece in particular. It was a black painting, with several arms tangled up and a large swipe of paint crudely smeared across the bottom of the canvas and what looks to be a palette knife a the far side. It make me think of a fist fight.  More precisely, it seemed as if the artist was fighting with himself.

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The other day, I stopped in at the studio of Toronto artist Francisco Gomez.

A detail from Empire of Dust, Macca, 2009. All images: VoCA

Born in Caracas Venezuela, he moved to Canada in 1991 and studied at OCAD. Gomez generally works in ink and pastel on mylar – an unusual combination that Gomez tells me is difficult, since the pastel resists the mylar after a certain point, but it’s a very clean, effective look. I can see why he likes it.

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I stopped by the studio of young painter Rob Davidovitz the other afternoon. Rob doesn’t paint in the traditional sense, though. Instead he uses paint to create these textile/painting hybrids.

A woven painting by Rob Davidovitz. All images: VoCA

He mixes paint colours in a kind of pastry tube (more on that below) and squeezes it out in long lines, like thread. Each ‘thread’ incorporates its own mix of colour that blends nicely in the final piece.They he lets the paint dry and weaves the strips, which he attaches to board. Pretty simple.

Another view.

The work may not be terribly mature (yet) -  he’s a young guy, but it’s beautiful, and an interesting approach when you consider other artists who have used paint in a sculptural way – I’m thinking of Kim Dorland‘s earlier work, for one. It’s also interesting that Davidovitz cites the poured paint sculptures of feminist artist Lynda Benglis as an influence. His woven paintings do come off as strangely feminist, meaning that one can comfortably view them through the lens of feminist art–weaving being a traditionally ‘feminine’ craft.

The works are seductive – Davidovitz encourages you to touch and bend them; they’re not delicate.

The back of the work. The paint is glued to the board.

Davidovitz went to art school with plans to be a photographer. Believe it or not, he was working in a bakery, making a cake when he came up with the idea of pushing paint through a piping bag. Shortly thereafter he began experimenting, and eventually perfected the technique..

Three smaller finished works.

Are the works paintings or textiles? “I weave paint,” says Davidovitz. He’s been showing here and there (including at Toronto’s Textile Museum) since he graduated in 2005 and is currently preparing for a group show titled Hard Twist at the Gladstone Hotel which opens on November 25th. The exhibition, all textile-based work by 40 artists, will feature his largest work to date, an enormous piece that weighs over two hundred pounds and involved over twenty gallons of paint to create.

This is good – he should be encouraged to think big and beyond, the way Benglis does.

The artist with a single strand from his Gladstone Hotel piece.

Some small strands.

The weaving process.

An early, experimental work.

I came across a quote from the YBA godfather, Michael Craig-Martin in the Financial Times recently. Speaking about the practice of being an artist, he says, “What interests me is the part of you that you are stuck with, that you can’t control, and it comes out whatever. That’s infinitely more profound: you are who you are, even when you don’t wish to be – you can’t not do it.”

Still from whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir, by Eve Sussman. Image courtesy redartprojects.com

His quote echoes an issue that I’ve had for some time with much of the emerging art that I see; the idea that the artist must maintain control over it. Of course, ultimately we can never get away from ourselves, so it’s true that all art is self-portraiture, but generally speaking, I much prefer art that leaves open what Craig-Martin identifies – that part that can’t be controlled.

Speaking of control, we saw the newest work by Brooklyn-based artist Eve Sussman and her collaborative team Rufus Corporation at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was screening as a part of Future Projections, the festival’s artistic programme.

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With all the condo development going on in downtown Toronto recently – the good, the bad and the embarrassingly ugly (hello there, Bohemian Embassy – what is with that sign?!) has come a smart new wave of Toronto’s downtown art scene.

Hunter & Cook, the magazine. Image: hunterandcook.com

Little galleries – The Department, Tomorrow, Erin Stump, General Hardware, the Feminist Art Gallery – and others – have popped up, anchored by stalwarts like the beloved Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA) Clint Roenisch, MKG127, Jessica Bradley and Jamie Angell, not to mention the now nearly ancient artist-run space Whippersnapper.

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Last weekend, we went up to a friend’s cottage on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park.

You may recognize the name – it’s well known as the lake where Group of Seven painter Tom Thomson mysteriously died at age 42 in July, 1917. He had left to go on a fishing trip, but after only a few hours his canoe was found floating in the lake. It wasn’t until a week or so later that his body was found.

Getting ready to head out. All images: VoCA/Scott Barker

On our way across Canoe Lake.

Thomson, who was a recognized outdoorsman, spent six months of every year in Algonquin Park hunting, fishing and of course painting. He had worked as a guide and fire ranger in the park, so the fact that his death was declared an accidental drowning on what was a apparently a clear and normal day seems unusual. Even at the time, people couldn’t believe it and rumours swirled about suicide and murder.

The gravesite is in Mowat cemetery, about a ten-minute walk into the bush off the west side of the lake. We took my dog, Hudson. You have to go through people’s cottage properties to get there and it’s entirely unmarked. You basically go up an un-maintained grassy road to the first big birch, and take a left into the bush, whereupon a faint trail becomes clear.

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Cindy Sherman, the American artist known for her Untitled Film Stills, 1977–1980 and subsequent self-portraits in which she transforms herself, through hair, makeup, prosthetics and costume, into various female characters from the seductive to the grotesque, is all about disguise.

Cindy Sherman for MAC Cosmetics. Image: heartymagazine.com

She’s been working this way for decades and is one of America’s best-known artists. In fact, she now holds the record for highest price paid for a photograph at auction when her work Untitled #96 was sold for $3.8 million at Christie’s in May.

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