An excellent book has just come out by Elspeth Cameron about the lives of 20th century Canadian sculptors Frances Loring and Florence Wyle:

Frances Loring and Florence Wyle. Image: lac-bac.ca

Read my review in Quill & Quire HERE

6. PLUG IN ICA – WINNIPEG

Neil Farber, Farber Drawing 683, 1999. Image: plugin.org

One of the members of the Royal Art Lodge, Neil Farber’s work features an odd cast of characters that includes waif-like children, cats, dogs, and ghosts, combining innocence with a complicated and often foreboding sense of the absurd. Farber’s drawings remind us that among the range of emotions, humor is arguably the most complicated – and perhaps the most human.

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Although VoCA won’t be thinking of Christmas shopping for at least another week, here are some ideas for arty presents that support Canadian museums, artists and artist-run centres.

After all, art has been “the new fashion” for quite some time…

1. PRESENTATION HOUSE GALLERY - VANCOUVER

Lynn Valley #2/Kleenex Mathematics. Image: presentationhousegall.com

Lynn Valley is an ongoing series of publications edited exclusively by artists, published by the gallery with Bywater Bros. Editions from Toronto.

Lynn Valley #2/ Kleenex Mathematics expands on super hot Cologne based artist Johannes Wohnseifer’s recent explorations with spam email. Working with a series of diaristic photographs taken in the past two years, Wohnseifer has overlain unedited spam texts, creating collages of word and image that blends autobiographic detail, historical allusion and dense visual puns with the found poetics of strategically designed, nonsensical language.

The book is 64 pages, softcover, edition of 1000.

For more information, please click HERE.

2. VANCOUVER ART GALLERY - VANCOUVER

A Zero-Yen House by Kyohei Sakaguchi. (This image is NOT the edition available from the VAG).
Image: inhabitat.com

The latest artwork in the gallery’s Artist Edition series is the first by Tokyo-based artist Kyohei Sakaguchi.

The work of Kyohei Sakaguchi examines the significance of non-traditional and informal architecture. In the past few years, he has documented an elaborate sub-culture of architecture that includes diverse types of temporary and semi-permanent houses built in public spaces by homeless persons utilizing scavenged materials.

Priced at $175 (unframed), each of the 65 photographs includes a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist. Proceeds from the sale of Artist Editions support the Vancouver Art Gallery ’s exhibitions and programming.

Please click HERE for more information.

3. THE BANFF CENTRE – BANFF, ALBERTA

Lori Blondeau, Belle Sauvage, 2005. Image: banffcentre.ca

These edition projects were commissioned by and entirely produced at The Banff Centre. Prints from these editions are available for purchase at The Banff Centre’s Walter Phillips Gallery. All proceeds from the sale of the editions support Visual Arts at the Centre, and provide ongoing opportunities for professional artists.

As a Cree/Saulteaux artist, Lori Blondeau’s artistic practice continues to explore the influence of popular media and culture (contemporary and historical) on Aboriginal self-identity, self-image, and self-definition. The title of the work, Belle Sauvage, references the central subject; a persona Blondeau has assumed in her performance art.

Lori Blondeau, Belle Sauvage, 2005, edition of 16, $500. A six-colour silkscreen print on BFK Rives 100 per cent cotton rag paper.

For more information, please click HERE.

4. PAUL AND WENDY PROJECTS – TORONTO

The Royal Art Lodge, Poster Making, 2007. Image: paulandwendyprojects.com

Paul Van Kooy and Wendy Gomoll have met and worked with a community of contemporary artists over the
years. The ambition of Paul + Wendy Projects is to produce limited edition art works by these artists whose work they love.

Poster Making, By the Royal Art Lodge. Handprinted Serigraph on acid free archival paper. Edition of 75, numbered, signed, embossed and date stamped by the artists. $250 CAD

The current members of The Royal Art Lodge are Michael Dumontier, Marcel Dzama and Neil Farber. The group was founded in Winnipeg in 1996. Since 2003, they have focused on painting as their main collaborative output.

Please click HERE for more information.

5. MARTHA STREET STUDIO - WINNIPEG

Simon Hughes, Some Icebergs, 2006. Image: printmakers.mb.ca

MPA was formed in the spring of 1984 by a group of Manitoba print artists. Now a non-profit organization, the studio has become one of the largest, best equipped and most diversified open printmaking facilities in Canada. New editions include work by Micah Lexier, Paul Butler, Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline and Michael Dumontier.

Simon Hughes, Some Icebergs. 2006, edition of 15. The portfolio of 3 images is hand-printed on Magnani Pescia paper using a multi-layered silk-screen process.

For more information, please click HERE.

Raphael, The Alba Madonna, c. 1510, Andrew W. Mellon Collection. Image: nga.gov

Some picks of this year’s Christmassy art books, chosen by the Telegraph.

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1. Magenta, Canada’s art publishing house, will launch their newest book next week. The stunning book, Phantom Shanghai by Canadian photographer Greg Girard, documents China’s transition in otherworldly colours and with an elegant eye. Featuring a foreword by William Gibson and introduction by Leo Rubinfien.

Greg Girard, 600 Things, 2005. Image: monteclarkgallery.com

You can order it online HERE

Greg Girard, Fuzhou Lu Mailboxes, 2005. Image: monteclarkgallery.com

Greg Girard is represented by the Monte Clark Gallery, Toronto and Vancouver.

2. The Artcity 2007 Festival of Art, Design and Architecture takes place in the heart of Calgary from September 7-16. Artcity brings art and architecture into the spaces where the public lives and works. This year’s theme is “Rupture”.

The Festival aims to open possibilities in Calgary for conversations, debates and realizations about how and what artists, architects and designers do and how they see and shape the world around us.

“Not so much bent on audience development in the traditional sense, but rather concerned with the artistic zeitgeist, Artcity is indebted to contemporary artists who consistently provide citizens with new means of engagement,” says programming director Wednesday Lupypciw.

VoCA recommends some must-see installations:

-BOOM

WHO: The Arbour Lake Sghool: Andrew Frosst, John Frosst, Justin Patterson, Scott Rogers, and Aaron Sereda

WHERE: Roaming distribution on the Stephen Avenue Pedestrian Mall. Also available at Truck Gallery, Stride Gallery, 809, McNally Robinson Booksellers, Skew Gallery, the Alberta College of Art & Design, Triangle Gallery, the University of Calgary, ArtCentral, and the Glenbow Museum Discovery Room.

WHEN: Duration of festival

The Arbour Lakers will bequeath the city with thousands of free artist multiples in the form of balloons emblazoned with a custom ‘BOOM’ logo.

Collect your very own variety of deflated and helium-filled ‘BOOM’s on the streets and in conjunction with other Artcity-affiliated events.

Read more on VoCA’s favorite Calgary art collective right HERE

-FREE BOWL CALGARY INVITATIONAL

WHO: Michael Coolidge

WHERE: City Hall Lobby, 800 MacLeod Trail SE

WHEN: 9am-9pm daily

Michael Coolidge (Free Bowl Founder and conceptual artist) has organized a week-long prize tournament that will span the downtown core of Calgary.

Similar to Bocce and Lawn Bowling, the objective of Free Bowl is to bowl closest to a marker ball. Free Bowl players, however, must negotiate and determine their own courts, selecting from a vast array of existing urban spaces. One match leads to another, as the game and its players traverse the various landscapes of the built environment.

-SWINTAK

WHO: The Urban Quicksand Association

WHERE: Stephen Avenue Pedestrian Mall, the Alberta College of Art & Design, and Eau Claire Shopping Centre

WHEN: Throughout the festival

Making appearances at trade shows, festivals, colleges, and shopping malls, the UQA will distribute goodies such as the “Do-It-Yourself Quicksand Kits for Condo Dwellers”, clear up the popular confusion between actual quicksand and so-called ’slow dirt’, and argue on interesting topics like “Why Solids and Liquids are Over-Rated: The Curse of Binary Thinking in Urban Planning”.

-THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A THINK IS MAINTAINED (?): PART II

WHO: Doug Scholes

WHERE: Olympic Plaza, 228 8th Avenue SE

WHEN: 24/7

Scholes will build towers that, by their very nature, will self-destruct. Onsite each day throughout the festival, the artist will manipulate thousands of hollow beeswax bricks in a futile attempt to maintain the towers as seemingly stable structures. Highly susceptible to sun, rain, wind, and outright vandalism, the constructions put into relief the ‘everything-proof’ standard that Calgarians have come to expect from concurrent architectural projects.

-YARNOVER CALGARY (YO CALGARY!)

WHO: Suzen Green

WHERE: Family of Man and Family of Horses

WHEN: Sep 7-16, 24 hours

During Artcity, a series of public monuments in the downtown core will be clad in custom designed scarves, socks, hats, and mittens. The temporary interventions are designed to encourage Calgarians to reconsider the innocuousness of the sculptures and what they stand for.

Suzen Green’s pieces will be located at the Family of Horses sculpture (City Hall, 800 MacLeod Trail SE), the Family of Man sculpture (West of the Calgary Board of Education building, 515 MacLeod Trail SE).

-KIND OF SORT OF YOURS BUT ACTUALLY MOSTLY MINE

WHO: Paul Atkins (Out Of My System), Noel Bégin (Cinemaphidic Obliviolution - beta 0.3, 2007), Aleesa Cohene (Why me? #1, 2007), Lee Henderson (Revelations, 2005), Deirdre Logue (excerpts from Why Always Instead of Just Sometimes, 2003-2005), Stacey Watson (The Icecave, 2007)

WHERE: Glenbow Museum

WHEN: Sep 14, 6:30pm (directly before the ArtTalk panel discussion)

Combining appropriated and original footage, silence and booming soundtracks, the works on view include everything from messy relationship endings to the goings-on in a backyard aphid invasion.

-GUIDED TOURS

WHERE: Art Gallery of Calgary (117 8th Avenue SW, Calgary

WHEN: Sep 8 & 15, 1pm

FREE guided tours of the 2007 Artcity festival. Please meet the tour guide outisde the main entrance of the Art Gallery of Calgary.

Find more info on Artcity Calgary 2007 right HERE.

1. Vancouver Art & Economies: edited by Melanie O’Brian

Read the review HERE

Find it HERE

2. Abstract Painting in Canada: by Roald Nasgaard

Find it at David Mirvish Books, Toronto HERE

or on Amazon.ca HERE

1. Check out the article on Toronto gallerist Nicholas Metivier in the summer issue of Toronto Life magazine:

The Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto. Image: metiviergallery.com

Art Wars
By Trevor Cole

Together they ran Toronto’s most prestigious gallery. But their relationship was strained, at best, and she refused to make him a partner. When the protégé had had enough, he opened his own place, and the big-name artists followed. How Nicholas Metivier kicked Mira Godard off her throne.

2. The offer-you-can’t-refuse art market: ARTnews dissects the current boom:

An ARTnews cover. Image: feldmangallery.com

What happens now that billions of dollars were spent recently, including $72.8 million for a Mark Rothko and $71.7 million for an Andy Warhol, at the sales? Is the sky the limit? How high is up? When will the bubble burst? Or will it…?

Read the full article HERE

3. Art-Book Fair and Sale at Mercer Union, Toronto

Sunday August 19th
Noon to 5pm

Free Admission

Image and Inscription, published by YYZ books. Image: artpost.info

Publishers, dealers, artists and authors including Art Metropole, Apollinaire’s Bookshop, The Art Gallery of York University, Bywater Brothers Editions, Mercer Union, Parasitic Ventures Press, YYZ Books and many others.

Rare titles! Out-of-print books! Not-even-yet released books! Door prizes! Deeply-discounted titles! Copies of Art Forum for a quarter!

Click HERE for more info.

David Adjaye’s The Dirty House, Shoreditch, East London. Image: flickr.com

1. David Adjayeis the London-based architect who made his name through the London art scene, working with Tim Noble and Sue Webster on their East London home The Dirty House in 2002 as well as with Chris Ofili and Jake Chapman. Have a look at some of Adjaye’s recent projects HERE, courtesy of the New York Times.

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This year, VoCA suggests forgoing gifts altogether in favor of supporting our environment.

Envrionmental Defence Canada

If you can’t resist pressies, here’s a list of art and related gifts that last - and that support the arts in Canada:

ART METROPOLE, Toronto – Founded in 1974 by renowned artist collective General Idea, this is your one-stop shop for amazing and inexpensive artist multiples. Nota bene: This is where you can buy Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay’s DVD, I Am a Boyband.

More HERE

FLASH FORWARD. From Magenta Publishing for the Arts comes a top-quality Canadian book on of-the-moment photographers. Perfect for anyone who is into photography – a budding collector, perhaps?

More HERE

Subscription to award-winning CANADIAN MAGAZINES like the Walrus, Border Crossings or Azure – excellent reading!

More HERE

CCA BOOKSTORE, Montreal – You know you’re in a world-class city when you walk in the door, and the bookstore only reinforces this feeling. New titles include: Greek architecture and its sculpture by Ian Jenkins, Inside Toronto: urban interiors 1880s to 1920 by Sally Gibson as well as many titles en Francais.

More HERE

MIRVISH BOOKS, Toronto – shop here, if only to see the gorgeous Frank Stella mural on the back wall.

More HERE

NICHOLAS HOARE, Ottawa – There’s one in Toronto, too, but the original bookshop is our favorite. You could spend all day in there.

More HERE

Artist editions at the VANCOUVER ART GALLERY – For someone you really love, there’s the Rodney Graham upside-down tree. It’s his most famous artwork and is only $475 unframed. (edition of 500)

More HERE

MERCER UNION sale, Toronto – the artist-run-centre is having its annual member’s show and sale this Thursday December 14th at 8 pm, with works by Arnaud Maggs, Derek Sullivan and many more - all priced at $100. Hurry!

More HERE

PLUG IN, Winnipeg – Five Winnipegers have contributed to this portfolio, including Paul Butler, Bonnie Marin and Simon Hughes. The portfolio is $1,000 or $300 for each unframed work.

More HERE

GARDINER MUSEUM shop, Toronto – You might not think so, but the Gardiner shop is a great place for artist made ceramic objets d’art…and jewellery by Krystyne Griffin.

More HERE