Alberta is seeing a lot of cultural action these days.

There’s Santiago Calatrava’s controversial bridge, Lethbridge’s own (and VoCA favorite) David Hoffos with a large retrospective coming up this fall at the National Gallery of Canada, and Nigerian artist El Anatsui giving a talk tomorrow at the Glenbow Museum, courtesy of the Canadian Art Foundation, to name just a few things going on.

Burtynsky’s new book. Image: rsvppost.com

Not to mention the Art Gallery of Alberta, which is currently under construction and set to open in early 2010 with Edward Burtynsky: Oil.

From October 9 - December 12, the Illingworth Kerr Gallery at the Alberta College of Art and Design launches 2 exhibitions by an American and an Irish artist, that explore the issues associated with the idea of the North and related ideas of the West.

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“An art gallery is like a single-cell organism: it is the crudest but also the most essential life form in the art-world food chain. It is among the easiest of public forums to start up…

Luanne Martineau, Gobbler, 2005. Image: trepanierbaer.com

…At the same time keeping a gallery going is usually fairly hard, and can seem impossibly daunting when sales slump. As small operations, galleries are…canaries in the coal mine, as they have often been called. So it made sense, as the bottom fell out of the art market last winter, that many people predicted galleries would start closing fast and furiously.”

This is from an article by Roberta Smith from the New York Times. Check it out HERE.

Graham Gillmore, Turns You On, 2005. Image: monteclarkgallery.com

Because Canada’s contemporary art market pales in comparison to that in the U.S., we don’t, perhaps give it much thought. But now’s a good time to set aside a budget to buy some art. $2000 would do nicely, and there’s the Toronto International Art Fair coming up, as well as excellent exhibitions opening this month. Here are some of our picks:

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“With their artists competing on an international stage, Canadians can no longer complain of their country as a cultural backwater nor luxuriate in the nostalgic charm of provincialism. In art as in political, social and economic activities, Canada is fully involved in the world of today,”
– Dr. R. H. Hubbard, former Chief Curator of the National Gallery of Canada.

Guido Molinari, Untitled, 1964. Image: artnet.com

Walking down Bloor Street in Toronto last night, we stopped at a bookshop’s outdoor display and there, right in front of us, on sale for $1.99, was a copy of Canadian Art Today, originally published in 1970 by Studio International.

Edited by William Townsend, a professor at the University of London, the slim book is filled with contributions from Canada’s art elite at the time: R.H. Hubbard, then chief curator of the National Gallery of Canada, Doris Shadbolt, then curator of the Vancovuer Art Gallery, curators Dennis Reid, Pierre Theberge and David Thompson.

“Canadian artists were dependent for generations on the artistic traditions of France and England and it is only since the last war that contemporary American influences have made a decisive impact,” writes Townsend.

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It’s summer, and you don’t want to get too serious…so here are some easy shows to check out throughout July. Swing by for free nighttime screenings in Montreal, or get outside for public art interventions in Calgary.

La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse
Montreal

In Montreal, stop by La Centrale’s window to see these screenings, which are about appearance and transformation. From dusk ’til dawn.

Stephanie Chabot, Destroyer, 2005. Image: stephaniechabot.netfirms.com

BLUE MOON
Stéphanie Chabot
2007.
July 29 to August 2, 2009

Blue Moon presents a woman coldly displayed in virtual space accompanied by a soundtrack based on an Elvis tune. Evoking beauty, pleasure, and desire, Blue Moon is a tender take on woman’s complex and sometimes contradictory situation within the myth of romance.

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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.

We were struck by Toronto artist Kerri Reid’s dust drawings when we saw them at Red Bull gallery, as part of the excellent exhibition What It Really Is, curated by the hot young curator Nick Brown, in Toronto back in January.

We’ve seen artwork in this vein before, but we’re always impressed by work that is so well produced and executed. And Kerri’s obsession with detail is remarkable, as is the fact that she sees value is reproducing images of dust. (Dust!)

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1. Canada’s $70,000 Sobey Art Award has announced its longlist

Stay tuned for the shortlist announcement on May 1.

Ilan Sandler, Tactlility, 2005. Image: Ilansandler.com

WEST COAST AND YUKON
Rhonda Weppler & Trevor Mahovsky; Luanne Martineau; Keith Langergraber;Evan Lee; Julie York

PRAIRIES AND THE NORTH
Paul Butler; Marcel Dzama; Sarah Anne Johnson; Jon Pylypchuk; AltheaThauberger

ONTARIO
Shary Boyle; Christian Giroux & Daniel Young; Luis Jacob; Kelly Richardson; Derek Sullivan

QUÉBEC
David Altmejd; Raphaëlle de Groot; Manon De Pauw; Pascal Grandmaison; Adad Hannah

ATLANTIC
Alexandra Flood; Tara K. Wells; Ilan Sandler; Graeme Patterson; Joe
McKay

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We have been busy promoting the Canadian Art Reel Artists Film Festival, which launches this weekend in Toronto, with fourteen films on art and artists.

An installation shot from David Lynch’s art exhibition. Image: re-title.com

Below, we recommend our top three festival highlights:

The Canadian premiere of Herb and Dorothy, about New York collectors Herb and Dorothy Vogel, who, in the 1960s, lived on her salary and devoted his entire salary - as a postal worker - to collecting work by then-unknown artists such as Richard Chamberlain, Pat Steir, Richard Tuttle, Chuck Close, Robert Mangold, Sol Lewitt and others…

Watch the trailer HERE.

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Why would curator Jeffrey Spalding, described as “a genius…a guy who actually gets things done and makes things happen” in THIS Globe and Mail article, recently hired to head up Alberta’s Glenbow museum, leave and be replaced so suddenly? With no explanation?

Jeffrey Spalding. He seems a nice enough fellow, no? Image: cbc.ca

It once seemed a perfect fit. Curator extraordinaire hired to revamp one of the country’s largest institutions not currently on the contemporary cultural map (that we know of). The Glenbow comprises a museum, art gallery, library and archives and holds over a million artifacts and some 28,000 works of art in its vast collections.

Also from the Globe: Spalding, 57, came to the Glenbow Museum from the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax, where he spent five years as director and chief curator. He is well-known across Canada and has been involved in arts and museum circles since the mid-1970s. Last year, he was appointed as a member of the Order of Canada.

JEFFREY SPALDING RESPONDS!  CLICK TO READ MORE…

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Here Now or Nowhere
Throughout January 2009
Grande Prairie, Alberta
Presented by the Prairie Art Gallery

Jon Sasaki, The Destination and the Journey, 2007, video still

Here Now or Nowhere and is an exhibition of temporary public interventions taking place throughout downtown Grande Prairie, in Alberta.

Where is Grande Prairie? It’s located 456 kilometres northwest of Edmonton. The population of Grande Prairie is currently over 50,000 people and it’s deemed the second-fasted growing city in the oil and (increasingly culture) -rich province.

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