The other day I found a number of old Canadian Art magazines on sale for $2 each. I bought them, and found this questionnaire in the April 1966 issue. It’s interesting, reading over the questions how some remain relevant today and others, not so much…

My vintage copies of Canadian Art. Image: VoCA

On the following page were answers to some of the questions by the leading artists of the day, including Jean McEwen, Clive Daly, Guido Molinari, Doris McCarthy, Joyce Wieland, Christopher Pratt and Iain Baxter. I’ll reprint some of their answers in an upcoming blog post.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear your replies to some of the questions. Pick just one, or several and comment below!

Button created by Iain Baxter’s N.E. Thing Company Ltd. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Active 1966-1978. Image: flickr.com

1. Do you think art criticism can be useful? If yes, to whom especially?

2. What should art criticism contain?

3. What do you feel is the role of the art critic today?

4. In your opinion, what constitutes the minimum training, academic or otherwise and experience in the visual arts that would equip a critic to fulfill his role?

5. Assuming art criticism has some value, in which of the following media is art criticism most necessary? (Check one only)
a. Newspapers
b. Quarterlies
c. Television
d. Art magazines
e. Radio
f. Other (specify)

6. Art criticism should be directed to reach (check as many of the following as you believe necessary)
a. Artists
b. Museum and public gallery executives
c. Private collectors
d. Other (specify)
e. Other critics
f. Students
g. The general public

7. Do you feel that sound critical reviews (good or bad) have an influence on artists’ work and its direction?

8. Do you feel that sound critical reviews have an influence on the buying public?

9. Do you feel that sound critical reviews have an influence on art appreciation generally?

10. Whether incompetent criticism praises or condemns, do you believe that unsound critical reviews ultimately damage and artist with his public? If so, why?

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Well it’s that time of year again. The long list for Canada’s major annual art prize, the Sobey Art Award has been announced.

Zeke Moores, Axes, 2009. Image: zekemoores.com

It’s true that many of Canada’s fine young artists remain hidden from media attention or public view in other parts of the country. So I look forward to the Sobey longlist so that I can discover new talent.

There are fewer names that I recognize off the bat this year, so I was happy to discover some great works by a newer crop of young Canadian artists. I’ll take a closer look at other regions finalists soon, but for now, here is a glimpse into the work of the first group of finalists, from Atlantic Canada.

ZEKE MOORES is an Ontario-based artist, originally from Newfoundland. Much of his work involves creating perfect replicas of urban detritus and utility objects like cardboard boxes in bronze, traffic cones in steel, plastic milk crates in aluminum and a shiny polished bronze full-size dumpster. The fabrication looks to be excellent. But my favorite piece is called Axes, a series of cast aluminum axes installed as if they were chucked into a white, spotlit gallery wall.

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I was fascinated by yesterday’s Slutwalk that took place in Toronto, and sorry that I wasn’t able to attend.

Slutwalk in Toronto yesterday. Image: scathinglywrongrightwingnutz.com

The walk attracted around 1,000 people and was arranged in part as a protest against comments by police Constable Michael Sanguninetti who, while speaking to students at York Unviersity, said “Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.”

Women were outraged, and rightly so. It is an outrageous suggestion that women should bear the full responsibility in a case where sexual assault occurs. Even if she is dressing ‘like a slut’, surely the man must take responsibility for his own actions. I mean it’s hard to believe that Sanguinetti was actually serious.

More, and the Quebec art collective Les Fermieres Obsedees, after the jump:

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Big congratulations to the 2011 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts!

Robert Fones, Can-D-Man, 1971. Image: ccca.ca

They are: Photographer Geneviève Cadieux, visual artist Robert Fones, performance and visual artist Michael Morris, filmmakers David Rimmer and Barbara Sternberg and painter Shirley Wiitasalo, each for distinguished artistic achievement. Metalsmith Kye-Yeon Son won the Saidye Bronfman Award for excellence in fine crafts.

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The third biennial national portrait competition, the Kingston Prize, is accepting submissions until April 29, and this year, the prize is being doubled to $20,000.

Marina Dieul, Le défi, oil on panel. Image: kingstonprize.ca

The prize is a wonderful project of the Kingston Art Council (and by the way, it’s supported by the W. Garfield Weston Foundation.)

Andrew Valko of Winnpeg won last year’s Kingston Prize with this piece, titled Personal Surveillance. Acrylic on panel.
Image: kingstonprize.ca

Portraiture is interesting for many reasons. Portraits are a true document of the times. It’s certainly not the most hip kind of art being made today – that’s what the Sobey Art Award is for – but it’s a lot more accessible to audiences than some of the cute conceptualism out there.

And when the works of 30 finalists goes on display at the Royal Ontario Museum from November 10, 2011 to January 2012, audiences will have an opportunity not only to see some outstandingly skillful works, but will also learn a lot about artists from across the country. As Oscar Wilde recognized, “Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”

Gerard Kuehl, Martha Otuk. Graphite. Image: kingstonprize.ca

Prior to the ROM, there will be a preview exhibition of the works in Gananoque, Ontario and in February 2012, the show will travel to Drummondville Quebec.
Looking back at submissions from past years, it’s clear that Canada boasts some astounding portrait artists.

Click HERE for the Kingston Prize website.

The landscape of museum buildings across Canada is about to be given new life, as more institutions secure government and private funding to allow them to expand with sexy architecturally designed spaces.

The Art Gallery of Alberta, in Edmonton. Image: arnewde.com

Last year, the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton unveiled a fractured new building by Gehry alumnus Randall Stout. Of course, there’s also the ongoing hullabaloo about the relocation of the Vancouver Art Gallery. (A report going before city council today suggests that the future VAG location at 688 Cambie Street be shared with office towers that would help pay for the site – more on that HERE.

Also, it seems that the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia may soon have a brand new building, as will the Art Gallery of Saskatchewan. In Nova Scotia, governments are investing in a feasibility study that the federal government has agreed to invest $60,000 towards. This is great news for the largest gallery in Atlantic Canada, which apparently holds some wonderful Nova Scotia folk art, as well as being home to the $50,000 Sobey Art Award.

Meanwhile, across the prairies, the Art Gallery of Saskatchewan (formerly the Mendel Art Gallery) is going ahead with its $66 million new gallery. $13 million will come from the federal government for that. The 85,000-square-foot gallery is scheduled for completion by 2015 with construction beginning in 2012. KPMB will design the building, with Winnipeg architects Carter Smith.

With Montreal’s Musee des beaux arts by Moshe Safdie and the CCA by Peter Rose, Ottawa’s National Gallery by Safdie, Toronto’s AGO and ROM by Gehry and Libeskind respectively, (not to mention KPMB’s Gardiner Museum) Edmonton’s new gallery by Randall Stout and the upcoming buildings mentioned above, Canada’s contemporary art scene will have a lot to live up to. And I’m sure it will, very well.

Art makes a great gift. People don’t always realize how inexpensive some books and multiples are, and isn’t it better to support local art scenes than buy from major corporations? I think so.

Here are my top picks for Canada’s best art shopping:

1. ART METROPOLE. Started by General Idea in 1974, Art Met continues to specialize in the sale of artist multiple, artist books, video and more. Much of it is very affordable and rather unusual. Gold-plated replica of Peaches’ teeth on a chain, anyone?

Peaches. Image: robotdancemusic.com

Peaches’ teeth, on a chain. Image: artmetropole.com

Check out the comprehensive website, HERE. It’s fun to browse.

2. CANADIAN MAGAZINES.

Support Magenta, a newish online publication, or buy a subscription to the excellent Vancouver journal Fillip, or to Toronto’s artist-run magazine Hunter & Cook.

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The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia will celebrate the life and art of Canada’s best known living painter with an exhibition of selected works that will showcase his prints and sketches – an important part of Colville’s practice.

Alex Colville, Family and Rainstorm, 1955. Image: cybermuse.gallery.ca

Alex Colville
Through February 20, 2011
The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia

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The Walrus has a good interview with Simon Brault, author of No Culture, No Future, the new book that exploresthe fact that the arts are a necessity, not a luxury.

As he puts it, the book is a “call to action” – for Brault, it’s up to everyone to communicate with one another to promote and encourage the arts.

Image: cormorantbooks.com

Here is some of what Brault has to say in the interview:

“When you look in the papers, the conversation around arts and culture is reduced to the economy or to presenting a particular cultural product. It’s not a broad conversation about what arts and culture bring to people — to children, to people who are lonely, to people who have a need for expressive life.”

“Every human being has a relationship with the arts. The fact that we are ignoring that — and trying to lecture people as if they are completely ignorant, as if they are completely disconnected from everything we believe in – is a big problem.”

“I read, I think, I write, but mostly I act. And I try to act with people around me. I still believe that ideas can change the world. I know it can sound like a very romantic vision — but it’s not so romantic because things are changing… ”

Author Simon Brault. Image: cormorantbooks.com

I haven’t read the book, but I’m looking forward to it.

If you want to know more on Brault’s thoughts vis a vis the arts in Canada (and the world), buy the book HERE.

The finalists for the 2010 Sobey Art Award were announced today. The artists, selected by a jury from each region of Canada, are competing for the Award’s $50,000 top prize. Bendan Tang may be the newest kid on the block, but our money’s on Duke & Battersby or the excellent Daniel Barrow, who was passed over in 2008.  Do we have wonderful artists in this country, or what?

The 2010 Sobey Art Prize shortlist:

• West Coast and Yukon: Brendan Lee Satish Tang

A work by Brendan Lee Satish Tang. Image: illusion.scene360.com

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