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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We returned from Vancouver to the news that Brian Jungen has won the $25,000 2010 Gershon Iskowitz award at the AGO, and that the $50,000 Sobey Art Prize longlist has been announced.

Vanessa Paschakarnis, Shield for a Human, 2009. Bronze. Image: erhard-metz.de

Most regions have a pretty clear shortlister for the Sobey (I’m thinking either Isabelle Pauwels or Jeremy Shaw from the West; Daniel Barrow from the Prairies; Diane Borsato or Jon Sasaki from Ontario and Duke and Battersby from the East) but Quebec has a tough choice between Pascal Grandmaison, Patrick Bernatchez, BGL, Adad Hannah and Karen Tam.

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Ok, ok people, you pummeled VoCA for THIS post, with many comments…

Tell VoCA what you want. Image: smh.com.au

Some agreed, saying “I feel like this this revulsion I’m experiencing is the desired effect: Trecartin would endeavour to highlight contemporary culture’s more outlandish aspects by combining them all into one loathsome beast” and “bad taste, as well as bad technique are the point! Maybe that’s the case here.”

But most blasted my “poorly poorly argued and supported judgments,” my “impatience with the work’s rigor, (that) shows a complete misunderstanding for the medium, and is lazy criticism,” suggesting that perhaps “sometimes aggressively queer work makes (me) feel uncomfortable.”

There have also been numerous suggestions and comments from readers sent to me off the blog.

So, I want to say that I hear you.

I welcome your comments on what you’d like to see in a critical art blog, below.

Thanks!

Jean-Pierre Gauthier, Nul/Flirting with the Puck 2008. Image: canadianart.ca

1. Kinetic works by the former Sobey Art Prize winner Jean-Pierre Gauthier at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia from December 18, 2009 to March 15, 2010.

A drawing by Dan Perjovschi. Image: romanianculturalcentre.org.uk

2. The curators at the ROM finally see the light and bring in Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi to graffiti the walls of Libeskind’s precious crystal. The artist will work on the walls ‘live’ during gallery hours from February 13 to 22, and the show continues to next summer.

A portrait piece of Janusz Dukszta by Evan Penny. Image courtesy UTAC.

3. From 19 January to 13 March 2010, collector Janusz Dukszta is the subject of a new show at the University of Toronto Arts Centre. It’s curated by Gordon Hatt and should be an interesting comment on the artist/patron relationship.

“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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Confluences: Rencontre entre Montreal et le Bas-Saint-Laurent
June 14 - 13 September, 2009
Musee Regionale de Rimouski

Should you find yourself in Quebec this summer, this exhibition seeks to bring together a rencontre between Montreal and the lower St. Lawrence. The show looks promising!

Guillaume Lachapelle, Manege 16, 2004-06. Image: guillaumelachapelle.com

Featuring work by 13 artists (who you may not know of) including Magalie Comeau, Sylvie Moisan and Guillaume Lachapelle, whose miniature theatrical installations VoCA loves.

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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.

Well, it’s down to five.

Who will win the $70,000 Sobey Art Prize this year?

After last years win by Vancouver superstar Tim Lee (stolen, we think, from Winnipeg’s excellent Daniel Barrow) and won the year before by Montrealer Michel de Broin (who we interviewed HERE and whose pedal powered Buick we covered HERE), this year it’s down to this group:

WEST COAST AND YUKON: Luanne Martineau, whose fuzzy felted pieces we really like for their craft element and references to Minimal art and painters like Philip Guston.

Luanne Martineau, Dangler, 2008. Image: akimbo.ca

PRAIRIES AND THE NORTH: Marcel Dzama, he of the much-copied naive drawings that were so much in vogue several years ago. From Winnipeg, where he lived, Dzama seemingly influenced all of Brooklyn. Now he lives in New York and shows with David Zwirner Gallery, where he’s been making sort of awkward dioramas.

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Stephen Rife: here lies
Léola Le Blanc: Désoreille
March 23 - April 4th, 2009
Anna Leonowens Gallery at NSCAD

Artist Stephen Rife. Image: mnartists.org

STEPHEN RIFE

Pyrotechnic artist Stephen Rife opens at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design’s Anna Leonowens Gallery tomorrow, as one of several thesis exhibitors.

Rife has long been experimenting with fire and the moving image in his art, and this exhibition presents “a combination of “active installation” and “miniature film palace,” and is a rough survey of his work from the past two years.

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