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.

I came across THIS link from the art:21 blog today – in it, Anna Milandri talks about what’s been going on, art-wise, in Berlin recently.

Baby Ghost From the 1900s Says Beat It With Your Chain, 2009, by Berlin-based Montreal painter Wil Murray.

New York’s Triple Canopy put together six evenings of art-related discussion, including one titled “Print and Demand” in which several publications, including Berlin’s 032c(a great issue, btw) and Vancouver’s Fillip, where they discussed the changing nature of print and online publishing.

It seems that some intriguing ideas came out of the discussion, including the idea that readers – and particularly commenters with something to say – should consider contributing.

I agree, and I welcome contributions from regular commenters on VoCA. Whether you agree with my posts or not, it’s the only way to get a real dialogue going among this community of readers. Of course, I’d be happy to feature perspectives other than my own.

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Just saw this:

“Steven Shearer…will represent Canada at the 54th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia 2011 (Venice Biennale), from June 4 to November 27, 2011. The only international visual arts exhibition to which Canada sends official representation, the Biennale is among the most prestigious contemporary art exhibitions in the world.

Steven Shearer’s drawings of metal-heads. Image: wecantpaint.com

The artist was chosen by a national selection committee comprised of senior contemporary art curators from across Canada and formed by the National Gallery of Canada (NGC), organizer of the Canadian representation for the 2011 Biennale. The NGC’s Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Josée Drouin-Brisebois, will organize the exhibition of Steven Shearer’s work.”

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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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His highness the Aga Khan, with his Order of Canada. Image: archive.gg.ca

1. His Highness the Aga Khan will participate in the Foundation Ceremony to mark the beginning of the development of the Ismaili Centre, the first-ever Aga Khan Museum for Islamic Art and Culture, and their Park, in Toronto’s Don Mills area.

Read more HERE.

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Last week we posted HERE part one of our conversation with Douglas Coupland. In this post, Coupland talks about his collecting habits, coming from a “guns-and-ammo” family, his interest in nuclear culture and his new TV mini-series, among other things.

Douglas Coupland’s tiny cubes of 100 stamps. Image: VoCA

Coupland brings out a bowl filled with small cubes of 100 stamps, held together with a band of paper.

VoCA: Wow, did you make all these?

DC: Oh God, no. I collect stamps, I collect Japanese stamps.

VoCA: See, you do collect! You collect tons of things!

DC: Ok, the thing is, there’s a show on A&E called ‘Hoarders’, have you seen it?

VoCA: I’ve heard of it. It’s about people who obsessively collect things.

DC: No, no. I collect. These people don’t get rid of shit. (laughs) These are people who use a paper towel and don’t throw it out thinking it might be useful in the future. People who hoard have almost always had a huge, catastrophic loss in their life, a family member usually and it’s almost impossible to get rid of once you’ve got it. It becomes for them, ‘something you can’t take away from me,’ kind of thing.

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Last week at his beautiful, art-filled Ron Thom designed home in Vancouver, VoCA sat down with artist-slash-writer Douglas Coupland to get his views on everything from Warhol to techological obsolescence to City of Toronto love.

“All young artists secretly think they’re the next Warhol,” says the Generation X author.

Douglas Coupland. Image:anthonygeorge.com

Here are some highlights:

VoCA: Douglas Coupland, are you more artist than writer or vice versa?

DC: I don’t differentiate. I don’t see a real difference. Is cooking different from roasting?

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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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This is a lovely sculpture outside Vancouver’s convention centre overlooking Burrard Inlet. Titled The Drop, it “pays homage to the element of water and the untamable forces of nature which are omnipresent in Vancouver.”

It’s by the German public art group Inges Idee, four artists - Hans Hemmert, Axel Lieber, Thomas Schmidt and George Zey, and it’s their first installation in North America.

Inges Idee, The Drop, 2009. Image: VoCA

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Stay tuned for an interview with Douglas Coupland, author, artist, fan-of-Warhol and recent author of a book on McLuhan.

Some of Coupland’s recent artworks.