1. MALE: WORK FROM THE COLLECTION OF VINCE ALETTI
ATTILA RICHARD LUKACS / POLAROIDS / MICHAEL MORRIS
Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver
June 28 to August 3, 2008

Bruce Bellas [Bruce of LA], “Untitled,” c. 1960. Image: presentationhousegall.com/vince aletti

Male is an exhibition of portrait works drawn from the personal collection of curator, writer and The New Yorker photography critic Vince Aletti. It features more than 100 photographs as well as drawings, sculptures, and paintings, juxtaposing works by celebrated figures with works by emerging artists, alongside anonymously authored images and flea market finds.

Attila Richard Lukacs / Polaroids / Michael Morris showcases over 600 Polaroid photographs by Vancouver painter Attila Richard Lukacs produced over the past twenty years as referents for paintings, assembled and collaged by Vancouver Island artist Michael Morris. Utilizing the unique characteristics of the Polaroid medium, Lukacs’ painter’s sensibility is evident in the photograph’s rich hues, deep chiaroscuro, romantic sensuality and graphic immediacy.

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From James Adams in yesterday’s Globe and Mail:

“When its September, 2007, online sale resulted in gross revenues of about $600,000 on 156 lots, (Heffel Fine Art Auction House) started to think seriously about going with a separate live auction (for post-war and contemporary art) and “concentrate more on this growing component of the market,” noted Nina Kim, Heffel’s director of postwar and contemporary art…”

For the rest of the article, please click HERE.

Tom Thomson, View from a Height, Algonquin Park, Fall, 1916.
Auction Estimate: $800,000-1,200,000
Price Realized: $1,207,500

While the Canadian auction ’scene’ may seem laughable next to the inflated numbers bandied about in the U.S and the U.K these days, we are finally seeing increased interest in Canadian art since 1945, which is great because it has, for so long been terribly undervalued.

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1. DONIGAN CUMMINGS: EX VOTOS

MSVU Art Gallery, Halifax

21 June-10 August 2008

One of Donigan Cumming’s collages. Image: canada-culture.org

Montreal-based artist Donigan Cumming is known for his staged portraits of the aging, ill and socially assisted poor, in the form of photographs, videos and, best of all, his photographic collages.

Cumming’s work deliberately attacks the objectivity claimed by traditional documentary media. His disturbingly intimate images have been influenced by Artaud’s “theatre of cruelty,” Surrealism and cinema verite, among other historical art forms.

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The late Haida artist Bill Reid received the Order of British Columbia. Image: protocol.gov.bc.ca

In Canada, the first time the work of contemporary indigenous artists made it into an art context was in 1965-67 when Doris Shadbolt, at the Vancouver Art Gallery, organized the groundbreaking exhibition, Arts of the Raven: Master Works of the Northwest.

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VANCOUVER:

Moodyville at Presentation House Gallery
May 3 - 15 June, 2008

An image by Dan Siney. Image: tinyvices.com

Moodyville is a group exhibition featuring work by:

Karin Bubaš - click HERE
Jim Breukelman - click HERE
Babak Golkar - click HERE
Mike Grill - click HERE

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In a move perhaps inspired by the spate of American, European and Chinese collectors opening up their own spaces, the dashing Canadian collector Bob Rennie will open his own private museum to showcase his collection of contemporary art.

Collector Bob Rennie. Image: rennie.com

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Vancouver’s Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design is to become a university.

Going head-to-head with Toronto’s OCAD - also an art and design university - and VoCA wonders whether this is a good thing.

Toronto artist - and OCAD dropout - Thrush Holmes’ studio. Image: lowegallery.com

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1. AARON CARPENTER: THE ART OF RICHARD TUTTLE AT THE HELEN PITT GALLERY, VANCOUVER

April 11 to Saturday May 3, 2008

VoCA loves the work of American artist Richard Tuttle. Now, the young Vancouver artist Aaron Carpenter is getting all Sturtevant and copying Tuttle’s oeuvre.

(Elaine Sturtevant has made her name copying famous artist’s work - see her Warhol below)

Elaine Sturtevant, Warhols Flowers, (1964-1991). Image: saatchi-gallery.co.uk

Aaron Carpenter’s THE ART OF RICHARD TUTTLE is the first installment of the Helen Pitt Gallery’s three-exhibition Workaday series, addressing process, labour and the performative gesture.

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Greg Girard, Doorway, Wukang Lu, 2003. Image: monteclarkgallery.com

Vancouver photographer Greg Girard has been living in Shanghai for a number of years, documenting the changes to the city’s landscape.

Read my review of his recent exhibition at the Monte Clark Gallery:

Wil Murray: the strange space that will keep us together

At the Belkin Satellite Art Gallery, Vancouver

8 March to 6 April 2008

Wil Murray, Casual Friday Morning Coming Down, 2007. Image: belkin.ubc.ca

We’ve got to say it: VoCA loves Wil Murray’s paintings!

A novel mix between painting, sculpture and collage, with echoes of Jessica Stockholder, James Rosenquist and Rauschenberg, they’re not gimmicky. If vision could equal sound, this might be it.

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