Your Cultural Concierge! VoCA offers critical commentary on the Canadian art scene, with a focus on Toronto. Featuring exhibition previews, critics picks, interviews and in-depth articles on art in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Halifax.
May 28th, 2010 — Architecture, Art Market, Art News: Canada, Art News: International, Painting, Toronto and region, Vancouver and region
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.
April 22nd, 2010 — Articles by Andrea Carson, Artist Spotlight, Collecting, Design, Interviews, Sculpture/Installation, Thoughts on art, Vancouver and region
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.
April 19th, 2010 — Articles by Andrea Carson, Artist Spotlight, Collecting, Design, Interviews, Sculpture/Installation, Vancouver and region
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?
April 18th, 2010 — Art News: Canada, Calgary and region, Edmonton, Halifax and Eastern Canada, Montreal, Ottawa, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto and region, Vancouver and region, Winnipeg
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.
April 18th, 2010 — Sculpture/Installation, Vancouver and region
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
April 9th, 2010 — Artist Spotlight, Design, Interviews, Upcoming Events & Exhibitions, Vancouver and region
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.
April 8th, 2010 — Calgary and region, Edmonton, Halifax and Eastern Canada, Montreal, Ottawa, Thoughts on art, Toronto and region, Vancouver and region, Winnipeg
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!
March 28th, 2010 — Architecture, Vancouver and region
There’s a brou-ha-ha brewing in Vancouver over the Vancouver Art Gallery’s proposed move. Some Vancouverites have suggested that the VAG should not move, but instead remain – with an expansion – in its downtown location.
The VAG. Image: bcheritage.ca
Earlier this month, the Vancouver Sun posted an article written by the late Abraham Rogatnick, a professor at the school of architecture at UBC and interim director of the VAG in 1971-72, when he advised on the move from its old quarters on Georgia Street to the refurbished courthouse. He wrote it last summer, shortly before he passed away.
Read a synopsis of the debate in THIS Globe and Mail article.
In reply to some of these naysayers, Vancouver artist Roy Arden has circulated his thoughts, which he sent to the Sun as a letter to the editor, only to see them rudely edited down. He has asked for his thoughts to be republished in full, so VoCA has obliged.
Here is the gist:
“When the VAG moved from its former site to the courthouse, it signalled a new era and was a huge boost for the role of visual arts in Vancouver.
Vancouver is ready for, and needs a stand-alone, purpose-built facility.
March 6th, 2010 — Vancouver and region
In Vancouver, the VAG is negotiating with the city to obtain an entire block for their new, larger downtown building. The province has already contributed $50 million.
The VAG. Image: discovervancouver.com
The VAG board has voted unanimously to move the gallery to a prominent downtown location near the current one, rather than the one near the Plaza of Nations that the provincial government had offered them. They want to build “something magnificent for the community which will do the job for the next 50 years”, says Michael Audain, the chairman of the relocation committee of the VAG’s board of trustees.
March 3rd, 2010 — Art fairs, Collecting, Thoughts on art, Toronto and region, Upcoming Events & Exhibitions, Vancouver and region
For a while now, VoCA hasn’t been trotting off to art fairs the way we used to. This year, the New York Amory almost went unnoticed to us. But then we noticed that some people, curators, dealers…are choosing to remain home this year, too.
New York’s Armory Show. Image: thearmoryshow.com
Is it the end of the art fair?
A new non-fair, called the Independent, is on from March 4 – 7 at the Dia building in New York, and is billed as a “hybrid model and temporary exhibition forum.” It is the subject of THIS fascinating article in the Observer.
The article states that “New York is going through a moment right now—that the glitzy, frivolous culture of the boom years is giving way to a new era of intellectual engagement and open-minded community among art lovers.”
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...Read full bio