So we went to New York for five days last weekend. It was the usual late August sticky mess but we had two amazing art experiences that made it all entirely worthwhile.

1. Big Bambu on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum.

Doug and Mike Starn’s 40-foot high bamboo structure exemplifies what I always say about artists that do design-y type installations. It’s important to go big. The installation should always overwhelm the viewer so that the viewer feels the effect of the artwork. And that may mean that the artist needs to work for days, months on the project to get it large enough. A lot of young installation artists should heed this advice, I think.

We didn’t get to take a tour through the bamboo, but friends of ours did and said it was incredible.

All images of Big Bambu: VoCA

2. Dia: Beacon

The only photo I was allowed to take. Image: VoCA

Robert Smithson’s Ithaca Mirror Trail, 1969. I couldn’t find specific images of the works they had at Dia, especially my favorite, Leaning Mirror, 1969. Image: c4gallery.com

We had always wanted to check out the Dia Foundation’s outpost in Beacon, New York. It is the perfect thing to do in 100 degree heat. Somehow, the minimalist sculptures had a cooling effect. It is, essentially the perfect venue for minimalism. I finally came to totally appreciate Donald Judd. And the Chamberlain crumpled automobile sculptures were stunning, there was one of the finest Lawrence Weiner wall works I’ve ever seen and a wonderful Bruce Nauman video of his empty studio at night, completely still save for a mouse now and then.

The Richard Serra sculptures were astounding. You realize why he’s one of the greatest American sculptors.

Serra’s large spirals at Dia make you feel free and constrained at the same time. Awesome. Image: coloradocollege.edu

Michael Heizer’s North, East, South, West, 1967/2002. Image: saatchi-gallery.co.uk

One interesting thing to note if you’re headed there is that if you email or phone ahead, you can book a tour every day at 10:30 am, to be toured around Michael Heizer’s fantastic installation North, East, South, West, 1967/2002.

But my favorite piece – by far – was Robert Smithson’s excellent Leaning Mirror, from 1969, which was a large pristine mirror that had been elegantly inserted into a pile of dusty earth.

Click HERE for the Dia Foundation’s website.

Every city is full of those little artistic gestures, those flourishes made - sometimes deliberately, often not - by people who take the time to do things a little differently.

I think they are too often overlooked - and I find them inspiring. Not as high art of course, but possibly inspiring for architects or designers looking for ways to inject more visual interest in our world.

At Harbord and Spadina, a framed piece of fence, decorated with string that blow in the breeze.

A city worker spraypainted the sidewalk, then dug up the bricks and layed them back wrong.

In Manhattan, someone decorated the curb by gluing nickels down.

I love this proposal by German artist Katharina Fritsch for London’s Fourth Plinth. I love that it appears to be in International Klein Blue, which I blogged about a while ago.

Katharina Fritsch, Hahn / Cock. Image: london.gov.uk

As you probably know, the empty plinth has been a site for artistic proposals over the past few years, including Rachel Whiteread, Antony Gormley and one of my favorite artists, Thomas Schütte.

Originally designed by Sir Charles Barry in 1841 to display an equestrian statue which was never completed, the empty plinth became a site for contemporary art in 1998.

Six proposals - all very good - by Allora & Calzadilla, Elmgreen & Dragset, Katharina Fritsch, Brian Griffiths, Hew Locke, and Mariele Neudecker can be seen at DeZeen, HERE.

Read more about the Fourth Plinth program HERE.

Since I haven’t been away - yet - this summer, my favorite summer show is in Toronto, at one of my favorite galleries.

Flavio Trevisan, The Three Dales, 2010. Image: flaviotrevisan.com

With the mayoral debate gearing up and the fact that Torontonians seem obsessed with urban issues and how to evolve our ward-centric patchwork quilt of a city, this show is particularly relevant.

Flavio Trevisan: Studies of a New Past
Diaz Contemporary
Through August 14, 2010

Hurry - don’t miss it, it’s definitely worth seeing in person.

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Curator William Huffman of the Toronto Arts Council has, in collaboration with the Art Dealers Association of Canada (ADAC) organized some 200-odd Canadian artworks to be displayed to foreign dignitaries during the G8 and G20 summits.

After the fake lake brouhaha, this comes as a better bit of G20 art news, as my fellow blogger Leah Sandals acknowledges in her post HERE.

Gershon Iskowitz, Midnight No. 3 (B244), 1986. Oil on canvas. All images courtesy of ADAC.
Image courtesy Miriam Shiell Fine Art and the Estate of the Artist.

The works, which include one of Brian Jungen’s hockey masks and a sculpture of bears – front and back – by Dean Drever hanging in the Prime Minister’s Office, have been specially chosen by Huffman and a crew of 12 people to represent the breadth of contemporary Canadian artistic practice. Also on display in the PMO will be 2 landscapes by Winnipeg painter Ivan Eyre. There will be a stunning Riopelle in the leader’s lounge, and work by legendary Quebecoise artist Francoise Sullivan. Alongside these will be works chosen by the Ontario Crafts Council.

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Check out my article in this month’s issue of Azure magazine, on the incredible Emu feather concoctions by Colombian artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso.

One of Maria Fernanda Cardoso’s Emu Wear pieces. Image: ifoundsometreasure.com

Cardoso decided to investigate the Emu - the Australian, ostrich-like bird - as a way of relating to her new homeland, Australia. She began with feather sculptures and ended up with sculpture-like cloaks and hats that work as a kind of camouflage for the wearer.

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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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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.

It’s interesting to note, in light of Ryan Trecartin’s films and exhibitions such as the New Museum’s Unmonumental in 2008, that luxury goods makers have come together to lament the loss of quality in craftsmanship seen in recent years.

Celine’s resort collection, 2010. Image: lefistnoir.com

“All young people want to be designers and very few, makers. We want to try to change that by promoting craftsmanship in the luxury sector,” says Guy Salter, the spokesman for the alliance of companies.

All young people want to be designers, not makers.  How come?  Maybe because it’s the designer, not the maker who has been glamorized (hello, Tom Ford.) Maybe that’s why more young people want to be rockstars, or artstars, too.

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