The other day, I visited artist Paulette Phillips at her home in Toronto, to be interviewed for her upcoming artwork. Called The Directed Lie, it involved being put to the test – the lie detector test.

Me with Paulette Phillips, undergoing the polygraph. All images: Scott Barker/VoCA

Phillips has trained as a professional polygraph technician in the United States, and owns a polygraph machine, which is cleverly disguised as a suitcase, but it’s the real deal. I don’t know why, but I surprised that it was such an authentic experience, complete with blood pressure and respiration monitors, and carefully considered questions.

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Hi everyone,

Wow – great response to THIS article in today’s Toronto Star!

To subscribe to ARTBOMB please go HERE. and click ‘SUBSCRIBE’ at the bottom of the page.

Artists – to submit your work, please email carsonandrea@hotmail.com with a link to your website or low res images and ‘artbomb’ in the subject line. Toronto artists only (for now) please. More info HERE.

Thanks!

AC

I went to see the new show at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art the other day.

I discovered that since they have begun collaborating with the National Gallery of Canada, they no longer allow dogs inside, which was an unfortunate discovery for Hudson, who was with me.

Faith La Rocque, Crystal Ladder, 2011. All images: VoCA

Anyway, I found the work on view to be fresh and exciting! When all of a sudden you see work like this you realize something special is going on. There’s an energy here that I haven’t seen in the city for some time. Bravo to curator Camilla Singh for bringing it all together.

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The other week I dropped in to see one of my new favorite galleries, General Hardware Contemporary, in Parkdale. Not only was owner Niki Dracos super friendly, happily accompanying me in my rush around the gallery (I was late for a talk at Art Toronto) but I was really impressed by the work.

Paintings by Anahita Rezvani-Rad. All images: VoCA

R.M. Vaughn is right, in his Globe and Mail review, that we don’t see these kinds of shows often enough in Toronto and when we do, it’s with relief to those of us who deplore the art scene’s typical back-patting. As Vaughn points out, what makes it so vital is that it is work “seen through the eyes of artists experiencing displacement (internal or geographic) from their homelands.”

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One of Canada’s most important collections of vintage and modern photography will go on view at the University of Toronto Art Centre in the new year.

Peter Henry Emerson. A Stiff Pull, ca. 1886, photomechanical process, photogravure. Image:utac.utoronto.ca

The Malcolmson Collection, which I can tell you is a spectacular, very special selection of rare photographs,  is comprised of work dating from the mid-nineteenth century to the present and includes work by Gustave Le Gray, Eugene Atget, Man Ray and many others.

A Man Ray photograph from the Malcolmson Collection. Image:meandmymamiya.com

The exhibition, which will feature selections from the collection, is curated by Heather Diack to examine the relationships “that are created between individuals and photographs and between individuals within photographs.”

On top of that, it’s good to think about the earliest days of photography, long before digital processes and consider all that was involved for these artists to capture an image. There was a connection to the experience and an artistry that we just don’t see as much anymore. It’s as if they were in awe of their subject, and I guess they were. Today technology allows us to dominate nature – you can see it everywhere in contemporary art. I wonder what the effects of this will be. What would McLuhan say?

In any case, this should certainly be a show worth seeing. More information is HERE.

I stopped by the studio of young painter Rob Davidovitz the other afternoon. Rob doesn’t paint in the traditional sense, though. Instead he uses paint to create these textile/painting hybrids.

A woven painting by Rob Davidovitz. All images: VoCA

He mixes paint colours in a kind of pastry tube (more on that below) and squeezes it out in long lines, like thread. Each ‘thread’ incorporates its own mix of colour that blends nicely in the final piece.They he lets the paint dry and weaves the strips, which he attaches to board. Pretty simple.

Another view.

The work may not be terribly mature (yet) -  he’s a young guy, but it’s beautiful, and an interesting approach when you consider other artists who have used paint in a sculptural way – I’m thinking of Kim Dorland‘s earlier work, for one. It’s also interesting that Davidovitz cites the poured paint sculptures of feminist artist Lynda Benglis as an influence. His woven paintings do come off as strangely feminist, meaning that one can comfortably view them through the lens of feminist art–weaving being a traditionally ‘feminine’ craft.

The works are seductive – Davidovitz encourages you to touch and bend them; they’re not delicate.

The back of the work. The paint is glued to the board.

Davidovitz went to art school with plans to be a photographer. Believe it or not, he was working in a bakery, making a cake when he came up with the idea of pushing paint through a piping bag. Shortly thereafter he began experimenting, and eventually perfected the technique..

Three smaller finished works.

Are the works paintings or textiles? “I weave paint,” says Davidovitz. He’s been showing here and there (including at Toronto’s Textile Museum) since he graduated in 2005 and is currently preparing for a group show titled Hard Twist at the Gladstone Hotel which opens on November 25th. The exhibition, all textile-based work by 40 artists, will feature his largest work to date, an enormous piece that weighs over two hundred pounds and involved over twenty gallons of paint to create.

This is good – he should be encouraged to think big and beyond, the way Benglis does.

The artist with a single strand from his Gladstone Hotel piece.

Some small strands.

The weaving process.

An early, experimental work.

The Work Ahead of Us
The Québec Triennial 2011 at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal
7 October 2011 – 3 January 2012

This review is by Kingston, Ontario-based VoCA contributor Catherine Toews.

Claudie Gagnon, Tableaux (To Beauty) (video still), 2011. Vidéogramme, son, environ 20 min. Collection de l’artiste.
Image: macm.org

I had the good fortune of visiting and writing about the inaugural Québec Triennial in 2008. At the time, I described it as “a huge curatorial effort, handled with a great deal of care, consideration and innovation,” requiring “time and patience on behalf of the viewer.” It was “fresh, exciting, and eager to please,” with many artists employing a “strange sense of humour” that rendered the first Triennial “so immensely likeable.” I am pleased to say, after spending an epic Saturday afternoon exploring the second incarnation of the Triennial, that it more than lives up to the sense of great promise created by the first, while possessing some significant differences that came as a pleasant surprise.

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ATTENTION ARTISTS: I’m thrilled to announce that I’m looking for artists for a brand new art project that I’m involved with. It’s called Artbomb and it’s a daily online art auction delivered to your inbox.

Patrick Hughes, Colour Process, 1984. Image: wonderboygraphics.com
I have one of these prints for sale, incidentally.

Here’s how it works. People subscribe for free and receive a single email from us everyday from Monday to Friday. Each day a new work of art is featured, and subscribers can bid on it. If they like it, they bid and if they don’t, they don’t.

It’s simple.

It will be launching in about one month and I’m looking for ‘emerging’ artists to potentially participate. By emerging, I mean less established artists, although some established artists are welcome.

If you are are Toronto-based artist and are interested in showing your work to thousands of potential buyers, please contact me at carsonandrea@hotmail.com. I’ll answer any questions you have and send you a copy of the contract.

Send me your phone number and we’ll go from there. Our website will be up soon.

Artbomb. Buy what YOU love.

It’s that time of year again, and among all the exhibition openings, parties (I swung by the Canadian Art Foundation‘s annual fundraiser was last week) and festivals (Nuit Blanche is next week-eek! More on that coming soon…) Toronto’s art scene is back in full swing.

The invitation. Courtesy Business for the Arts

Relatively new on the scene is ArtsScene‘s annual Arnold Party.  It’s the afterparty for the Business for the Arts gala, and it’s happening October 6 at the fabulous 1920-style Carlu. Appropriately, this year’s theme is Boardwalk Empire and the party is full-force fancy dress, so get your game on, people!

(disclaimer: I sit on the board of ArtsScene, a Canada-wide young professionals arts group.)

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I came across a quote from the YBA godfather, Michael Craig-Martin in the Financial Times recently. Speaking about the practice of being an artist, he says, “What interests me is the part of you that you are stuck with, that you can’t control, and it comes out whatever. That’s infinitely more profound: you are who you are, even when you don’t wish to be – you can’t not do it.”

Still from whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir, by Eve Sussman. Image courtesy redartprojects.com

His quote echoes an issue that I’ve had for some time with much of the emerging art that I see; the idea that the artist must maintain control over it. Of course, ultimately we can never get away from ourselves, so it’s true that all art is self-portraiture, but generally speaking, I much prefer art that leaves open what Craig-Martin identifies – that part that can’t be controlled.

Speaking of control, we saw the newest work by Brooklyn-based artist Eve Sussman and her collaborative team Rufus Corporation at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was screening as a part of Future Projections, the festival’s artistic programme.

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