Great curatorial minds think alike, it seems.

After what seems like an interminably long period of preciousness with Toronto’s starchitect-designed art spaces at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Royal Ontario Museum, the gloves are off.

Both institutions have invited artists to literally destroy gallery walls.

The gorgeous, Frank Gehry-designed AGO. Image: seanjohn.com

At the AGO, the glorious collages and installations of Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu will, for her first major solo exhibition, include a haunting series of drawings mounted on a ‘pockmarked’ gallery wall, which will be punctured and torn to reflect the post-colonial themes at the core of Mutu’s work.

This should be a must-see exhibition!

A collage by Wangechi Mutu. Image: 55secretstreet.com

Wangechi Mutu: This You Call Civilization?
February 24 - May 23
The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Libeskind’s Royal Ontario Museum. Image: daniel-libeskind.com

Meanwhile, over at the ROM, the Romanian Dan Perjovschi will graffiti Libeskind’s walls with his cartoon-y style that offers incisive commentary on political, social and cultural issues of the moment.

Dan Perjovschi: Late News
February 15 to 21, 2010
Drawings on display until August 15, 2010
The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Dan Perjovschi at the Taubman Museum of Art. Image: perjovschi.ro

We snuck in on the final day to see the Cut/Paste: Creative Reuse in Canadian Design show at the Royal Ontario Museum this past weekend, and, while the huge gallery spaces overwhelmed the design objects on display, there were a few things of particular interest, like objects that prison inmates had ingeniously cobbled together: water-boilers and crudely made toaster, to transform water and bread into toast and tea.

Continue reading →

You may remember the British artist Michael Landy from his piece Break Down, in which he destroyed all of his 7, 226 belongings, including his passport.

Michael Landy’s Break Down, 2001. Image: artcornwall.org

It was a project for Artangel and took place in a vacant shop on Oxford Street, in central London. Needless to say, it was a pretty controversial – but fascinating – piece.

Michael Landy, Art Bin, 2010. Image: saatchi-gallery.co.uk.

Art Bin, Landy’s new show that is on from January 29 to 14 March, 2010 at the South London Gallery, is a bit different. Landy has constructed an enormous garbage bin that takes us almost the entire gallery. He is offering to trash your art, so to speak. But not just anyone can come to dispose of their art. Landy is the ‘curator’ if you can call it that, of the bin.

Read what the BBC had to say, and watch their video, HERE.

Continue reading →

Some of the visual artists who will be exhibiting new works at the Vancouver 21010 Olympics:

Eric Metcalfe, Insectarium, 2005. Image: winchestergalleriesltd.com

1. ERIC METCALFE AND GEORGE LEWIS: IKONS

Ikons is a collaborative interactive art installation Vancouver performance and visual artist Eric Metcalfe and legendary American composer, trombonist and intellectual George Lewis.

For the piece, Metcalfe has created seven vibrant hand-painted sculptures, each about eight feet tall, that will house sonar sensors and speakers. The exhibition space will be full of recorded music composed by Lewis and performed by Vancouver’s contemporary/classical Turning Point Ensemble.

Ikons runs January 28 to February 28 from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Five-Sixty, 650 Seymour Street, Vancouver. Admission is free. Click HERE for a map.

More, including Etienne Zack, David Hoffos and Don Ritter, if you click over…

Continue reading →

Leading art collector and philanthropist Dr. Ydessa Hendeles is donating an extraordinary collection of 32 Canadian and international contemporary artworks to the Art Gallery of Ontario, representing the most significant single gift of contemporary art in the AGO’s 110-year history.

A work, by Barbara Kruger, currently on view at Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation, Toronto.
Image: akimbo.ca

The gift includes works by groundbreaking Canadian contemporary artists Kim Adams, Ian Carr-Harris, Max Dean, Betty Goodwin, Liz Magor, Ken Lum, Ron Martin, John McEwen and Ian Wallace. The Hendeles gift also adds to the AGO’s contemporary collection the first works by international artists James Coleman (Irish), Gary Hill (American),Thomas Schütte (German), Bill Viola (American) and Krzysztof Wodiczko (Polish), and augments the Gallery’s holding by Giulio Paolini (Italian).

Plans are underway for an exhibition of works from the Hendeles donation within the next 18 months.

Continue reading →

You may remember, if you’re in Toronto, or Calgary, that the Canadian Art Foundation screened the excellent documentary, Herb and Dorothy, at last year’s Reel Artists Film Festival.

Megumi Sasaki’s touching documentary, Herb and Dorothy. Image: now-movies.com

The film tells the extraordinary story of Herbert Vogel, a postal clerk, and Dorothy Vogel, a librarian, who managed to build one of the most important contemporary art collections in history with very modest means.

In the 1960s they began devoting all of Herb’s salary to purchase art they liked, mainly the emerging practices of Minimalist and Conceptualist art, and living on Dorothy’s paycheck alone, they continued collecting artworks guided by two rules: the piece had to be affordable, and it had to be small enough to fit in their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment.

Continue reading →

Do you ever notice how sometimes you go into a shop, or eat at a restaurant, and you can just tell–usually by the outfit and the attitude–that you’re being served by an artist or, more likely, an art student. They seem bored, and clearly dislike their job.

Rikrit Tiravanija makes art. Image: columbia.edu

Every job holds creative potential, and every act is a creative act, as many artists–particularly practitioners of relational aesthetics– have noted. In fact, every situation holds potential. We saw the film Invictus recently, which is, in part about the revelations that Mandela came to terms with while in prison.

Continue reading →

Jean-Pierre Gauthier, Nul/Flirting with the Puck 2008. Image: canadianart.ca

1. Kinetic works by the former Sobey Art Prize winner Jean-Pierre Gauthier at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia from December 18, 2009 to March 15, 2010.

A drawing by Dan Perjovschi. Image: romanianculturalcentre.org.uk

2. The curators at the ROM finally see the light and bring in Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi to graffiti the walls of Libeskind’s precious crystal. The artist will work on the walls ‘live’ during gallery hours from February 13 to 22, and the show continues to next summer.

A portrait piece of Janusz Dukszta by Evan Penny. Image courtesy UTAC.

3. From 19 January to 13 March 2010, collector Janusz Dukszta is the subject of a new show at the University of Toronto Arts Centre. It’s curated by Gordon Hatt and should be an interesting comment on the artist/patron relationship.

Nothing to Declare: Current Sculpture from Canada
PLUS
Recent Snow: Projected Works by Michael Snow
11 December, 2009 – 7 March, 2010
The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto

Michael Snow, still from SSHTOORRTY, 2005. Image: Arttorrents.com

We went to the Power Plant’s opening last night of two exhibitions. The first, a fairly simple display of new sculpture, gave us a mix of things, including two wonderful works by Victoria’s Luanne Martineau, whose work we love for its tactility and drama.  It looks like art history put through a blender but rendered in the ‘feminine’ technique of felting. It’s bold, strong and intriguing.

More images and thoughts on what we didn’t like in the show, below..

Continue reading →

Tibi Tibi Neuspiel, Lincoln / Booth. Image: beautifuldecay.com

For those of you who are interested in the ‘what is art criticism’ debate, there’s recently been a lively discussion among my fellow Canadian bloggers, sparked by THIS post that VoCA wrote a few weeks ago.

Check out Gabby Moser’s blog HERE for her thoughts, Jennifer McMackon’s blog Simpleposie HERE, for another discussion, and Leah Sandals, who shares her thoughts on her great blog, Unedit My Heart, right HERE.