1. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller

31 July – 28 September 2008

The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, The Killing Machine, 2007. Image: e-flux.com

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The RBC Canadian Painting Competition, a barometer of emerging painters from across the country, has announced this year’s shortlist.

Eli Bornowsky, Untitled 2008. Image: front.bc.ca

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6. MASSIMO GUERRERA: DARBORAL

26 juin au 31 août, 2008

Quartier Ephemere/Fonderie Darling

“Darboral s’articule autour de plates-formes artistiques et spirituelles, qui invitent le visiteur à prendre part à différents rituels. Partages de nourriture à l’occasion de repas et suçage de noyaux, ateliers de créativité lors de moulages corporels et adaptation de prothèses, prise de conscience des modes d’ouverture physique et psychique, méditation, donnent lieu à une série d’éléments dont les traces de passage composent Darboral.”

It’s a work that concentrates on the rhythms of the creative experience, and shares these processes with others. It’s a contemplative space that gives back to art it’s original function, in the service of the ritual.

The Massimo Guerrera installation at Quartier Ephemere. Image: VoCA

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The Quebec art scene is ON FIRE.

La Belle Province is home to the country’s most exciting artists, many of which are included in the excellent Quebec Triennale at the MAC in Montreal.

Montreal also hosted the recent IKT (International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art) congress in May, which brought international curatorial eyes to the city thanks to Chantal Pontbriand of Parachute.

One of Canada’s best new galleries, the DHC Art Foundation, continues to make waves with their programming –Feist is playing the opening of Sophie Calle’s solo exhibition later this week.

Canadian chanteuse Leslie Feist. Image: rcrdlbl.com

The MMFA has co-organized the superb YSL retrospective and with the always excellent Canadian Centre for Architecture and the city’s many galleries, there is no doubt that Quebec and Montreal in particular, is the hottest place in contemporary Canadian art right now.

Here are a few of VoCA’s discoveries:

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Image: canadiandesignresource.ca

Coming up next week:

-The Quebec Triennale at the Musee d’art contemporain

-YSL at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

-Adad Hannah at Pierre Francois Ouellette Art Contemporain

-Carl Ostendarp, Peter Schuyff and Yves Tessier at Projex-Mtl

-Massimo Guerrera, Jessica Warboys, Jocelyne Alloucherie and Jean-Paul Ganem at Quartier Ephemere

…And more!

In addition to the Power Plant’s summer exhibition, Not Quite How I Remember It, featuring work by Gerald Byrne, Diane Borsato and Nestor Kruger, VoCA recommends Object Factory at the Gardiner Museum, which features ceramics by the likes of VoCA favorites Cindy Sherman and the late, great Ettore Sottsass (see previous post HERE.)

Cindy Sherman, Madame de Pompadour (née Poisson) Soup Tureen, 1990. Image: mintwiki.pbwiki.com

For the Power Plant, please click HERE and for the Gardiner museum, click HERE.

We also recommend checking out one of Toronto’s best new galleries, MKG 127.

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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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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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“What separates true artistic development from mere rehashing?” asks Artforum’s Brian Sholis in his review of Canadian art star Brian Jungen’s new show at Casey Kaplan in New York.

Artist Brian Jungen. Image: voyage5capefarewell.com

“Some artists focus exclusively upon a narrow set of concerns but manage to find nuanced and varied expressions of them. Jungen, though formally creative, seems to be on intellectual autopilot.”

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Montreal photo-manipulator Nicolas Baier is one of the hottest names on the Quebec art scene. Check out my review of his recent exhibition at Jessica Bradley Art & Projects, in Toronto:

(Click on thumbnail to enlarge)

For more info, visit the artist’s website HERE

Baier is represented in Toronto by Jessica Bradley. Click HERE.