Well.  Last night I did a “Face the Critic” at the Drake, with Leah Sandals and Richard Vaughn and it was…interesting, to say the least. I didn’t feel able to properly articulate my views - there were some big personalities in the room. But I learned a lot, and it’s always good to have your foundations shaken a little.

Brendan Flanagan, Reflective Pool. Image: brendanflanagan.ca.

The idea was that each critic would bring two works – one we ‘love’ and one we ‘loathe.’

Richard began by pointing out that he doesn’t subscribe to the idea of ‘loving’ or ‘loathing’, which is fair enough. Then he went on to talk at length, and very interestingly, about how much he loved an Allyson Mitchell work – one of her large, fun-fur covered Sasquatch sculptures.

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Here is the final part of an article written by former Winnipegger Edwin Janzen, an artist and writer currently based in Ottawa. The article was previously published in Drain magazine - you can read the full article, HERE, (under Related Essays) or click HERE for last week’s post on VoCA.

Roger Crait, Untitled, 2009. Image: umanitoba.ca

The Power of Myth
How Did Winnipeg and Its Art Become such a Big Deal?

By Edwin Janzen

The City Behind the Myth

Winnipeg artists — and the city as a whole — owe much to the considerable efforts of these influential “fixers.” For the representation of Winnipeg as a sort of mythic art mecca has surely been a good thing, hasn’t it? Winnipeg and its artists are receiving more attention than ever before, so can the repackaging of Winnipeg as a geographically and creatively charged nexus be anything else than an unmitigated good? If life gives you lemons….

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Rumour has it that some artists aren’t pleased with the way the Vancouver Olympics is being handled.

Image: mediacoop.ca

We’ve been hearing rumblings for some time now of artists being censored, their ‘anti-Olympics’ works removed or under threat of removal and constraints being put on artists who are being commissioned to make works to showcase Vancouver’s visual art scene.

Much of the debate arises from this contractual clause: “The artist shall at all times refrain from making any negative or derogatory remarks respecting VANOC (the organizing committee), the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Olympic movement generally, Bell and/or other sponsors associated with VANOC.”

Vancouver has the most condensed area of homelessness and addiction in Canada and many Vancouver artists take inspiration from the grittiness of the Downtown East Side. We can imagine that they wouldn’t agree with an Olympic Committee that may be glossing over this aspect of the city.

“Art without free speech is simply propaganda“, says The BC Civil Liberties Association president Rob Holmes.

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There’s an interesting exhibition on up at the Glenhyrst Art Gallery in Brantford, Ontario from 29 November 2009 – 22 January 2010. It’s only about an hour’s drive from Toronto and VIA Rail goes there, too.

Bonnie Devine, Reclamation Project, 1995. Image: ccca.ca

The show, organized in collaboration with Toronto’s SAVAC, brings together work by First Nations artists with work by South Asian artists, in a reflection of the two communitieis who live side by side in the area.

The artists are Roy Caussy, Bonnie Devine, Ali Kazimi, Afshin Matlabi, Yudi Sewraj, Greg Staats, Ehren Bear Witness Thomas and Jeff Thomas.

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Presentation House Gallery
Vancouver, British Columbia
The Malcolmson Collection
October 1, 2009 to December 20, 2009

Gustave Le Gray, The Great Wave, Sete, 1857. Image: canadianart.ca

Do not miss seeing these extraordinary vintage photographs from the collection of friends-of-VoCA Harry and Ann Malcolmson.

Over the past twenty-five years, the Malcolmsons have assembled a rare collection of vintage and historic photographs that span the history of the medium. Highlights include nineteenth and twentieth-century classics by famous photographers Eugene Atget, Julia Margaret Cameron, Charles Marville, Tina Modotti, Man Ray, Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Margaret Bourke-White, among others.

For more images and information on a number of artist tours and events, please click HERE.

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The Washington Post’s influential art critic, the Canadian Blake Gopnik, offers some thoughts on critical opinion. He is “quite certain that the works of…Canadian Brian Jungen are about as good as it gets in contemporary art,” he says. “I’m sure I must have been right. My memory and instincts tell me I was.”

Brian Jungen, Prototype for New Understanding #1, 1998. Image: curatedobject.us

But then he questions himself: “What if I wasn’t? What if I…(now) reach whole other conclusions?”

He concludes that part of being a critic is being open and strong enough to change your mind.

Interesting.

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Burning Cold
18 June - 30 August 2009
The Ottawa Art Gallery

For a while now VoCA has been interested in the new Inuit art - in fact, we interviewed Inuit art dealer Pat Feheley about it HERE. Feheley speaks eloquently and knowledgeably on the “sea change” that occurred once Cape Dorset artists discovered that they could depict the world around them.

Shuvinai Ashoona, Scary Dream, 2006. Image: ottawaartgallery.com

Previously, they had been limited to what the ‘market’ dictated - cliched images of bears, seals, old-fashioned hunting scenes etc.

We recommended Noise Ghost, curator Nancy Campbell’s exhibition at the Justina M Barnicke Gallery at the University of Toronto that pairs Ashoona with super hot multi-media artist Shary Boyle in a two-woman show, and now we recommend Burning Cold, a show curated by Scott Marsden, that pairs Ashoona’s work with other Canadians including BGL, Tania Kitchell and Emily Vey Duke + Cooper Battersby.

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Noise Ghost: Shary Boyle and Shuvinai Ashoona
May 28 - August 23, 2009
Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Hart House, University of Toronto

Shary Boyle, self portrait, 2006. Image: sharyboyle.com

Toronto artist Shary Boyle, who is well known for her delicate figurines (often championed on VoCA) is paired with Cape Dorset artist Shuvinai Ashoona, who first came to our attention a few years ago, and did a fantastic collaboration with John Noestheden titled Earth and Sky for Nuit Blanche Toronto last year.

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In the current issue of VoCA’s favorite magazine, Art + Auction, Jori Finkel tries - without success - to present an opposing argument to what we have been saying for months (along with other critics, including the fabulous New Yorkers Holland Cotter and Jerry Saltz):

That the economic shakedown is the best thing that could have happened to the art world.

Will Kent Monkman, one of Canada’s most overrated artists (we think), survive the recession?
Si je t’aime prends garde à toi, 2007. Image: canadianart.ca

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Here are two exhibitions worth checking out on either side of the country this month:

1. Toronto
South Asian Visual Arts Centre at the University of Toronto Arts Centre
The One Year Drawing Project: May 2005 - October 2007: A Sri Lankan artists’ collaboration
25 May - 1 August 2009

Image: savac.net

In May 2005, four artists simultaneously created four unique drawings in their respective studios in Sri Lanka. These drawings were exchanged by post, finding their way between Jaffna in the north and the suburbs of the capital Colombo.

Upon receipt of the drawings, four more were generated in response to the first set of drawings, creating a chain of events that evolved into the One Year Drawing Project.

The participating artists in this drawing exchange are four of Sri Lanka’s most critically acclaimed contemporary artists - Muhanned Cader, Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan, Chandraguptha Thenuwara and Jagath Weerasinghe.

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