“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.“ – Marcel Proust

Today, I swung by Feheley Fine Arts gorgeous new gallery at 65 George Street, where ADAC (the Art Dealers Association of Canada) was hosting a lunch in honour of the upcoming exhibition Oh, Canada that will open at Mass MoCA on May 26.

A slide for Oh, Canada showing Joyce Wieland’s piece of lipstick marking our national anthem. Click on images to enlarge them. All images: VoCA

It’s a survey of Canadian art, from the perspective of Mass MoCA’s american curator, Denise Markonish, who has spent the past four years preparing for this exhibition by travelling to nearly every province in Canada, meeting artists, curators, gallery owners and writers.

A view of Feheley Fine Arts.


The piece above is fantastic, titled Cutting Walrus on the Beach, Itee Pootoogook, 2011. It’s sold, though. The lower piece, Plane Trip, 2011 by the same artist is not sold.

I met Denise, who is very sweet and Mass MoCA long-time director, Joe Thompson, who is a friendly, lovely man.

Denise has no real connection to Canada, despite having been here on a family road trip to Toronto at age twelve, when she saw some public artworks by Michael Snow. But really, she noticed that there was very little dialogue between American and Canadian art, and set out to rectify that.

Joe Thompson, Mass MoCA director, speaking at the ADAC lunch.

Some artists that you can expect to see are Luanne Martineau, Eric Cameron, David Hoffos, Ed Pien, Michael Snow, BGL, Valerie Blass, Kim Morgan and many, many others. Quite a few artists were commissioned to make works especially for this show, including Rebecca Belmore, Dean Baldwin, Daniel Barrow, Garry Neill Kennedy and many others.

There are 62 artists in the show, I believe, and most of them I had never heard of. Which is wonderful.

Of course there has been some griping from those who (or whose artists) were not included, but they need to get over it. It’s a fantastic opportunity to learn about new artists in Canada, and of course the curator doesn’t owe anyone anything. Canada has grown up over the past decade (or so one would like to think.) There are many opportunities for artists and galleries these days. You’ve got to reach out for them, not complain when they don’t come to you.

Curator Denise Markonish.

One interesting thing that Denise did was to have each artist interview another, and in turn be interviewed. Each one gave their top five artists. She tells a great story of how the excellent senior conceptualist painter Eric Cameron took the list of artists, eliminated everyone he knew of, then further eliminated everyone whose gender he was certain of, and thus came up with his list of five.

Anyway, Denise thought that would be a great way to try to bridge the geographical divide of our country. I agree, and I look forward to reading the interviews in the catalogue, out in July.

For more info on Mass MoCA, check out their website HERE.

Did you know that UK-based Canadian author Sarah Thornton successfully sued a critic from the Daily Telegraph for a “spiteful” review of her book Seven Days in the Art World?

Author Sarah Thornton, and her book. Image: inforrm.com

I haven’t read the book, though I know many who have and who thoroughly enjoyed it. Her lawsuit resulted in Thornton winning 65,000 Pounds for libel – the critic apparently claimed to have not been interviewed by Thornton, when in fact she had.

“Most of the damages – £50,000 of the £65,000 – were awarded for this reason: that Barber’s review included a damaging and untrue allegation. But (the judge) added another £15,000 to punish her for being malicious. As he explained: “A reviewer is entitled to be spiteful, so long as she is honest, but if she is spiteful, the court may more readily conclude that misstatements of fact are not honest, since spite or ill will is a motive for dishonesty.”

Wow.

This excellent article in this weekend’s Financial Times is an overview of the situation is a must-read for any critic or any artist whose work has been subject to a critique. It’s HERE.

Thorton wrote a thoughtful reponse to the lawsuit in the Guardian, also worth reading, which is HERE.

Incidentally, Thornton’s book received excellent reviews in the New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, and Sunday Times to name a few.

It’s better late than never for some highlights from this year’s Venice Biennale.

Flying into Venice. All photos: VoCA

Having been to several Venice Biennales in my life, I almost always prefer the pavilions where the artist addresses the architecture of the pavilions in which the art is housed. The first Biennale was held in 1895 and there are only 30 permanent national pavilions in the Giardini. This year, there were 89 participating countries, many of whom exhibited in off-site pavilions throughout Venice.

The whole concept of the pavilions in the Giardini is, to my mind, rather outdated, and art has clearly moved on from such constraints. Many of the pavilions are architecturally designed to best showcase painting or drawing shows like this year’s contribution from Canada. Luckily, Vancouver artist Steven Shearer managed to give Canada’s little pavilion, wedged in between Germany and Great Britain, some oomph with an enormous billboard and d-i-y shed-like entrance.

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Yesterday, a group of about 100 people from the Toronto art community gathered outside the Chinese consulate in Toronto, in support of the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who has been detained by Chinese authorities.

The event was organized by a group of local artists and art writers, and was part of 1001 Chairs that took place in Manhattan and in cities around the world.

It was an unqualified success, but it’s not over:

“We call on our Prime Minister and our Minister of Foreign Affairs to express concern over the treatment of Ai Weiwei. Leaders of the Guggenheim Museum, the Tate, the Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles Country Museum have called for his release. So far, the only Canadian art institution to do the same has been the Vancouver Art Gallery. We call on Canada’s art museums, institutions and artist-run centres including the AGO, the National Gallery, the ROM, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art to condemn the imprisonment of Ai Weiwei and call for his release.”

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It’s been over one week since Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was arrested by the Chinese government at Beijing airport. He has not been heard from since and the government is accusing him of ‘economic crimes’.

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Image: lamonodigital.net

Where is he? And why aren’t Canadians demanding to know?

Ai Weiwei is best known for his installation Sunflower Seeds, currently on view at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. Each porcelain seed was made and hand painted by Chinese specialists working in Jingdezhen, emphasizing the labour that has gone into the project. As someone suggested to me recently, seeds are about potential growth. So you can imagine the impact of a hundred million seeds carpeting the Turbine Hall.

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If you haven’t heard about the AA Bronson brou-ha-ha by now….

Canadian artist AA Bronson. Image: flickr.com

Well, let’s just say that the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, which is showing the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, exploring art by and about homosexuals, has caved to pressure by Christian activists and removed video piece, A Fire in My Belly, by the late artist David Wojnarowicz that included some images of a crucifix crawling with ants.

David Wojnarowicz, A Fire in My Belly, 1987 (video still). Image: realartways.org

In protest, Bronson has asked that his piece in the show, titled Felix, June 5, 1994, be removed. The photograph shows Bronson’s former partner, Felix Partz, shortly after he died of AIDS. So far, Bronson has managed to get the National Gallery of Canada, which donated the piece to the show, on his side, but to no avail – so far, the NPG is not budging.

AA Bronson, Felix, June 5, 1994. Image: torontolife.com

Tonight, AA sent me a letter written to the NPG by the lawyers that he has now retained, demanding that his piece be returned by January 17, or the Wojnarowicz video replaced, otherwise they “are instructed to institute any necessary legal proceedings as may be necessary to enforce our client’s rights without further notice or delay.” The letter is cc’d to Bronson, the National Gallery of Canada’s director Marc Mayer, and the lawyers.

The exhibition is on at the NPG until February 13, and you can see the missing video HERE.

It’s a powerful piece and I wish AA Bronson good luck in his fight. It’s well worth it.

Stay tuned…

I was impressed by the Vancouver architect Bing Thom, who I heard speak last week at the Sustainable Suburbs conference in Toronto.

Vancouver architect Bing Thom. Image: vancouverism.ca

Thom’s Arena Stage at the Mead Centre for American Theatre. Image: archdaily.com

Not only has Thom just designed an improbably well-received Arena Stage at the Mead Centre for American Theatre in Washington D.C., which encases the original brutalist architecture very elegantly, he has just received a commission from Miami mega-collectors Don and Mera Rubell.

The new gallery and mixed-use development is to be set on the site of an abandoned school, and will presumably house part of the 1500-piece Rubell Family Collection.

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Winnipeg artist Daniel Barrow has won the 2010 Sobey Art Award. The prize awards $50,000 to a visual artist under the age of 40. I had a feeling he’d win, having been passed up for the award in 2008.

Daniel Barrow, Flaying, 2010, from his show at the Art Gallery of York University. Image: livewithculture.ca

Daniel Barrow at work giving a projection performance. Image: livewithculture.ca

Daniel Barrow, Kiss Me Before I Die, 2010. Image: jessicabradleyartprojects.com

Please see more of Daniel Barrow’s work on his website, HERE. He shows with Jessica Bradley Art & Projects in Toronto, where he will have an exhibition from November 20 — December 23, 2010.

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.

Just saw this:

“Steven Shearer…will represent Canada at the 54th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2011 (Venice Biennale), from June 4 to November 27, 2011. The only international visual arts exhibition to which Canada sends official representation, the Biennale is among the most prestigious contemporary art exhibitions in the world.

Steven Shearer’s drawings of metal-heads. Image: wecantpaint.com

The artist was chosen by a national selection committee comprised of senior contemporary art curators from across Canada and formed by the National Gallery of Canada (NGC), organizer of the Canadian representation for the 2011 Biennale. The NGC’s Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Josée Drouin-Brisebois, will organize the exhibition of Steven Shearer’s work.”

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