Toronto design collective Public Displays of Affection is bringing the ‘eat local’ concept of community supported agriculture to design. Their brand of community engaged design involves their members – mostly young furniture designers and artists including the up-and-coming Brothers Dressler, Dennis Lin (whose studio I visited last year) and MADE – working with local organizations and communities to build furniture and design interiors.

For Edmond Place, Henry Salonen and Adriana Romano’s chair of reclaimed wood shipping pallets with cushion crafted from pre-loved jeans.

PDA was founded by Jeremy Vandermeij, Katherine Ngui and Parimal Gosai, who met at Ryerson University while studying interior design, and Adam Harris, who had studied graphic design at George Brown College. I sat down with Jeremy, Katherine and Adam on a rainy afternoon at the Gladstone Hotel:

VoCA: I’m interested in this idea of very local, community engaged design. How did you come up with the concept for PDA?

PDA: It came from our interest in filling this need we saw of trying to bring contemporary design into communities that didn’t have it. It was the idea of getting people involved in their own projects that made sense in a wholistic way.

When we started, we wanted to do workshops in design in the community, simple projects for those people who didn’t think they were practicing design. We would show them that they were, in fact practicing design all the time.

We were wanting to find a way of practicing design outside of the industry. That idea brought us to the Edmond Place project, our first project. That kind of engagement made sense. It’s important to avoid the psychology of a handout. Being involved makes it more meaningful to the people we are doing it for.

That was on the clients mind before we approached them. It’s do-it-yourself, or rather educating, taking action, rehabilitation through the work. We were looking for a place to do that kind of thing.

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The McMichael Canadian Art Collection – famous for its works by members of the Group of Seven – has hired Dr. Victoria Dickenson as it’s new Executive Director and CEO as well as President of the McMichael Canadian Art Foundation.

Lawren Harris, Afternoon sun, Lake Superior. Image: blindflaneur.com

Ms. Dickenson comes fresh from 18 months at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg, and previously from Montreal’s wonderful McCord Museum.

“My goal in coming to the McMichael,” said Dickenson, “is to make the institution stronger – locally, provincially, nationally and internationally – to reach our local communities, the tourists that come to the GTA and the visitors that we reach virtually, so that more people can experience for themselves what an outstanding institution the McMichael is and what an important part it plays in our Canadian history and heritage, today, tomorrow and for decades to come.”

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From Winnipeg, VoCA contributor Whitney Light sat down with painter Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline to discuss the development of his painting practice, the importance of variation, biological systems and how he keeps it all interesting.

Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline, Rot Samba, 2009, oil on canvas. All images courtesy the artist.

VoCA: What is keeping you busy now?

KK: I’m at the start of something new. I’m interested in taking motifs from my paintings and reusing them over and over again, in pattern making and, in doing that, exploring a parallel with biological processes, or evolution. I’m trying to develop a way of painting that employs little systems. I’m interested in the way biological systems work rather than what they look like; how they make structures out of small bits.

VoCA: Who or what has motivated your ideas in this direction?

KK: Predominantly right now the two things I’m looking at are the history of ornamentation and also really trying to understand how certain biological processes work. They don’t come out directly per se, but I’m trying to use both to shape what I’m doing. Ornamentation became interesting to me because it’s a domain within which you can see an evolution of motifs and forms; it reveals small parts generating larger systems or patterns through time.

Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline, Untitled, 2010, Ink on paper.

VoCA: You have been looking for a model process. How does this new work compare to your previous?

KK: I was looking for ways of making things that I could get behind. My previous work (around 2008) was really almost about working without a model. On some level I had a reticence about having a model or a system. At that time, I was really interested in making paintings that would to some degree explore ideas about the production of subjectivity, or even express doubts in relation to this idea. This also paralleled an interest in and doubt around how to pursue making paintings. Rather than depicting the figure as a discrete whole, I was interested in looking at it as an assemblage of heterogeneous parts that come together briefly to form a kind of shifty multitude as opposed to an individual.

I think that my reticence around the idea of a system or a model really came out of not seeing one that didn’t in some way involve an appeal towards some kind of abstract ideal or involve me having to impose my will on the process in an aggressive way. I was more interested in pursuing something more passive and more like tending to a practice as one would a garden, preferably a pretty scruffy English garden.

I think with the newer work, looking at areas like the study of biological systems, has provided me with models or ways of working that seem less determinist or reductive. It presents models and systems that at their core are about variation, interconnectedness, evolution, and change. So things are explored as being dynamic and in constant motion as opposed to being static.

Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline, Comedian (blk), 2009. Oil on canvas.

VoCA: This seems to have taken you away from representational imagery toward greater abstraction. Would you agree?

KK: When I was coming out of undergrad, my favorite painters were late Medieval and early Renaissance. I pursued that for a while. And then I became done with that idea.
I still consider my work to be representational in many ways. I think it is a myth that “abstraction” operates outside of the field of representation. I find it more useful to consider the term abstraction in its original meaning as a representation that is severed from its material referent. In this sense I just think about the more painterly effects in the work as being a kind of profane or material exuberance. I think these material events maybe open up a space in the more representational aspects of the paintings and allow for a slippery read of the image. The formal play becomes a kind of categorical play in relation to the figure depicted.

I think the move away from a more concise form of representation happened because my ideas changed. When I was making my most finely tuned representational paintings (from the spring of 2007 until winter 2008) I was interested in looking at the painting as a kind of stage or virtual arena where motifs would move around within a narrative. I was really interested in Hogarth’s paintings. On some level I think I was trying to paint a movie almost. I was really interested in seeing what could go on in that virtual space but also how things could come out of that space, and tracking those movements. So the painting surface became the looking glass or a kind of fold between two types of space.

But the problem I started having was that the actual making of the work became sort of boring to me. I would figure out the image in drawings and then just paint it to the best of my abilities. In that sense the painting was just there to fulfill a technical requirement in order to create the virtual space. I always think of that work now as some sort of failed conceptual art for a really good video game.

Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline, Untitled, 2010. Ink on paper.

VoCA: Whose work interests you right now?

KK: Hans Arp really interests me right now. The way he works through his drawings and his paintings and his relief sculptures. He used a lot of chance but then took the results of that and it almost became a little system. I’m interested in his drawings and collages in particular, the way he reused them to make new works. They became like little machines that function on their own.

A lot of the stuff that I’m looking at right now is anonymous patterns not attributed to anybody. They’re these free-floating entities. There are motifs that go through cultures and they’re not attributed to anybody but they’re used by everybody. For instance, in Moorish architectural patterning. There were specific influences, but the motifs got adopted by successive generations and then they become these traditional forms. But they mutate as they’re used.

VoCA: Are you interested in the motifs that pervade society today, then?

KK: I am not appropriating any specific motifs, though I look at them and try to understand them; I’m actually more interested in generating my own. It’s more interesting to start from scratch. They start really simply and then I sort of reuse them in different ways across different mediums and as I do that they change and become more complex, develop relationships with each other. It’s becoming like a kind of population that I’m using and the work itself is a trace of those interactions.

Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline, Mellon, 2010 Oil on canvas.

VoCA: It sounds like you’re creating a sort of microcosm of images, or a fabricated history of them. Does that adequately describe what you’re working towards?

KK: Yes, in some ways. I definitely recognize that there is a kind of formal genealogy being produced. As I make the work I am producing a lot of stencils, drawings and digital files so there is a really clear visual record of what’s being made. Each one is sort of like a little specimen in a field guide.

This morning, I met with Jeffrey Melanson, Mayor Rob Ford’s special advisor on the arts. We were introduced through the wonderful Will Huffman, at the Toronto Art Council.

Jeff Melanson. Image: 123nonstop.com

Though we had originally planned an interview, he asked to wait to answer my questions and instead suggested that we meet for coffee. The first thing you notice about Melanson is that he’s extremely tall and friendly, but he’s also clear and quite convincing.

Melanson outlined his plans and challenges (big challenges) for arts and culture in Toronto, and while I’m not allowed to say what we talked about – yet – suffice to say that the visual arts community can be sure that he is working on our behalf. He seems to have a fairly strong vision.

Bear in mind the huge amount of bureaucracy that he is up against, not to mention pressures from all sorts of interests.

As he pointed out, the city is polarized and I think that it’s important for all of us to keep an open mind when it comes to Rob Ford’s administration. I’m not pro-Ford, and I didn’t vote for him (nor did Melanson, in fact) but that doesn’t mean that he’s not open to Melanson’s plans for arts and culture.

Having spoken with him, I’m confident that he’s focusing on the right areas, and that he’ll be good for the arts.

I’m hoping that in the next few weeks I’ll be able to post the originally planned interview.

Stay tuned.

For now, HERE are Martin Knelman’s thoughts in the Toronto Star from a few weeks ago. Here’s hoping we move forward, not back.

Over the past few years, I’ve often mentioned, and championed, regional art galleries in Ontario and Canada.

Artist Luke Painter and one of his works. Image: blogto.com

CAFKA (Contemporary Art Forum, Kitchener and Area) is a regional not-for-profit arts organization whose mission it is to “present innovative art within a public space.” It has evolved from a small, regional festival in 1996 to an organization that offers year-round programming, featuring international and national artists.

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I spoke with Lethbridge artist David Hoffos a few days ago on the eve of his excellent, magical exhibition Scenes from a House Dream, a long term, five-phase series of illusionary installation works that premiered in 2008 in Lethbridge, Alberta at The Southern Alberta Art Gallery, before going to the National Gallery in Ottawa (where I saw it.) The show is now at MOCCA in Toronto and will soon head to Calgary’s Illingworth Kerr Gallery. The touring exhibition is curated by Shirley Madill and circulated by Rodman Hall Art Centre.

Scenes from Scenes From The House Deam, Phase Two: Airport Hotel. Image: seemagazine.com

Scenes from a House Dream
Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA)
Toronto
September 10 – 31 December, 2010

Another still from Scenes from a House Dream. Image: Viewoncanadianart.com

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Click HERE for a questionnaire with Vancouver artist Jeff Wall in this month’s issue of Frieze magazine.

“I get so much from looking at great works, but some days – or even some months – I get more from not looking at them. You experience the art also by being away from it and not seeing it.” – Jeff Wall

Jeff Wall, The Destroyed Room, 1978. Image: tate.org.uk

Also, HERE in Art + Auction, Souren Melikian writes on the shifting perceptions in the Old Masters market, where mediocre works are achieving great prices, thanks to scarcity of the real gems.

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Last week we posted HERE part one of our conversation with Douglas Coupland. In this post, Coupland talks about his collecting habits, coming from a “guns-and-ammo” family, his interest in nuclear culture and his new TV mini-series, among other things.

Douglas Coupland’s tiny cubes of 100 stamps. Image: VoCA

Coupland brings out a bowl filled with small cubes of 100 stamps, held together with a band of paper.

VoCA: Wow, did you make all these?

DC: Oh God, no. I collect stamps, I collect Japanese stamps.

VoCA: See, you do collect! You collect tons of things!

DC: Ok, the thing is, there’s a show on A&E called ‘Hoarders’, have you seen it?

VoCA: I’ve heard of it. It’s about people who obsessively collect things.

DC: No, no. I collect. These people don’t get rid of shit. (laughs) These are people who use a paper towel and don’t throw it out thinking it might be useful in the future. People who hoard have almost always had a huge, catastrophic loss in their life, a family member usually and it’s almost impossible to get rid of once you’ve got it. It becomes for them, ‘something you can’t take away from me,’ kind of thing.

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Last week at his beautiful, art-filled Ron Thom designed home in Vancouver, VoCA sat down with artist-slash-writer Douglas Coupland to get his views on everything from Warhol to techological obsolescence to City of Toronto love.

“All young artists secretly think they’re the next Warhol,” says the Generation X author.

Douglas Coupland. Image:anthonygeorge.com

Here are some highlights:

VoCA: Douglas Coupland, are you more artist than writer or vice versa?

DC: I don’t differentiate. I don’t see a real difference. Is cooking different from roasting?

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Stay tuned for an interview with Douglas Coupland, author, artist, fan-of-Warhol and recent author of a book on McLuhan.

Some of Coupland’s recent artworks.