It’s frustrating that the powers that be in Toronto seem to have such little interest in placing value on arts and culture.

A billboard by the Economist. The light is triggered by a motion sensor. Image: objectivemarketer.com

Sure, we’ve got Nuit Blanche and the amazing Luminato festival, both of which are truly wonderful, but when it comes to an innovative 8-year-long project by the arts community to get billboard taxes put towards beautifying the city, which we blogged about HERE, the city says no go.

And yet:

-According to Spacing magazine, every member of the Budget Committee expressed their support for a billboard tax that would fund art and public realm enhancements.

-Apparently, The new tax was justified in staff and consultant reports, public consultations, city press releases, over 45 times in Council and through a wide variety of media outlets.

-Over 4500 people have signed a petition of support and over 60 organizations have endorsed BeautifulCity.ca

-What’s more, a McKinsey and Co. study in 2006 found that “for every 1 dollar of public arts funding in a regional economy, 8 are generated.”

And yet, we hear that it was recently recommended at Council that zero new money now go to enhancing public spaces with art.

(This recent action suggests that) “They have no faith in the future of Toronto’s creative youth,” says No. 9 founder Andrew Davies, whose public art organization endorses Beautifulcity.ca.

It would have been an opportunity to look to the city’s future, to create vibrant public spaces that enhance property values, boost tourism, give something visible back to residents and will help build the city for the long-term.

What a shame.

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.

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Artist and friend-of-VoCA AA Bronson with Governor General Michaelle Jean.

Congratulations, AA.  Very well deserved.

For more on AA Bronson, please click HERE

So she didn’t win the Sobey Art Prize this year…but Shary Boyle has won the 2009 Iskowitz Prize from the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Shary Boyle, Lovers, 2009. Image: canadianart.ca

Awarded for her outstanding contribution to visual arts in Canada, the $25,000 Prize includes an exhibition of her work at the AGO in 2010.

Visit Shary Boyle’s website HERE and the Art Gallery of Ontario HERE.

Boyle is represented by Jessica Bradley Art + Projects in Toronto.

A new sculpture by the 2007 Sobey Award-winning Montreal artist Michel de Broin was unveiled in Winnipeg a few days ago.

Michel de Broin, Monument, 2009. Image courtesy Denis Prieur.

The granite work, titled Monument, is the inaugural sculpture for the Jardin de sculptures at Le Maison des artistes visuels francophones in Saint-Boniface, in Winnipeg.

Up to 20 sculptures will eventually be placed on the site by various provincial, national and international French speaking artists.

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VoCA is sad to report that one of Toronto’s most unusual and unique galleries will close.

Image: Goodwatergallery.com

Goodwater, a small store-front space on a non-descript stretch of Queen Street at Sherbourne run by John Goodwin, was unique in that it allowed artists to create special projects that they might not have the opportunity to do otherwise. The work wasn’t always salable, as with the installation of colourful paper sheets tacked to the wall by the painter Elizabeth MacIntosh.

Nonetheless, many installations were stunning, like Andrew Reyes’ bold crisscross, which Leah Sandals wrote about HERE.

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For the third year, from September 10 - 19, 2009 TIFF will feature a program of art films as part of its Future Projections series, at venues throughout the city.

The programme was initiated to call attention to video art, and the upcoming Bell Lightbox building will continue this goal with a street-level gallery that, we hear, will screen video art through a window 24/7. (Great news!)

Isabella Rossellini, Green Porno: Scandalous Sea. Image: wired.com

The 2009 Future Projections features artists and filmmakers such as Isabella Rossellini, Jesper Just, a brand new work by VoCA favorites Lisa Steele and Kim Tomszak and the North American premiere of Mark Lewis’s work straight from the Venice Biennale, in case you missed going, as we did.

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Richard Rhodes, editor of Canadian Art magazine, will curate the 7th Alberta Biennale at the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton.

Walter May, History, 1989. Image: ccca.ca

Rhodes, who is planning a series of studio visits with artists from the province, commented on how many great and overlooked artists are living and working in Alberta. He plans to mix in some less known artists with the upcoming young artists for which the province is becoming increasingly known.

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The annual ARTnews collectors list is out, and there are no big surprises. Over half the major collectors featured are from the United States, followed by Germany, the UK, Switzerland and other Western European countries.

Most focus on contemporary and modern art, though Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Old Masters are also popular.

Jativa Master (also known as the Master of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin), The Crucifixion, late 1400’s
oil on panel lined with fabric. Gift of Joey and Toby Tanenbaum to the AGO, 1995

Four Canadians make the list:

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Conceptual artist Ian Wallace is a very big deal in Canada, particularly in Vancouver where he is regarded as the father of the conceptual photography movement - his students included Jeff Wall and VoCA favorite Rodney Graham. Wallace has won the Molson Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts.

His works often bring together the photo, the painting and the object.

A piece by Ian Wallace. Image: saatchi-gallery.co.uk

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