Well it’s that time of year again. The long list for Canada’s major annual art prize, the Sobey Art Award has been announced.

Zeke Moores, Axes, 2009. Image: zekemoores.com

It’s true that many of Canada’s fine young artists remain hidden from media attention or public view in other parts of the country. So I look forward to the Sobey longlist so that I can discover new talent.

There are fewer names that I recognize off the bat this year, so I was happy to discover some great works by a newer crop of young Canadian artists. I’ll take a closer look at other regions finalists soon, but for now, here is a glimpse into the work of the first group of finalists, from Atlantic Canada.

ZEKE MOORES is an Ontario-based artist, originally from Newfoundland. Much of his work involves creating perfect replicas of urban detritus and utility objects like cardboard boxes in bronze, traffic cones in steel, plastic milk crates in aluminum and a shiny polished bronze full-size dumpster. The fabrication looks to be excellent. But my favorite piece is called Axes, a series of cast aluminum axes installed as if they were chucked into a white, spotlit gallery wall.

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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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I was fascinated by yesterday’s Slutwalk that took place in Toronto, and sorry that I wasn’t able to attend.

Slutwalk in Toronto yesterday. Image: scathinglywrongrightwingnutz.com

The walk attracted around 1,000 people and was arranged in part as a protest against comments by police Constable Michael Sanguninetti who, while speaking to students at York Unviersity, said “Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.”

Women were outraged, and rightly so. It is an outrageous suggestion that women should bear the full responsibility in a case where sexual assault occurs. Even if she is dressing ‘like a slut’, surely the man must take responsibility for his own actions. I mean it’s hard to believe that Sanguinetti was actually serious.

More, and the Quebec art collective Les Fermieres Obsedees, after the jump:

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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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Last night in Toronto’s Kensington Market, a group of about 60 or so gathered to hear two panel discussions – one on the city’s annual “All Night Contemporary Art Thing”, Nuit Blanche, and the other to discuss the idea of a Toronto Biennale.

The TAAC panel last night. Image: P Elaine Sharpe.

The event was organized by the Toronto Alliance of Art Critics, of which I’m a member.

Though I had to leave before the second panel, some of the issues raised about Nuit Blanche were the difficulty of getting international, in depth coverage of the event due to its timespan – a single night; the fact that there is no significant institutional memory of the event from year to year; the need for more logistical advice for artists and curators to deal with the crowds; and the intrusion of corporate sponsorship onto the art.

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So, Vancouver artist Steven Shearer will represent Canada at this year’s Venice Biennale, which opens June 4 and continues until November 27, 2011.

Steven Shearer, Nash, 2005. Image: museomadre.it

Torontonians might recall an exhibition of Shearer’s work at the Power Plant in 2007, which I believe was curated by former Power Plant curator Helena Reckitt (now critic/curator in residence at the University of Victoria in Wellington, New Zealand).

So what might visitors to Canada’s pavilion expect to see?

Shearer is going to build a nine-metre high, free-standing mural that will act as a false front for the rather dimminuitive Canadian pavilion, bringing it up to the scale of the surrounding British, German and French pavilions. I’ve always thought it strange that our pavilion was designed by an Italian architect. It’s embarrassing as its size next to the others (it was built in 1958) insinuates Canada’s place as ‘only’ a colony.

More, after the jump…

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I’m happy to report that VoCA is featured in this month’s issue of ELLE Canada. The article on art collecting, subtitled ‘How to turn your living room into un petit Louvre’, is by Katie Addleman.

The March issue of ELLE Canada. Image: hotmags.net

In the article, she says: “A better bet is to spend on the established by still young: Though out of reach to some, they remain accessible to many others. Carson’s blog, the indefatigable art-world guide View on Canadian Art, vibrates with the names and news of such types. Among her favorites are Sarah Anne Johnson, whose photographs figure in permanent collections at the National Gallery of Canada and the Guggenheim Museum in New York; multidisciplinary artist and recent Grange Prize-winner Kristan Horton; and Shary Boyle, for whom the Art Gallery of Ontario cleared out four rooms’ worth of European art last fall, the better to accomodate her dynamic solo show.”

Full article after the jump…

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Although I stopped going to art fairs a while ago, after having been to many over the years both as a ‘gallerina’ and as a critic including Art Basel, Basel Miami, Art Chicago and Frieze, they remain popular venues for collectors, curators and, of course dealers and artists to hang out and do business.

Kristine Moran, Sidestep. Image: modto.com

New York’s Armory Show is one of the most prestigious and it takes place from March 3 – 6 in Manhattan.

Canada’s Art Dealers Association is – as per usual – organizing some programming around Canadians participating in the fair, but this year they are celebrating Canadian expat artists in New York with a series of discussions and tours of the show.

It’s a pretty good list of artists that I thought I’d share with you.

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Big congratulations to the 2011 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts!

Robert Fones, Can-D-Man, 1971. Image: ccca.ca

They are: Photographer Geneviève Cadieux, visual artist Robert Fones, performance and visual artist Michael Morris, filmmakers David Rimmer and Barbara Sternberg and painter Shirley Wiitasalo, each for distinguished artistic achievement. Metalsmith Kye-Yeon Son won the Saidye Bronfman Award for excellence in fine crafts.

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