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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In honour of Marshall McLuhan’s 100th birthday year, a new website, Marshall McLuhan Speaks, launched today, which allows viewers to literally hear the communications guru speak, through video clips.

McLuhan’s Understanding Media. Image: canadiandesignresource.ca

In the clips, you can hear McLuhan himself on his best-known sayings, “the medium is the message”, “global village” and others. And there’s an intro by the novelist Tom Wolfe.

McLuhan’s Gutenberg Galaxy. Image: amandinealessandra.com

Interestingly, McLuhan, who studied at Cambridge and taught at the University of Toronto among other universities, had a lifelong interest in the number 3, as in the trivium – the three ways: grammar, logic and rhetoric – which he studied at Cambridge.

Check out the website – a fantastic resource – HERE.

The third biennial national portrait competition, the Kingston Prize, is accepting submissions until April 29, and this year, the prize is being doubled to $20,000.

Marina Dieul, Le défi, oil on panel. Image: kingstonprize.ca

The prize is a wonderful project of the Kingston Art Council (and by the way, it’s supported by the W. Garfield Weston Foundation.)

Andrew Valko of Winnpeg won last year’s Kingston Prize with this piece, titled Personal Surveillance. Acrylic on panel.
Image: kingstonprize.ca

Portraiture is interesting for many reasons. Portraits are a true document of the times. It’s certainly not the most hip kind of art being made today – that’s what the Sobey Art Award is for – but it’s a lot more accessible to audiences than some of the cute conceptualism out there.

And when the works of 30 finalists goes on display at the Royal Ontario Museum from November 10, 2011 to January 2012, audiences will have an opportunity not only to see some outstandingly skillful works, but will also learn a lot about artists from across the country. As Oscar Wilde recognized, “Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”

Gerard Kuehl, Martha Otuk. Graphite. Image: kingstonprize.ca

Prior to the ROM, there will be a preview exhibition of the works in Gananoque, Ontario and in February 2012, the show will travel to Drummondville Quebec.
Looking back at submissions from past years, it’s clear that Canada boasts some astounding portrait artists.

Click HERE for the Kingston Prize website.

The landscape of museum buildings across Canada is about to be given new life, as more institutions secure government and private funding to allow them to expand with sexy architecturally designed spaces.

The Art Gallery of Alberta, in Edmonton. Image: arnewde.com

Last year, the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton unveiled a fractured new building by Gehry alumnus Randall Stout. Of course, there’s also the ongoing hullabaloo about the relocation of the Vancouver Art Gallery. (A report going before city council today suggests that the future VAG location at 688 Cambie Street be shared with office towers that would help pay for the site – more on that HERE.

Also, it seems that the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia may soon have a brand new building, as will the Art Gallery of Saskatchewan. In Nova Scotia, governments are investing in a feasibility study that the federal government has agreed to invest $60,000 towards. This is great news for the largest gallery in Atlantic Canada, which apparently holds some wonderful Nova Scotia folk art, as well as being home to the $50,000 Sobey Art Award.

Meanwhile, across the prairies, the Art Gallery of Saskatchewan (formerly the Mendel Art Gallery) is going ahead with its $66 million new gallery. $13 million will come from the federal government for that. The 85,000-square-foot gallery is scheduled for completion by 2015 with construction beginning in 2012. KPMB will design the building, with Winnipeg architects Carter Smith.

With Montreal’s Musee des beaux arts by Moshe Safdie and the CCA by Peter Rose, Ottawa’s National Gallery by Safdie, Toronto’s AGO and ROM by Gehry and Libeskind respectively, (not to mention KPMB’s Gardiner Museum) Edmonton’s new gallery by Randall Stout and the upcoming buildings mentioned above, Canada’s contemporary art scene will have a lot to live up to. And I’m sure it will, very well.

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…

There’s a lot of movement in the Canadian art scene, with galleries opening (and closing) regularly in Toronto alone, so here are three from across Canada that I think are worth a visit.

One of Nicholas Galanin’s book sculptures. Image: nippertown.com

1. In Vancouver, Trench Gallery has recently opened – in the former Helen Pitt Gallery space – with a small, eclectic roster of artists: Jen Aitken, Nicholas Galanin, Dougal Graham (whose work I remember from Artcore in the early 2000s), Amy Mukai, Sara Robichaud, the late Vancouver painter Ron Stonier, Carrie Walker and Max Wyse.

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The Inuit artist Kananginak Pootoogook has died.

Kananginak Pootoogook

A work by Kananginak Pootoogook. Image: fortport.com

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Three artists – all women – have been awarded prizes by the City of Montreal.

Alana Riley, At the Blackwatch, 2004-2007. Image: redbull381projects.com

Alana Riley is an artist whose work I’ve been keeping an eye on.  She has won the Prix Pierre-Ayot, which is presented by the city in collaboration with the Art Dealers Association (AGAC), to an artist under the age of 35.

Riley, who is represented by Joyce Yahouda Gallery, receives $5000, plus $500 to go toward an exhibition of her work, and the City of Montreal will acquire one of her works.

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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.