Winnipeg-born, Montreal-based visual and performance artist Daniel Barrow, winner of the 2010 Sobey Art Award, was recently awarded the coveted 2013 Glenfiddich Artist-in-Residence Prize, valued at over $20,000. VoCA contributor Catherine Toews had a chance to speak with Barrow via e-mail and he was kind enough to share his plans for the residency, insight into his creative process, and advice
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It’s been seven years since Toronto’s first Nuit Blanche. I’ve been to five of them and this year will be my sixth. Overall, we can probably agree, they’ve been pretty great. The experience of being out all night – despite the often dodgy weather – seeing Torontonians absorbing visual art en masse is fantastic. Toronto City Hall, during a previous
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“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
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I sat down with legendary performance artist Marina Abramovic who was in Toronto last week for the Canadian premiere of The Artist Is Present, a documentary on her work, which screened at the Reel Artists Film Festival. Click HERE to read part one of the interview. Photo: Marco Anelli. Courtesy Show of Force. VoCA: I asked people for some questions
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I sat down with legendary performance artist Marina Abramovic who was in Toronto this week for the Canadian premiere of The Artist Is Present, a documentary on her work, which screens at the Reel Artists Film Festival this Sunday. Click HERE for tickets. She is also setting up an institute for the preservation of performance art, in Hudson, New York.
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The other day, I visited artist Paulette Phillips at her home in Toronto, to be interviewed for her upcoming artwork. Called The Directed Lie, it involved being put to the test – the lie detector test. Me with Paulette Phillips, undergoing the polygraph. All images: Scott Barker/VoCA Phillips has trained as a professional polygraph technician in the United States, and
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Last night was Toronto’s annual ‘All Night Contemporary Art Thing’, Nuit Blanche. Now in its sixth incarnation, the event has gone from inspiring wonder in audiences to inspiring complex plans on how best to navigate the crowds. Many people start out at 7 pm and go until 12 or 1, which makes sense but creates a frustrating logjam of people
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Cindy Sherman, the American artist known for her Untitled Film Stills, 1977–1980 and subsequent self-portraits in which she transforms herself, through hair, makeup, prosthetics and costume, into various female characters from the seductive to the grotesque, is all about disguise. Cindy Sherman for MAC Cosmetics. Image: heartymagazine.com She’s been working this way for decades and is one of America’s best-known
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As the summer gallery season gets underway, here are my picks for the country’s best blockbuster exhibitions: THE COLOUR OF MY DREAMS: THE SURREALIST REVOLUTION IN ART Vancouver Art Gallery Through September 25, 2011 Man Ray, close up of The Kiss, 1930. Image: ultraorange.net The VAG has organized the most comprehensive survey of Surrealist art ever to be shown in
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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
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Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...