“With their artists competing on an international stage, Canadians can no longer complain of their country as a cultural backwater nor luxuriate in the nostalgic charm of provincialism. In art as in political, social and economic activities, Canada is fully involved in the world of today,”
– Dr. R. H. Hubbard, former Chief Curator of the National Gallery of Canada.

Guido Molinari, Untitled, 1964. Image: artnet.com

Walking down Bloor Street in Toronto last night, we stopped at a bookshop’s outdoor display and there, right in front of us, on sale for $1.99, was a copy of Canadian Art Today, originally published in 1970 by Studio International.

Edited by William Townsend, a professor at the University of London, the slim book is filled with contributions from Canada’s art elite at the time: R.H. Hubbard, then chief curator of the National Gallery of Canada, Doris Shadbolt, then curator of the Vancovuer Art Gallery, curators Dennis Reid, Pierre Theberge and David Thompson.

“Canadian artists were dependent for generations on the artistic traditions of France and England and it is only since the last war that contemporary American influences have made a decisive impact,” writes Townsend.

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Chamber Music: Mixed media works by Kenny Lee
August 12 – 23, 2009
Launch Projects, Toronto

We’ve been noticing, over the past few years, that more artists are looking at objects from varying perspectives.

Barbara Probst, “Exposure #34A: N.Y.C., Central Park, Umpire Rock, 06.14.05, 6:34 p.m. ,” 2005. Image: twi-ny.com

Barbara Probst’s excellent photographs tackle an event from numerous points of view, as do the mesmerizing videos of Bettina Hoffmann. VoCA favorite Sarah Anne Johnson creates sculptures that relate to her photographs, for a more immersive experience. We blogged about her recent show HERE.

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Thomas Kneubühler: Tresspass Act
and
J. Stanton: Art Paraphernalia for a Modern World
Latitude 53, Edmonton
7 August – 5 September, 2009

Thomas Kneubühler, Access Denied, Le Black Jack Resto Bar (Guard#7)
Image: thomaskneubuhler.com

Kneubühler’s artist project comprises a traditional gallery show, and more interestingly, a series of large billboard-sized outdoor photographs of security guards displayed on the sides of buildings.

“North America is preoccupied with security,” says the artist: “In the gallery exhibition, we see industrial zones and office buildings, places that are deserted at night time. The viewer can peak through the windows, yet becomes a trespasser himself while being watched by security cameras and guards.”

Surveillance is a timely and interesting topic, but in this format it doesn’t really succeed as it should.

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Anish Kapoor’s sculpture, Cloud Gate, in Chicago’s Millennium Park. Image: flickr.com

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Sarah Anne Johnson: House on Fire
Art Gallery on Ontario, Toronto
July 4 - 23 August, 2009

Sarah Anne Johnson, House on Fire, 2008, Chromogenic Print. Image: bulgergallery.com

Winnpeg-based artist, Yale grad and 2008 Grange Prize winner Sarah Anne Johnson debuts a new exhibition titled House on Fire at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

The last time we saw Johnson’s work, it was 2007’s Galapagos Project at Toronto’s Stephen Bulger Gallery. We loved her use of different media including sculpture and photography, and the push-pull between them.

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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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Confluences: Rencontre entre Montreal et le Bas-Saint-Laurent
June 14 - 13 September, 2009
Musee Regionale de Rimouski

Should you find yourself in Quebec this summer, this exhibition seeks to bring together a rencontre between Montreal and the lower St. Lawrence. The show looks promising!

Guillaume Lachapelle, Manege 16, 2004-06. Image: guillaumelachapelle.com

Featuring work by 13 artists (who you may not know of) including Magalie Comeau, Sylvie Moisan and Guillaume Lachapelle, whose miniature theatrical installations VoCA loves.

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1. NEXT: A Series of Artist Projects from the Pacific Rim
Reece Terris: Ought Apartment
Vancouver Art Gallery
May 6 - September 20, 2009

Reece Terris, Concept drawing for Ought Apartment. Image: architecturewanted.blogspot.com

Vancouver artist Reece Terris is building a 60-foot architectural installation straight up through the heart of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Ought Apartment is an “apartment tower” with six full-sized residences stacked on top of each other, each dedicated to a decade of décor between 1950 and 2000. With an opening date of May 6, 2009, Terris and his crew are hard at work in the Gallery building what will be the largest sculptural installation ever created at the museum.

Click HERE for Reece Terris’ website, and HERE for the VAG.

Reece Terris is represented by Jennifer Kostuik Gallery, Vancouver.

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So we received this email yesterday:

UNEMPLOYED ARTIST USES REMAINING CASH
AS MEDIUM FOR ECONOMIC STATEMENT

April 15, 2009: A casualty of the 2008 economic crisis, unemployed conceptual artist Brian Rushton Phillips, has chosen to use his remaining cash to create a response to the current downturn and his own financial uncertainty.

Rushton Phillips, Financial Security (Blanket), 2009. Image:rushtonphillips.com

Admittedly, our first thought was…’Duh..”

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From the Guardian: Revered as the baroque master of lifelike portraits and light and shadow, the 16th-century painter Caravaggio is now being touted as the first master of photographic technique, two centuries before the formal invention of the camera…

The Italian artist has long been suspected of turning his studio into a giant camera obscura, punching a hole in the ceiling to help project images on to his canvas. But new research claims that Caravaggio also used chemicals to turn his canvases into primitive photographic film, “burning” images he then sketched on to for works such as St Matthew and the Angel…

Read the full article in the Guardian HERE.