Photographers Marco Antonio Cruz from Mexico City, Lynne Cohen from Montreal, Federico Gama from Mexico City and Jin-me Yoon from Vancouver are the four finalists for the AGO’s $50,000 annual Grange Prize this year.

Lynne Cohen, Untitled, 1980’s. Image: fototapeta.art.pl

Lynne Cohen is represented by Olga Korper Gallery.

For more info on Lynne Cohen, please click HERE.

Federico Gama was born in Mexico City and has been a documentary photographer since 1988. He was won several awards including first prize in the 1st Puerto Rico Photography Biennale (1998); The National Cultural Photojournalism “Fernando Benitez” Award (1999) and Honorable mention in the 1st Photojournalism Biennale of the New Latin American Journalism Foundation in Colombia (2001).

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Montreal’s Nuit Blanche is a night of arts, culture and entertainment that takes place in the middle of a week-long Montreal High Lights Festival, which runs from February 19 - 1 March 1, 2009.

Nuit Blanche takes place from the evening of February 28 through the morning of Sunday, March 1.

The event is divded into zones - Click HERE for Part One, with our picks for the QUARTIER VIEUX-MONTRÉAL ET QUAI DU VIEUX-PORT. Below, are our picks for the QUARTIER DES SPECTACLES ET CENTRE-VILLE, the QUARTIER PLATEAU MONT-ROYAL and the ART SOUTERRAIN:

QUARTIER DES SPECTACLES ET CENTRE-VILLE

1. UQAM GALLERY: Manon De Pauw

This exhibition of one of Quebec’s brightest art stars will feature photograms, photographs, video performances, performance set-ups, single-channel videos and multi-channel video installations, manipulation of accessories, materials and colours, unfurling gestures, hands and bodies, and use of surfaces of inscription like paper, tables, screens and lightboxes …

Manon De Pauw will improvise with sound artist Nancy Tobin in an open workshop. They will construct an audio and visual space together, employing the intensity of colours and frequencies, and manipulating both visible and invisible materials.

Please click HERE.

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Here are VoCA’s picks for Montreal’s Nuit Blanche. The night of arts, culture and entertainment takes place in the middle of a week-long Montreal High Lights Festival, which runs from February 19 - 1 March 1, 2009. It’s the event’s tenth anniversary!

Josée Pellerin, Chapitre Un : Louis (2008). Image: galerieorange.com

It’s worth going to Montreal for.

We have chosen our top three (or so) recommended installations and exhibitions to take in on the night - from Saturday, February 28 through Sunday, March 1.

The event is divded into zones - here are our picks for the

QUARTIER VIEUX-MONTRÉAL ET QUAI DU VIEUX-PORT

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An exhibition by young Vancouver artist - and 2008 Sobey Art Prize winner - Tim Lee opens at the Hayward Project Space at the Hayward Gallery, London. The show is on from today until Sunday, 8 February 2009.

Comedian Steve Martin. Image: reneeashleybaker.com

In Untitled (Steve Martin), 2008, Lee re-enacts a 1970s stand-up routine by Steve Martin, a comic who once famously informed his audience that his entire act would consist of one joke, repeated over and over until the final curtain.

On Steve Martin’s first comedy album, Let’s Get Small, recorded live at San Francisco’s Boarding House in 1977, Martin says, now famously, “You just can’t play a depressing song on the banjo.”

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The exhibition WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Vancouver Art Gallery presented quite an extensive survey of feminist art. According to the catalogue text, “in the space of a generation, feminism transformed social relations, personal identities, and institutional structures….the feminist revolution in art was no less radical and transformative than the social movement from which it drew strength.”

Hon, 1966, (monumentale sculptuur), Niki de Saint Phalle, Moderna Museet, Stockholm. Image: formartepura.fo.ohost.de

There were some excellent works on view. VoCA is a big fan of feminist art, which drew its political power from the backdrop of the patriarchy against which it was rebelling. In much the same way, African American art of the time raged against racism, and likewise ‘gay art’ against homophobia.

Some works in the show were reminiscent of other works. Suzy Lake’s A Genuine Simulation of…(1973-4) in which she applies whiteface before a full face of makeup, blush, eyeliner and shadow reminded us of Bruce Nauman’s video Art Make-up from 1967-68, in which he paints his torso and face white, then pink, green and black.

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Check out my reviews in the special Toronto section of the December 2008 issue of ARTnews.

Image: artnewsonline.com

Click each thumbnail twice:

Click HERE to go to the ARTnews magazine website.

After having seen the basement, first and second floors - see our post HERE - we returned last night to the AGO see the upper galleries.

We took the elevator up to the fifth floor, where the soaring ceilings made the rooms feel spacious. The only criticism we had, really was the inescapable feeling that the galleries were overcrowded.

A lot of large scale work demands large open space to make it feel proportionate, like Brian Jungen’s oversized totem poles, or the Mark Lewis (next year’s representative at the Venice Biennale) excellent video of Algonquin Park.

Mark Lewis, Algonquin Park, Early March, 2002. Image: marklewisstudio.com

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Steeling the Gaze: Portraits by Aboriginal Artists

31 OCTOBER 2008 – 22 MARCH 2009

Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa

Kent Monkman, Emergence of a Legend, series of 5 portraits of Miss Chief in various performance personas.
Image: pfoac.com

(Click image above to enlarge)

This group exhibition, drawn from the collections of the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography and the National Gallery of Canada, explores representations of Aboriginal people by Aboriginal artists.

Carl Beam, Einstein and Sitting Bull, ca. 1991. Image: archives.gov.on.ca

Artists include KC Adams, Carl Beam, Dana Claxton, Thirza Cuthand, Rosalie Favell, Kent Monkman, David Neel, Shelley Niro, Arthur Renwick, Greg Staats, Jeff Thomas and Bear Witness.

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METAMORPHOSIS: A contemporary art exhibition
Akbank Sanat, Istanbul, Turkey
November 6, 2008 - 31 January, 2009

Isabelle Hayeur’s remarkable installation Tunnel Vision, 2007, Netwerk CCA (Aalst, Belgium). Image: isabelle-hayeur.com

Isabelle Hayeur, Tunnel Vision, 2007, Netwerk CCA (Aalst, Belgium). Image: isabelle-hayeur.com

One of VoCA’s favorite curators, Louise Déry, from Galerie de l’UQAM in Montreal takes seven artists (all VoCA favorites, as it happens) to Istanbul for the city’s first group exhibition of contemporary Canadian art.

The artists are Michael Snow, David Altmejd (currently showing at Modern Art Inc. in London), Jérôme Fortin, Raphaëlle de Groot, Isabelle Hayeur, next year’s Venice Biennale representative Mark Lewis and Jocelyn Robert

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The 80-year-old Vancouver painter, sculptor, installation and performance artist Gathie Falk has long been inspired by the elements of everyday life: fruit, eggs, men’s shoes, women’s clothing, garden flowers and reading a book, among other things. Her work appears to meld feminine and masculine elements in a unique, charming, serious way.

The artist Gathie Falk in her studio, Vancouver, 1983. Image: lac-bac.gc.ca

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