My daily online art auction project, ARTBOMB, has been up and running – very successfully! – for over three months now, so I thought I would give you a peek inside the studio.

The view of our photographer’s set-up, from the side.

ARTBOMB is a project by myself with my incredibly brilliant partners Jim Shedden and Carrie Shibinsky.

We scour Toronto for the best and most unusual emerging works of art, each of which we then showcase, for sale, for one day on artbombdaily.com. It’s an auction so you can bid on the work if you’d like to buy it. At 11 pm, the auction closes and the top bid wins the artwork.

You can subscribe for free, or if you are an artist, submit your work to me at submissions@artbombdaily.com

Please forward it to any and all Toronto artists you know. Follow @ARTBOMBdaily on Twitter, or HERE on Facebook.

The work gets photographed by Glen, our amazing photographer and then packaged up and sent out to the buyer.

The camera lens is inserted between these two black walls.

Glen is careful not to have any glare on the glass covered framed pieces, so he has constructed this set-up, which leaves only the camera lens peeking through.

The view of the camera, from behind.

The artworks are always very well packaged:

In other news, I’ll be devoting most of my time to ARTBOMB, so I’ll be busy on my twitter microblog, and less busy here at VoCA. Please follow @CARZOO.

Here are some of the works we’ve already featured on ARTBOMB. (Work by Allannah Scott, Brendan George Ko, Laura Fedynyszyn, Holly Wheatcroft, Marc Cooper & Ryan Rader – all sold):

ARTBOMB. BUY WHAT YOU LOVE.

While it’s clear that Canada has some thriving art scenes in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg, the issue continues to be the comparatively weak market for contemporary art. We have Nuit Blanche in Montreal and Toronto (which is a good start) and we have art fairs for collectors, but the question is how to get the average non-art person visitng gallieres and purchasing work by local artists?

Darren Stebeleski, $400.

An idea to bring the gallery to the people will launch at Winnipeg’s popular Fringe Festival (July 13 – 24, 2011). Conceived by Martha Street Studio, RAW:Gallery of Architecture and Design, and Golden City Fine Art, the idea is to increase exposure and appreciation of Winnipeg’s outstanding artists. “We felt it was unfortunate that people are not able to find local contemporary artists as easily as in other markets,” say the organizers. “Thus, over some drinks we hatched POST NO BILLS temporary commercial gallery. We hope that this event, in conjunction with the Fringe Festival will help both artists and patrons to meet one another.”

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Art makes a great gift. People don’t always realize how inexpensive some books and multiples are, and isn’t it better to support local art scenes than buy from major corporations? I think so.

Here are my top picks for Canada’s best art shopping:

1. ART METROPOLE. Started by General Idea in 1974, Art Met continues to specialize in the sale of artist multiple, artist books, video and more. Much of it is very affordable and rather unusual. Gold-plated replica of Peaches’ teeth on a chain, anyone?

Peaches. Image: robotdancemusic.com

Peaches’ teeth, on a chain. Image: artmetropole.com

Check out the comprehensive website, HERE. It’s fun to browse.

2. CANADIAN MAGAZINES.

Support Magenta, a newish online publication, or buy a subscription to the excellent Vancouver journal Fillip, or to Toronto’s artist-run magazine Hunter & Cook.

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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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The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia will celebrate the life and art of Canada’s best known living painter with an exhibition of selected works that will showcase his prints and sketches – an important part of Colville’s practice.

Alex Colville, Family and Rainstorm, 1955. Image: cybermuse.gallery.ca

Alex Colville
Through February 20, 2011
The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia

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Curator William Huffman of the Toronto Arts Council has, in collaboration with the Art Dealers Association of Canada (ADAC) organized some 200-odd Canadian artworks to be displayed to foreign dignitaries during the G8 and G20 summits.

After the fake lake brouhaha, this comes as a better bit of G20 art news, as my fellow blogger Leah Sandals acknowledges in her post HERE.

Gershon Iskowitz, Midnight No. 3 (B244), 1986. Oil on canvas. All images courtesy of ADAC.
Image courtesy Miriam Shiell Fine Art and the Estate of the Artist.

The works, which include one of Brian Jungen’s hockey masks and a sculpture of bears – front and back – by Dean Drever hanging in the Prime Minister’s Office, have been specially chosen by Huffman and a crew of 12 people to represent the breadth of contemporary Canadian artistic practice. Also on display in the PMO will be 2 landscapes by Winnipeg painter Ivan Eyre. There will be a stunning Riopelle in the leader’s lounge, and work by legendary Quebecoise artist Francoise Sullivan. Alongside these will be works chosen by the Ontario Crafts Council.

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From the Toronto Star, Murray Whyte writes about the bicycle art of the late, great artist Greg Curnoe:

“On the wall at Cherry Bomb Coffee on Roncesvalles Ave., a slight, royal-blue CCM track bike with curled handlebars dangles from the wall, held at a sharp angle by a slim cable…”

Greg Curnoe, Mariposa T.T., 1978-9. Image: artnet.com

“As an artist, (Curnoe) had achieved a particular kind of celebrity. His work, like his life, was disarmingly vibrant, all filled with bright colour and fuelled by his various passions – cycling, for one, and a cheeky political activism. By the time he died, at age 55, he had carved a uniquely prominent position for himself in Canadian art...”

One of Curnoe’s bikes, at Cherry Bomb, in Roncesvalles, Toronto. Image: rene johnston/torontostar.com

Read the full article HERE.

It’s kind of interesting that the new Art Gallery of Alberta, which is slated to open on January 31st, will be collaborating with the National Gallery of Canada to bring works from the NGC to Alberta audiences.

Goya Disasters of War, 1810 – 20. Image: tate.org.uk

It’s a great idea that bridges the Canadian geographic gap nicely and brings excellent exhibitions to Edmonton. The first featured exhibition will be the beautiful, brutal Goya: The Disasters of War and Los Caprichos, which will run until May 30th.

Read the full article HERE.

Today is World Aids Day.

Scott Treleaven, Heartworms, 2004. Image: artnet.com

In light of this, there’s an exhibition we want you to know about in New York City, that runs from January 8 – 10, 2010 called Postcards from the Edge.

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