Your Cultural Concierge! VoCA offers critical commentary on the Canadian art scene, with a focus on Toronto. Featuring exhibition previews, critics picks, interviews and in-depth articles on art in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Halifax.
July 17th, 2008 — Art market, Artists, Books, Collecting, Sculpture/Installation
VoCA’s fasination with British artist Damien Hirst continues with a review of Toronto author Don Thompson’s book, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art.
Check it out HERE.
Look for our review in an upcoming issue of Quill and Quire – we’ll post it on VoCA, too.
July 16th, 2008 — Artists, Exhibitions, Photography, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto, Video/New Media
Iain Baxter& Landscape with Sea Boats, 1999, (from the series Television Works).
Image: corkingallery.com
Over the years, we’ve loved the AGO (the Yoko Ono exhibition in 2002, the acquisition of David Almejd’s 2007 Venice pavilion installation, the Henry Moore sculpture gallery with the Julian Opie pole dancers, Swing Space) and we’ve loathed them (Nuit Blanche 2006, their lack of innovative curatorial thinking, the institution’s low energy and measly acquisition budget…)
July 1st, 2008 — Artists, Exhibitions, Montreal, Painting, Photography, Sculpture/Installation, Video/New Media
6. MASSIMO GUERRERA: DARBORAL
26 juin au 31 août, 2008
Quartier Ephemere/Fonderie Darling
“Darboral s’articule autour de plates-formes artistiques et spirituelles, qui invitent le visiteur à prendre part à différents rituels. Partages de nourriture à l’occasion de repas et suçage de noyaux, ateliers de créativité lors de moulages corporels et adaptation de prothèses, prise de conscience des modes d’ouverture physique et psychique, méditation, donnent lieu à une série d’éléments dont les traces de passage composent Darboral.”
It’s a work that concentrates on the rhythms of the creative experience, and shares these processes with others. It’s a contemplative space that gives back to art it’s original function, in the service of the ritual.
The Massimo Guerrera installation at Quartier Ephemere. Image: VoCA
June 26th, 2008 — Architecture, Artists, Exhibitions, Photography, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto
In addition to the Power Plant’s summer exhibition, Not Quite How I Remember It, featuring work by Gerald Byrne, Diane Borsato and Nestor Kruger, VoCA recommends Object Factory at the Gardiner Museum, which features ceramics by the likes of VoCA favorites Cindy Sherman and the late, great Ettore Sottsass (see previous post HERE.)
Cindy Sherman, Madame de Pompadour (née Poisson) Soup Tureen, 1990. Image: mintwiki.pbwiki.com
For the Power Plant, please click HERE and for the Gardiner museum, click HERE.
We also recommend checking out one of Toronto’s best new galleries, MKG 127.
June 23rd, 2008 — Collecting, News: Canada, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto
St. Catharines and the Niagara region is home to a good number of excellent artists and art-related spaces. Cram, the NAC and Brock University’s Rodman Hall Art Gallery (see links below) all have strong programming.
Perhaps the best-kept secret in the St. Catharines art community is the Teutloff Collection of Sculpture that exists across Brock’s campus. In 1988, then president Terry White reached an agreement with German art collector Lutz Teutloff to display his large-scale sculptures on campus. The collection includes work by Fabrizio Plessi, Ilan Averbuch, Reinhard Reitzenstein and Bucky Schwartz.
Ilan Averbuch, The Bleeding Harp. Image: collegepublisher.com
Please click HERE for more info.
June 18th, 2008 — Artists, Exhibitions, First Nations/Inuit, Halifax, Photography, Sculpture/Installation, Vancouver, Video/New Media
1. DONIGAN CUMMINGS: EX VOTOS
MSVU Art Gallery, Halifax
21 June-10 August 2008
One of Donigan Cumming’s collages. Image: canada-culture.org
Montreal-based artist Donigan Cumming is known for his staged portraits of the aging, ill and socially assisted poor, in the form of photographs, videos and, best of all, his photographic collages.
Cumming’s work deliberately attacks the objectivity claimed by traditional documentary media. His disturbingly intimate images have been influenced by Artaud’s “theatre of cruelty,” Surrealism and cinema verite, among other historical art forms.
June 17th, 2008 — Articles, Artists, Exhibitions, First Nations/Inuit, Sculpture/Installation
“What separates true artistic development from mere rehashing?” asks Artforum’s Brian Sholis in his review of Canadian art star Brian Jungen’s new show at Casey Kaplan in New York.
Artist Brian Jungen. Image: voyage5capefarewell.com
“Some artists focus exclusively upon a narrow set of concerns but manage to find nuanced and varied expressions of them. Jungen, though formally creative, seems to be on intellectual autopilot.”
June 13th, 2008 — Artists, Sculpture/Installation
Following on from VoCA’s diatribe on the monumental last week – see posting HERE, we’ve found a little clip of Swiss artist (and VoCA favorite) Thomas Hirschhorn expounding on what he believes art to be.
Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn. Image: unipublic.unizh.ch
June 11th, 2008 — Artists, Books, Exhibitions, Ottawa, Photography, Sculpture/Installation
1. Geoffrey James at the National Gallery, Ottawa, May 30 – 19 October, 2008.
VoCA was at the National Gallery in Ottawa this weekend, where we took in the photographs of Canadian photographer Geoffrey James.
Geoffrey James, St. Cloud, 1989. Image: trepanierbaer.com
The best works were in the first room, miniature snapshots of Italianate gardens, presented as panoramas against wide black mats. These are precious objects – views dictated by the artist, of course, but when an artist has such a fine eye, you feel that you have been given a gift.
June 5th, 2008 — Articles, Sculpture/Installation
…is in need of a revamp, writes Richard White in the Calgary Herald.
Jeff De Boer, When Aviation was Young – Tower 1, 2002, Calgary International Airport. Image: jeffdeboer.com
He spoke with Tom Tittemore, chair of the Calgary Public Art Board (CPAB) who has a plan.
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...Read full bio
