So we went to New York for five days last weekend. It was the usual late August sticky mess but we had two amazing art experiences that made it all entirely worthwhile.

1. Big Bambu on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum.

Doug and Mike Starn’s 40-foot high bamboo structure exemplifies what I always say about artists that do design-y type installations. It’s important to go big. The installation should always overwhelm the viewer so that the viewer feels the effect of the artwork. And that may mean that the artist needs to work for days, months on the project to get it large enough. A lot of young installation artists should heed this advice, I think.

We didn’t get to take a tour through the bamboo, but friends of ours did and said it was incredible.

All images of Big Bambu: VoCA

2. Dia: Beacon

The only photo I was allowed to take. Image: VoCA

Robert Smithson’s Ithaca Mirror Trail, 1969. I couldn’t find specific images of the works they had at Dia, especially my favorite, Leaning Mirror, 1969. Image: c4gallery.com

We had always wanted to check out the Dia Foundation’s outpost in Beacon, New York. It is the perfect thing to do in 100 degree heat. Somehow, the minimalist sculptures had a cooling effect. It is, essentially the perfect venue for minimalism. I finally came to totally appreciate Donald Judd. And the Chamberlain crumpled automobile sculptures were stunning, there was one of the finest Lawrence Weiner wall works I’ve ever seen and a wonderful Bruce Nauman video of his empty studio at night, completely still save for a mouse now and then.

The Richard Serra sculptures were astounding. You realize why he’s one of the greatest American sculptors.

Serra’s large spirals at Dia make you feel free and constrained at the same time. Awesome. Image: coloradocollege.edu

Michael Heizer’s North, East, South, West, 1967/2002. Image: saatchi-gallery.co.uk

One interesting thing to note if you’re headed there is that if you email or phone ahead, you can book a tour every day at 10:30 am, to be toured around Michael Heizer’s fantastic installation North, East, South, West, 1967/2002.

But my favorite piece – by far – was Robert Smithson’s excellent Leaning Mirror, from 1969, which was a large pristine mirror that had been elegantly inserted into a pile of dusty earth.

Click HERE for the Dia Foundation’s website.

I love this proposal by German artist Katharina Fritsch for London’s Fourth Plinth. I love that it appears to be in International Klein Blue, which I blogged about a while ago.

Katharina Fritsch, Hahn / Cock. Image: london.gov.uk

As you probably know, the empty plinth has been a site for artistic proposals over the past few years, including Rachel Whiteread, Antony Gormley and one of my favorite artists, Thomas Schütte.

Originally designed by Sir Charles Barry in 1841 to display an equestrian statue which was never completed, the empty plinth became a site for contemporary art in 1998.

Six proposals - all very good - by Allora & Calzadilla, Elmgreen & Dragset, Katharina Fritsch, Brian Griffiths, Hew Locke, and Mariele Neudecker can be seen at DeZeen, HERE.

Read more about the Fourth Plinth program HERE.

The other day, I did a studio visit with the young artist and very recent OCAD grad (2010) Hugh Scott-Douglas.

I had seen his ceramic sculptures at a collectors home and fell in love with them. They were mid-sized, off-balance ovals and loopy shapes that were roughly modeled but heavily and sophisticatedly glazed. Some, he showed at Clint Roenisch’s gallery in a 3-day exhibition this spring, had working light bulbs in their ends.

Hugh. Image: VoCA

I was expecting to see sculpture when I arrived, but Hugh’s tiny studio room was hung with paintings, which he was preparing for an upcoming show in L.A. (One of many shows this year, a testament to his ambition and social networking skills, but that’s another post, coming soon.)

Some ‘bad’ paintings by Hugh Scott-Douglas. Image: VoCA

He explained that while he studied in the sculpture program at school, he now worked in other media, mainly since he could stack more paintings together than he could store his extremely fragile, unfired clay sculptures.

A sculpture by Hugh Scott-Douglas. Image: verykunst.com

We spoke at length about his practice, mostly about ‘bad’ art, and the ‘willful idiocy’ that some young (and less young) painters have been bringing to their practices in recent years and which he is himself investigating.

I’m also interested in the idea of ‘bad’ art – in fact, what I loved about Hugh’s sculptures is the dichotomy between the off-kilter shapes and rich, heavy glazing. I love how much ‘bad’ art looks wonderful inside a white walled gallery. I love how clumsy execution is magically balanced by the artist’s intention. Of course, when artists make ‘bad’ art, it’s a deliberate move, a way of investigating new possibilities, or, as Raphael Rubenstein mentions in THIS article (that Hugh sent to me) a way of ignoring the ‘impossibility’ of painting.

His inspiration wall. From Mark Rothko to Tonya Harding - that’s kinda great. Image: VoCA

His tools. Image: VoCA

I feel it’s also a reaction against the market. From THIS article “Waxing Durr” in the quarterly publication Art Lies, on what they term “retard art”: “Posed as an act of passive market resistance, this recent slackerdom ultimately occupies a position of privilege and luxury, highlighting the market’s ready recuperation of any production, even the most retarded.”

Another of Hugh’s ‘bad’ paintings, soon to be shown in L.A. Image: VoCA

Check out Hugh Scott Douglas’s website HERE.

I think he’s definitely one to watch.

Since I haven’t been away - yet - this summer, my favorite summer show is in Toronto, at one of my favorite galleries.

Flavio Trevisan, The Three Dales, 2010. Image: flaviotrevisan.com

With the mayoral debate gearing up and the fact that Torontonians seem obsessed with urban issues and how to evolve our ward-centric patchwork quilt of a city, this show is particularly relevant.

Flavio Trevisan: Studies of a New Past
Diaz Contemporary
Through August 14, 2010

Hurry - don’t miss it, it’s definitely worth seeing in person.

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I just - finally - got the press release announcing the world premiere retrospective of El Anatsui, the African artist whose shimmering, decadent textiles made from metal bottlecaps are stunningly beautiful.

The artist El Anatsui. Image: ethicarts.org

This is going to be THE exhibition to see in Toronto, if not Canada, this fall. I’m sure of it.

El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa
October 2, 2010 to January 2, 2011 at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

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I went to the preview opening of the excellent new exhibition by famed American minimalist artist Sol Lewitt at the Toronto artist-run centre Mercer Union last night.

The installation at Mercer Union. All images: VoCA

Another view of the installation.

Lewitt’s wall drawings, which are painted directly on walls, and for which buyers purchase the instructions, caused quite a sensation back in the 1960s, one collector recalled, because “no one was doing anything like that”.

The exhibition was originally mounted in the gallery in 1981, and was recreated as part of the 30th anniversary year of Mercer Union. Click HERE for a very interesting review of the original show by John Bentley Mays.

There’s also, in the back room, some vitrines displaying books on Lewitt’s work that offer fascinating insight into the work. The catalogues came from the collection of a local collector and are a fantastic compliment to the wall drawings.

How did Sol Lewitt come to show his work at Mercer Union in the first place? The story, as told to me by Mercer co-director York Lethbridge, goes like this:

“One of (Mercer’s) original board members, Michael Davey, had met Sol LeWitt while completing graduate studies in Scotland in the ’70s. LeWitt and Davey kept up correspondence, so when Mercer Union was starting out, looking for diverse programming, Davey invited LeWitt to do a project at 29 Mercer Street (our first gallery space). Given the board was bootstrapping operations, LeWitt agreed to work with the artists on the board to install the work, so he came to Toronto with his assistant and future wife Carol Androccio and completed the drawing in 2 days with help from then board members Peter Blendell, Michael Davey, Jamie Lyons, Robert McNealy, Jaan Pooldaas, Judith Schwarz, Renee van Halm, Cheryl West and Robert Wiens. LeWitt also showed work with the David Bellman gallery, who, I think, helped pay for his travel.”

Some of the catalogues on display.

Apparently, this installation is only the second time the work has ever been shown. It would have been appropriate for the AGO or the Power Plant, but as a former board member of MercerUnion, I’m proud that Mercer is looking so good.

I encourage people to support the upcoming exhibitions spaces in Canada – Mercer’s mandate is to show innovative projects by living contemporary artists, and artist-run centres are essential spaces run by artists for artists that support the exhibition of new work where there isn’t always yet a strong market.

The show will be on July 10 - August 28, 2010, and the opening party is tomorrow (Saturday) from 2 - 5 pm, with a talk by Anthony Sansotta, an expert draughtsman who worked with Sol LeWitt for many years at 3 pm.

Please click HERE for Mercer Union’s website, where you’ll find more info and upcoming exhibitions etc.

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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The finalists for the 2010 Sobey Art Award were announced today. The artists, selected by a jury from each region of Canada, are competing for the Award’s $50,000 top prize. Bendan Tang may be the newest kid on the block, but our money’s on Duke & Battersby or the excellent Daniel Barrow, who was passed over in 2008.  Do we have wonderful artists in this country, or what?

The 2010 Sobey Art Prize shortlist:

• West Coast and Yukon: Brendan Lee Satish Tang

A work by Brendan Lee Satish Tang. Image: illusion.scene360.com

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The 2010 Power Ball, the annual fundraiser for Toronto’s Power Plant Gallery, took place June 3, and took as its theme ‘The Ball that Started it All‘, which, it turned out, worked well!

All photos VoCA/Scott Barker.

Billed as “a carnivalesque line-up of amazing art, extraordinary entertainment, and spectacular prizes“, it aimed to “remix the best of the best from Power Ball’s glorious (and often notorious) past.”

Click below to see lots more photos…

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From London, UK: A charity called Art of Giving is launching their National Art Competition in October 2010.

The Saatchi Gallery, London. Image: piclondon.co.uk

It’s an open competition for artists working in painting, drawing, sculpture and photography. Ten finalists in each category will be given the opportunity to exhibit their work at London’s Saatchi Gallery on October 7 - 9. How many categories? It’s unclear, but you can read more HERE and apply HERE.

The winners receive a cash reward, and lots of publicity, which in the U.K, means something.

Paintings on view at the Saatchi Gallery. Image:contemporaryartlinks.com

Artists are invited to submit up to five works of art. It costs 20 Pounds per work, which is $30, which is not bad for the incredible exposure that your work could receive. And Art of Giving will be donating a minimum of 10% of the proceeds from the competition entry fees to the Red Cross Disaster Fund.

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