I stopped by the studio of young painter Rob Davidovitz the other afternoon. Rob doesn’t paint in the traditional sense, though. Instead he uses paint to create these textile/painting hybrids.

A woven painting by Rob Davidovitz. All images: VoCA

He mixes paint colours in a kind of pastry tube (more on that below) and squeezes it out in long lines, like thread. Each ‘thread’ incorporates its own mix of colour that blends nicely in the final piece.They he lets the paint dry and weaves the strips, which he attaches to board. Pretty simple.

Another view.

The work may not be terribly mature (yet) -  he’s a young guy, but it’s beautiful, and an interesting approach when you consider other artists who have used paint in a sculptural way – I’m thinking of Kim Dorland‘s earlier work, for one. It’s also interesting that Davidovitz cites the poured paint sculptures of feminist artist Lynda Benglis as an influence. His woven paintings do come off as strangely feminist, meaning that one can comfortably view them through the lens of feminist art–weaving being a traditionally ‘feminine’ craft.

The works are seductive – Davidovitz encourages you to touch and bend them; they’re not delicate.

The back of the work. The paint is glued to the board.

Davidovitz went to art school with plans to be a photographer. Believe it or not, he was working in a bakery, making a cake when he came up with the idea of pushing paint through a piping bag. Shortly thereafter he began experimenting, and eventually perfected the technique..

Three smaller finished works.

Are the works paintings or textiles? “I weave paint,” says Davidovitz. He’s been showing here and there (including at Toronto’s Textile Museum) since he graduated in 2005 and is currently preparing for a group show titled Hard Twist at the Gladstone Hotel which opens on November 25th. The exhibition, all textile-based work by 40 artists, will feature his largest work to date, an enormous piece that weighs over two hundred pounds and involved over twenty gallons of paint to create.

This is good – he should be encouraged to think big and beyond, the way Benglis does.

The artist with a single strand from his Gladstone Hotel piece.

Some small strands.

The weaving process.

An early, experimental work.

Last night was Toronto’s annual ‘All Night Contemporary Art Thing’, Nuit Blanche. Now in its sixth incarnation, the event has gone from inspiring wonder in audiences to inspiring complex plans on how best to navigate the crowds. Many people start out at 7 pm and go until 12 or 1, which makes sense but creates a frustrating logjam of people at every installation.

AES+F, The Feast of Trimalchio. Image: vvork.com

While it will always be a challenge to bring universally pleasing, high impact, accessible art into public areas that lasts from 7 pm to 7 am, I felt that this year was more successful than past years, in part because there were fewer works that involved lining up, and in part because, well, I had a plan.

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Although I don’t blog about public art in Toronto, since it could create a conflict with my position on the City of Toronto Public Art Commission, that doesn’t stop me from blogging about public art elsewhere.

The entrance to the new Sofitel Hotel in Vienna. Image: VoCA/Scott Barker

I was in Vienna, Austria recently and saw the most fantastic use of art in Jean Nouvel‘s new Sofitel hotel. Surprisingly unremarkable from the outside, there was an artwork by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist that greeted us at the hotel entrance and really wowed us on the rooftop restaurant. I’m not sure if they have a percent for art program there, which we have in many cities across North America (it gives one percent of project costs over to public artworks in newly built properties) but the hotel owners really gave an impressively enormous amount of space and visibility over to the artwork.

The awning over the hotel’s entrance was lit up from underneath with an image that has viewers peering into Pipilotti’s magical ‘heaven’. You literally see up her nostrils. Then, you enter the very black elevator up to the roof top lounge and restaurant.

The restaurant ceiling. Image: VoCA/Scott Barker

The entire restaurant – from the chairs to the carpet, walls and bar is covered in matte, dark grey. The only colour exists in a spectacular ceiling mural by the artist that covers the ENTIRE ceiling, which is also punctured with small circular video screens. Through the screens you can see Pipilotti cavorting around, sticking her fingers down to pull you up into the ceiling.

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As the summer gallery season gets underway, here are my picks for the country’s best blockbuster exhibitions:

THE COLOUR OF MY DREAMS: THE SURREALIST REVOLUTION IN ART
Vancouver Art Gallery
Through September 25, 2011

Man Ray, close up of The Kiss, 1930. Image: ultraorange.net

The VAG has organized the most comprehensive survey of Surrealist art ever to be shown in Canada. With 350 works by all the masters (Man Ray, Rene Magritte, Dali and Andre Breton, author of the Surrealist Manifesto), it also will “reveal the Surrealists’ passionate interest in indigenous art of the Pacific Northwest.” Given that the exhibition will include works from the Guggenheim, the Metropolitan, the MoMA, the Reina Sophia, the Georges Pompidou and the Tate, it should be pretty good.

Shary Boyle, Lovers, 2009. Image: canadianart.ca

Is Surrealism having a ‘moment’? The work of much celebrated Canadian artist Shary Boyle comes to mind, as does the work of several of this year’s Sobey Prize shortlisters (hello, Zeke Moores and the excellent Manon de Pauw)

Manon de Pauw, L’atelier d’écriture, a video and sound installation, and performance from 2006-7.

From de Pauw’s website: “In (this) video series, groups of artists are gathered in silence around a table, and given basic choreographic instructions. Throughout the session, the act of writing is transformed into line, drawing, collage, and audible rhythm.”
Check out the VAG’s website, HERE

CARAVAGGIO!
Caravaggio and his followers in Rome
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
17 June – 11 September 2011

John the Baptist, by Caravaggio (1571-1610). Image: wikimedia.org

Canada’s first exhibition devoted to the work of the truly brilliant Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is a little late – after numerous shows of the artsts work circulated in Europe over the past few decades he has rightfully become the hottest, and arguably the most modern of the Old Masters.

But better late than never, and it’s always a joy to see these dramatic works, in this case juxtaposed against works by painters whom he inspired, including Peter Paul Rubens and Orazio Gentileschi. If you haven’t seen Caravaggio’s works in person (and even if you have), this will surely be a must-see show!

Click HERE for the gallery’s website.

ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST NEW YORK
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Through September 4, 2011

Franz Kline, Cardinal, 1950. Image: friendsofart.net

This show, coming from MoMA to Toronto features over 100 works by major American masters including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko (a play about whom, incidentally, is coming to Canstage soon after having rave reviews in NYC) and, from what I hear, some fantastic Franz Klines. Of course, it’s always nice to see de Kooning’s work, though I also hear there aren’t as many as have been reported in this show.

A scene from John Logan’s play, RED about artist Mark Rothko. Image: artknowledgenews.com

These are works by artists who are, to put it mildly, darlings at auction. Pollock’s No. 5, 1948 de Koonings Woman III went for the second highest price, $137.5 million a few days later.

As the AGO notes, this is “a generation of artists who catapulted New York to the centre of the international art world in the 1950s,” reason enough to see the show.

Click HERE for more info.

Toronto design collective Public Displays of Affection is bringing the ‘eat local’ concept of community supported agriculture to design. Their brand of community engaged design involves their members – mostly young furniture designers and artists including the up-and-coming Brothers Dressler, Dennis Lin (whose studio I visited last year) and MADE – working with local organizations and communities to build furniture and design interiors.

For Edmond Place, Henry Salonen and Adriana Romano’s chair of reclaimed wood shipping pallets with cushion crafted from pre-loved jeans.

PDA was founded by Jeremy Vandermeij, Katherine Ngui and Parimal Gosai, who met at Ryerson University while studying interior design, and Adam Harris, who had studied graphic design at George Brown College. I sat down with Jeremy, Katherine and Adam on a rainy afternoon at the Gladstone Hotel:

VoCA: I’m interested in this idea of very local, community engaged design. How did you come up with the concept for PDA?

PDA: It came from our interest in filling this need we saw of trying to bring contemporary design into communities that didn’t have it. It was the idea of getting people involved in their own projects that made sense in a wholistic way.

When we started, we wanted to do workshops in design in the community, simple projects for those people who didn’t think they were practicing design. We would show them that they were, in fact practicing design all the time.

We were wanting to find a way of practicing design outside of the industry. That idea brought us to the Edmond Place project, our first project. That kind of engagement made sense. It’s important to avoid the psychology of a handout. Being involved makes it more meaningful to the people we are doing it for.

That was on the clients mind before we approached them. It’s do-it-yourself, or rather educating, taking action, rehabilitation through the work. We were looking for a place to do that kind of thing.

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Well it’s that time of year again. The long list for Canada’s major annual art prize, the Sobey Art Award has been announced.

Zeke Moores, Axes, 2009. Image: zekemoores.com

It’s true that many of Canada’s fine young artists remain hidden from media attention or public view in other parts of the country. So I look forward to the Sobey longlist so that I can discover new talent.

There are fewer names that I recognize off the bat this year, so I was happy to discover some great works by a newer crop of young Canadian artists. I’ll take a closer look at other regions finalists soon, but for now, here is a glimpse into the work of the first group of finalists, from Atlantic Canada.

ZEKE MOORES is an Ontario-based artist, originally from Newfoundland. Much of his work involves creating perfect replicas of urban detritus and utility objects like cardboard boxes in bronze, traffic cones in steel, plastic milk crates in aluminum and a shiny polished bronze full-size dumpster. The fabrication looks to be excellent. But my favorite piece is called Axes, a series of cast aluminum axes installed as if they were chucked into a white, spotlit gallery wall.

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It’s been over one week since Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was arrested by the Chinese government at Beijing airport. He has not been heard from since and the government is accusing him of ‘economic crimes’.

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Image: lamonodigital.net

Where is he? And why aren’t Canadians demanding to know?

Ai Weiwei is best known for his installation Sunflower Seeds, currently on view at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. Each porcelain seed was made and hand painted by Chinese specialists working in Jingdezhen, emphasizing the labour that has gone into the project. As someone suggested to me recently, seeds are about potential growth. So you can imagine the impact of a hundred million seeds carpeting the Turbine Hall.

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My experience with Thomas Hirschorn’s work is that it’s often about overkill. And It calls attention to the fake-ness of things, as if to suggest that what we assume is solid isn’t in fact all that stable. It’s just held together with tape, or made from cardboard.

Thomas Hirschorn, Das Auge, at the Vienna Secession, 2008. Images: artnews.org

Thomas Hirschorn, Das Auge, at the Power Plant, Toronto 2011. Images: artsynch.ca

He has said, “I’m interested in the ‘too much,’ doing too much, giving too much, putting too much of an effort into something. Wastefulness as a tool or weapon.”

I would describe his installation, Das Auge at Toronto’s Power Plant, as altogether too much. It seems as if Hirschorn is trying to incite the feeling one gets of being bombarded by too many advertisements, protests, commodities, soundbites, messages etc.

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Last night in Toronto’s Kensington Market, a group of about 60 or so gathered to hear two panel discussions – one on the city’s annual “All Night Contemporary Art Thing”, Nuit Blanche, and the other to discuss the idea of a Toronto Biennale.

The TAAC panel last night. Image: P Elaine Sharpe.

The event was organized by the Toronto Alliance of Art Critics, of which I’m a member.

Though I had to leave before the second panel, some of the issues raised about Nuit Blanche were the difficulty of getting international, in depth coverage of the event due to its timespan – a single night; the fact that there is no significant institutional memory of the event from year to year; the need for more logistical advice for artists and curators to deal with the crowds; and the intrusion of corporate sponsorship onto the art.

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So, Vancouver artist Steven Shearer will represent Canada at this year’s Venice Biennale, which opens June 4 and continues until November 27, 2011.

Steven Shearer, Nash, 2005. Image: museomadre.it

Torontonians might recall an exhibition of Shearer’s work at the Power Plant in 2007, which I believe was curated by former Power Plant curator Helena Reckitt (now critic/curator in residence at the University of Victoria in Wellington, New Zealand).

So what might visitors to Canada’s pavilion expect to see?

Shearer is going to build a nine-metre high, free-standing mural that will act as a false front for the rather dimminuitive Canadian pavilion, bringing it up to the scale of the surrounding British, German and French pavilions. I’ve always thought it strange that our pavilion was designed by an Italian architect. It’s embarrassing as its size next to the others (it was built in 1958) insinuates Canada’s place as ‘only’ a colony.

More, after the jump…

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