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.
May 11th, 2010 — Performance art, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto and region, Upcoming Events & Exhibitions, Video/New Media
It’s well known – in the art world, at least – that many artists support their careers by teaching.
It has also become popular for artists, collectives and independent curators to mount exhibitions in abandoned spaces.
Johanna Householder, video stills from installation in the Principal’s Office. Image: courtesy Heather Nicol
May 6th, 2010 — Art Criticism, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto and region, Video/New Media
Marshall McLuhan’s poetic description of photographs as “dreams that money can buy,” begins the catalogue text for the 2010 CONTACT photography festival in Toronto.
A view of the exhibition by David Rokeby. Image: VoCA
The 2010 festival, on throughout May in various venues across the city, celebrates the media legend – wonderfully and appropriately – on the 30th anniversary of his death.
May 5th, 2010 — First Nations/Inuit, Photography, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto and region
Now’s a good time to check out the Art Gallery of Ontario again.
Part of Barbara Kruger’s billboard on the facade of the AGO. Image: VoCA
You can take in Barbara Kruger’s magnificent billboard that lines the front of the gallery, (done for CONTACT photography fest, which in on throughout May.) The billboard reads LOVE IT-SHOVE IT-PRAISE IT-PLEASE IT-DOUBT IT- SHAME IT-BLAME IT-KISS IT-BUY IT-BELIEVE IT.
April 22nd, 2010 — Articles by Andrea Carson, Artist Spotlight, Collecting, Design, Interviews, Sculpture/Installation, Thoughts on art, Vancouver and region
Last week we posted HERE part one of our conversation with Douglas Coupland. In this post, Coupland talks about his collecting habits, coming from a “guns-and-ammo” family, his interest in nuclear culture and his new TV mini-series, among other things.
Douglas Coupland’s tiny cubes of 100 stamps. Image: VoCA
Coupland brings out a bowl filled with small cubes of 100 stamps, held together with a band of paper.
VoCA: Wow, did you make all these?
DC: Oh God, no. I collect stamps, I collect Japanese stamps.
VoCA: See, you do collect! You collect tons of things!
DC: Ok, the thing is, there’s a show on A&E called ‘Hoarders’, have you seen it?
VoCA: I’ve heard of it. It’s about people who obsessively collect things.
DC: No, no. I collect. These people don’t get rid of shit. (laughs) These are people who use a paper towel and don’t throw it out thinking it might be useful in the future. People who hoard have almost always had a huge, catastrophic loss in their life, a family member usually and it’s almost impossible to get rid of once you’ve got it. It becomes for them, ‘something you can’t take away from me,’ kind of thing.
April 19th, 2010 — Articles by Andrea Carson, Artist Spotlight, Collecting, Design, Interviews, Sculpture/Installation, Vancouver and region
Last week at his beautiful, art-filled Ron Thom designed home in Vancouver, VoCA sat down with artist-slash-writer Douglas Coupland to get his views on everything from Warhol to techological obsolescence to City of Toronto love.
“All young artists secretly think they’re the next Warhol,” says the Generation X author.
Douglas Coupland. Image:anthonygeorge.com
Here are some highlights:
VoCA: Douglas Coupland, are you more artist than writer or vice versa?
DC: I don’t differentiate. I don’t see a real difference. Is cooking different from roasting?
April 18th, 2010 — Art News: Canada, Calgary and region, Edmonton, Halifax and Eastern Canada, Montreal, Ottawa, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto and region, Vancouver and region, Winnipeg
We returned from Vancouver to the news that Brian Jungen has won the $25,000 2010 Gershon Iskowitz award at the AGO, and that the $50,000 Sobey Art Prize longlist has been announced.
Vanessa Paschakarnis, Shield for a Human, 2009. Bronze. Image: erhard-metz.de
Most regions have a pretty clear shortlister for the Sobey (I’m thinking either Isabelle Pauwels or Jeremy Shaw from the West; Daniel Barrow from the Prairies; Diane Borsato or Jon Sasaki from Ontario and Duke and Battersby from the East) but Quebec has a tough choice between Pascal Grandmaison, Patrick Bernatchez, BGL, Adad Hannah and Karen Tam.
April 18th, 2010 — Sculpture/Installation, Vancouver and region
This is a lovely sculpture outside Vancouver’s convention centre overlooking Burrard Inlet. Titled The Drop, it “pays homage to the element of water and the untamable forces of nature which are omnipresent in Vancouver.”
It’s by the German public art group Inges Idee, four artists - Hans Hemmert, Axel Lieber, Thomas Schmidt and George Zey, and it’s their first installation in North America.
Inges Idee, The Drop, 2009. Image: VoCA
April 9th, 2010 — Performance art, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto and region
Artistic Director and Toronto man-about-town Bruno Billio took control of this year’s Massive Party, the 6th annual fundraiser for the Art Gallery of Ontario, which took place last night at the Frank Gehry-designed space.
Jon Sasaki’s installation. All images: VoCA
The AGO has got a new Young Patrons group, AGO Next, many of whom were there last night. Judging by the sold-out crowd of 2000 energetic partiers, the AGO has got a lot of future donors hooked.
March 26th, 2010 — Design, Loved & Loathed, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto and region, Video/New Media
DESIGN IS THE NEW ART.
Art used to be able to change the way we see the world, but aside from the terrifying German artist Gregor Schneider, we can’t really think of any that does today. Design, on the other hand, has been proven to house displaced people, heal the terribly ill, rescue the desperately poor, possibly even save the environment.
David Rokeby, Quaver, (2002-2010), interactive video installation, still. Image: parinadimigallery.com
Canadian artists like David Rokeby (whose show at Pari Nadimi Gallery just opened in Toronto) designs computer interfaces for his artworks that have been used for medical purposes. Amazing.
Ever since Bruce Mau brought his overly wordy, curatorially-challenged but conceptually brilliant exhibition, Massive Change to the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2008, we have known that Design Can Change the World. Add Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity, who gave a riveting talk at OCAD earlier that same year, and the message is clear.
We can no longer sustain design for design’s sake. It’s an outdated idea. Design must be used to solve problems, and educational institutions should be the ones preaching this to students.
March 23rd, 2010 — Architecture, Art News: International, Design, Sculpture/Installation
The pavilion, which will sit on the lawn of London’s Serpentine Gallery from 5 July – 20 October 2010, is to be designed by world-renowned French architect Jean Nouvel. The pavilion will bright red!
Jean Nouvel and his work. Image: defpoints.com
The building consists of bold geometric forms, large retractable awnings and a freestanding wall that climbs 12m above the lawn, sloping at a gravity defying angle. It experiments with the idea of play in its incorporation of the French tradition of outdoor table-tennis. Striking glass, polycarbonate and fabric structures create a versatile system of interior and exterior spaces. The flexible auditoria will accommodate the Serpentine Gallery Park Nights and Marathon and the changing summer weather.
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...Read full bio