Cindy Sherman, the American artist known for her Untitled Film Stills, 1977–1980 and subsequent self-portraits in which she transforms herself, through hair, makeup, prosthetics and costume, into various female characters from the seductive to the grotesque, is all about disguise.

Cindy Sherman for MAC Cosmetics. Image: heartymagazine.com

She’s been working this way for decades and is one of America’s best-known artists. In fact, she now holds the record for highest price paid for a photograph at auction when her work Untitled #96 was sold for $3.8 million at Christie’s in May.

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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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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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Over the past few years, I’ve often mentioned, and championed, regional art galleries in Ontario and Canada.

Artist Luke Painter and one of his works. Image: blogto.com

CAFKA (Contemporary Art Forum, Kitchener and Area) is a regional not-for-profit arts organization whose mission it is to “present innovative art within a public space.” It has evolved from a small, regional festival in 1996 to an organization that offers year-round programming, featuring international and national artists.

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Here is another example of how art and life – through design – are drawing closer together all the time. Mirror has a long history in art going back to at least the Renaissance and of course more recently the wonderful pieces by Michelangelo Pistoletto and Michael Snow, David Altmejd and Jeff Wall, among many, many others. Over the past few years, I’ve been predicting the return of mirror as a material in art, and now it’s seemingly everywhere.

Sweden’s Tree Hotel has a room called Mirrorcube. Image: geeknewscentral.com

I came across this awesome hotel room that looks very similar to one of Michel de Broin’s sculptures, his Superficial from 2004, which is essentially a large mirrored rock that he installed in a forest in Alsace, France and then documented. I love the idea of using mirror to create camouflage.

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Are art galleries and museums the new churches? What is the relationship between art and faith? Does art that can inspire us to that degree even still exist?

The Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. Image: artblat.com

Emily Carr, Wind in the Tree Tops, c. 1936-1939. Image: heffel.com

I was marveling with a friend the other day at how in the early 20th century – only 100 years or so ago – people were profoundly shaken by bright colours and loose brushstrokes in painting. I was speaking specifically about the reaction of Torontonians to the early work of A.Y. Jackson and other painters who had been influenced by the likes of Edvard Munch and the Impressionists in Europe.

A.Y. Jackson, The Red Maple, 1914. Image: yorku.ca

And then today on CBC Radio’s Q, today the Reverend Jennie Hogan spoke about the relationship between faith and art, and how the Mark Rothko room at the Tate Modern can have such a profound spiritual effect on people.  Is art, she asks, replacing religion?

James Turrell’s Roden Crater Project. Image: 1.pb.blogspot.com

At a time when religion indeed seems to be on the wane, is art able to replace it? Or is art that powerful (I’m thinking Rothko, Barnett Newmann, James Turrell, even Emily Carr, even still being produced?)  Much of today’s art, as Hogan put it, unfortunately seems to be no more than a knee-jerk reaction to things.

Maybe it’s architecture, though, not art. If museums are the new cathedrals, as Hogan argues in THIS Guardian article, then maybe it’s not the art but the architectural space that now provides the sublime experience.  This is something that was brought up after Gehry built Bilbao and architecture fans flocked there like catholic pilgrims to Lourdes.

If at first glance it seems unlikely that art has replaced religion, I can think of two artists who have the power to create a faith experience, one in the positive (inspiring belief), and the other in the negative. Canadian David Rokeby’s award-winning interactive sound installation Very Nervous System (1986 – 1990) is an  invisible computer interface that sets body movements to music. Imagine walking down the street and suddenly your body movements begin to create sound! Though I haven’t seen it in the flesh, on THIS video, it seems sublime. Click that link also to find out how it works.

Secondly, and on the other side of things, is Gregor Schnieder, possibly the greatest German artist of his generation. His numbingly claustrophobic, absolutely terrifying basement installation, Weisse Folter at the K21 in Dusseldorf in 2007 shook me so profoundly that it still haunts me now, years later.

Gregor Schneider’s Weisse Folter. Image: 3.bp.blogspot.com.

So great art hasn’t lost any of it’s power. It may seem like more of a challenge for art to generate an almost spiritual reaction, but it’s still there. Perhaps it’s just harder to see, with so many mediocre artists clouding our view of it.

Speaking of Americans (see below), we just came across this very cool project in Detroit.

The Ice House Detroit. Image: Greg Holm/dwell.com

A collaboration between photographer Greg Holm and architect Matthew Radune, the Ice House Detroit is just what it seems to be. A completely frozen house.

Read more about the project on their blog, HERE

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We’ll be back soon with reports on Pop Life at Tate Modern, Gustav Metzger at the Serpentine, the Artangel commissions…

Seizure, 2008 by Roger Hiorns. An Artangel commission by the Turner Prize-shortlisted artist. Image: tate.org.uk

…Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy, Radical Nature and Heather and Ivan Morrison at the Barbican, the Turner Prize shortlist, and much more!

Nuit Blanche 2009, which will take place on the night of October 3 from sunset onwards, looks to be excellent again this year. Perhaps more serious than past years, many of the pieces are designed to make you consider the meaning of your surroundings. With more performance-based work than previous years, there are lots of ways for you to get involved with art.

For the Nuit Blanche 2009 website, please click HERE.

Jeff Koons’ Rabbit in New York. Image: rawartint.com

Here are VoCA’s picks:

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…So what are we going to do about it?

Image: afonline.artistsspace.org

The Art Newspaper has some excellent thoughts on the subject.

Check out this highly recommended article, right HERE