1. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller

31 July – 28 September 2008

The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, The Killing Machine, 2007. Image: e-flux.com

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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

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1. MALE: WORK FROM THE COLLECTION OF VINCE ALETTI
ATTILA RICHARD LUKACS / POLAROIDS / MICHAEL MORRIS
Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver
June 28 to August 3, 2008

Bruce Bellas [Bruce of LA], “Untitled,” c. 1960. Image: presentationhousegall.com/vince aletti

Male is an exhibition of portrait works drawn from the personal collection of curator, writer and The New Yorker photography critic Vince Aletti. It features more than 100 photographs as well as drawings, sculptures, and paintings, juxtaposing works by celebrated figures with works by emerging artists, alongside anonymously authored images and flea market finds.

Attila Richard Lukacs / Polaroids / Michael Morris showcases over 600 Polaroid photographs by Vancouver painter Attila Richard Lukacs produced over the past twenty years as referents for paintings, assembled and collaged by Vancouver Island artist Michael Morris. Utilizing the unique characteristics of the Polaroid medium, Lukacs’ painter’s sensibility is evident in the photograph’s rich hues, deep chiaroscuro, romantic sensuality and graphic immediacy.

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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.

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Rumour has it that London-based film artist Mark Lewis will be selected as Canada’s representative for next year’s Venice Biennale.

Mark Lewis, Rush Hour, Morning and Evening, Cheapside (2005). Image: marklewisstudio.com

We sure hope this rumour his true - Lewis has long been one of VoCA’s favorite artists and we think he’d be brilliant.

Stay tuned for the official announcement…

Mark Lewis’s website - click HERE

Mark Lewis is represented in Canada by Monte Clark Gallery - click HERE

Who will win this year’s Sobey Art Award? The list is full of strong contenders including the hot photographer Scott McFarland, the excellent Paul Butler and Theo Sims, Luis Jacob, Raphaelle de Groot and the fun, funny art collective BGL.

While choosing among the contenders is tough, VoCA has chosen one artist from each region who we feel are deserving of the Sobey, regardless of whether they win this year or not.

For more on the Sobey Art Award, please click HERE.

WEST COAST AND YUKON: Althea Thauberger; Tim Lee; Scott McFarland; Mark Soo; Kevin Schmidt.
VoCA PICK: TIM LEE

Tim Lee, My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) / Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black), Neil Young, 1979. Image: hustlerofculture.com

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Between Observation and Intervention: The Painted Photographs of Melvin Charney
The Americas Society, New York
May 1 - July 31, 2008

Melvin Charney, Cities on the Move… The Swinging Burbs…, 2003-06, oil pastel and acrylic.
Image: metiviergallery.com

VoCA was quite taken with the exhibition of Melvin Charney’s architectural, city-inspired paintings at Toronto’s Metivier Gallery in April 2006. Now a major exhibition of the artist’s work has opened at the Amercias Society in New York.

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HALIFAX:

Kelly Mark: Stupid Heaven at MSVU art gallery
Continuing through 1 June 2008

Kelly Mark, I Really Should…(Neon) - 2001. Image: kellymark.com

Kelly Mark is a VoCA favorite, and this exhibition, which originally showed at Toronto’s Hart House gallery, is now touring. We have seen it and it is great. Mark makes funny, whimsical pieces that say a lot about human nature and the way that societal constructs shape our behaviour. She uses her cat, and often her television to create her multilayered pieces.

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VoCA recommends General Idea: Art, AIDS and the fin de siecle, a fantastic new film by Annette Mangaard, screening at Toronto’s Hotdocs festival on April 20 and 26, 2008.

General Idea. Image: aabronson.com

It’s a wonderful look at the history of the Canadian artist collective General Idea. Group members Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and A.A. Bronson were active from 1969 to 1994. After Partz and Zontal died of AIDS, Bronson reinvented himself as A.A. Bronson: Healer.

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Javier Téllez, Production still from Letter on the Blind For the Use of Those Who See, 2007.
Image: whitney.org

1. THE WHITNEY BIENNALE - VoCA says – thank god for Javier Tellez! His video Letter on the Blind For the Use of Those Who See (2007), which premieres at this year’s Whitney, showed a group of blind people experiencing an elephant through touch. It was an incredibly moving piece that injected much-needed reality into a show that – let’s be honest - had a few too many LA-inspired modernist junk sculptures.

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