View on Canadian Art

Last weekend, we went up to a friend’s cottage on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park.

You may recognize the name – it’s well known as the lake where Group of Seven painter Tom Thomson mysteriously died at age 42 in July, 1917. He had left to go on a fishing trip, but after only a few hours his canoe was found floating in the lake. It wasn’t until a week or so later that his body was found.

Getting ready to head out. All images: VoCA/Scott Barker

On our way across Canoe Lake.

Thomson, who was a recognized outdoorsman, spent six months of every year in Algonquin Park hunting, fishing and of course painting. He had worked as a guide and fire ranger in the park, so the fact that his death was declared an accidental drowning on what was a apparently a clear and normal day seems unusual. Even at the time, people couldn’t believe it and rumours swirled about suicide and murder.

The gravesite is in Mowat cemetery, about a ten-minute walk into the bush off the west side of the lake. We took my dog, Hudson. You have to go through people’s cottage properties to get there and it’s entirely unmarked. You basically go up an un-maintained grassy road to the first big birch, and take a left into the bush, whereupon a faint trail becomes clear.

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I’ve been thinking recently about Canada’s arts granting system. With all this talk of financial reform, from the global to the municipal levels (hello, Rob Ford), maybe it’s time we looked at whether the granting system in Canada could use some reform of its own.

Image: canadianart.ca

Federal, provincial and municipal arts councils are all arms length agencies of the government. The Canada Council for the Arts is a crown corporation chaired by Joseph Rotman, which is funded from parliament along with endowments and donations. The visual arts are one division, the other five are media arts, dance, music, theatre and writing/publishing. The Ontario Arts Council is a publicly funded agency of the ministry of culture, and the Toronto Arts Council is funded by the City of Toronto.

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Did you know that UK-based Canadian author Sarah Thornton successfully sued a critic from the Daily Telegraph for a “spiteful” review of her book Seven Days in the Art World?

Author Sarah Thornton, and her book. Image: inforrm.com

I haven’t read the book, though I know many who have and who thoroughly enjoyed it. Her lawsuit resulted in Thornton winning 65,000 Pounds for libel – the critic apparently claimed to have not been interviewed by Thornton, when in fact she had.

“Most of the damages – £50,000 of the £65,000 – were awarded for this reason: that Barber’s review included a damaging and untrue allegation. But (the judge) added another £15,000 to punish her for being malicious. As he explained: “A reviewer is entitled to be spiteful, so long as she is honest, but if she is spiteful, the court may more readily conclude that misstatements of fact are not honest, since spite or ill will is a motive for dishonesty.”

Wow.

This excellent article in this weekend’s Financial Times is an overview of the situation is a must-read for any critic or any artist whose work has been subject to a critique. It’s HERE.

Thorton wrote a thoughtful reponse to the lawsuit in the Guardian, also worth reading, which is HERE.

Incidentally, Thornton’s book received excellent reviews in the New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, and Sunday Times to name a few.

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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Today, I went to the media preview of Haute Culture, the retrospective of famed Canadian artist collective General Idea, which opens this Friday with a FREE party at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.

AIDS (Gold) 1987, acrylic and gold leaf on canvas. Katharina Faerber Collection, Geneva Image: VoCA

I had a few minutes to chat with AA Bronson, who reminded me of his upcoming solo exhibition at Esther Schipper Gallery in Berlin, in which he will be showing large self portraits with diamonds. Not the Warhol-style diamond dust, mind you….but actual diamonds. Though based in New York, AA currently shows only with commercial galleries in Europe, now that his New York gallery John Connelly Presents has closed. And in Canada, it seems our market is just not able to support him. He’s never been particularly well embraced in Canada, he says. Hopefully the retrospective will go some way toward changing that. It was supported by some of the city’s well-known collectors.

Incidentally, some in the Toronto art world will find it interesting that the retrospective was a project begun by former AGO curator of contemporary art David Moos, when he was still at the AGO.

The GI retrospective comes from La Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, where it was apparently a big success. Curator Frederic Bonnet explained that it is arranged thematically, rather than chronologically, which in the case of GI, is helpful. The themes are, according to Bonnet: Glamour as tool of creation; Mass cultures; Architecture/Archaeology; Sexuality/Ambiguity and the AIDS project.

FILE Magazine, 1972-1989, one set of magazines – 26 issues. Image courtesy the Estate of General Idea; © Pierre Antoine, Muse?e d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris / ARC, 2011.

The group famously used the mass media as a vehicle for art, putting art on television and printing a magazine FILE. They employed an impressive range of materials, from work in plaster, taxidermy, gold leaf, fluorescent tube…there is even straw on the floor of one fantastic installation, making the gallery smell like a barn. In it, the poodles (the artists) are contemplating the Canis Major constellation in the Milky Way. It’s quite funny.

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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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While it’s clear that Canada has some thriving art scenes in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg, the issue continues to be the comparatively weak market for contemporary art. We have Nuit Blanche in Montreal and Toronto (which is a good start) and we have art fairs for collectors, but the question is how to get the average non-art person visitng gallieres and purchasing work by local artists?

Darren Stebeleski, $400.

An idea to bring the gallery to the people will launch at Winnipeg’s popular Fringe Festival (July 13 – 24, 2011). Conceived by Martha Street Studio, RAW:Gallery of Architecture and Design, and Golden City Fine Art, the idea is to increase exposure and appreciation of Winnipeg’s outstanding artists. “We felt it was unfortunate that people are not able to find local contemporary artists as easily as in other markets,” say the organizers. “Thus, over some drinks we hatched POST NO BILLS temporary commercial gallery. We hope that this event, in conjunction with the Fringe Festival will help both artists and patrons to meet one another.”

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It’s better late than never for some highlights from this year’s Venice Biennale.

Flying into Venice. All photos: VoCA

Having been to several Venice Biennales in my life, I almost always prefer the pavilions where the artist addresses the architecture of the pavilions in which the art is housed. The first Biennale was held in 1895 and there are only 30 permanent national pavilions in the Giardini. This year, there were 89 participating countries, many of whom exhibited in off-site pavilions throughout Venice.

The whole concept of the pavilions in the Giardini is, to my mind, rather outdated, and art has clearly moved on from such constraints. Many of the pavilions are architecturally designed to best showcase painting or drawing shows like this year’s contribution from Canada. Luckily, Vancouver artist Steven Shearer managed to give Canada’s little pavilion, wedged in between Germany and Great Britain, some oomph with an enormous billboard and d-i-y shed-like entrance.

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So I was just in Venice, to see the Biennale. Art-wise, there wasn’t much that really wowed me, so I’ll start with the fantastic newly-restored Olivetti store in Piazza San Marco. Designed by the late, great Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa (one of my favorites) in 1957-58, the space has been turned into a stunning museum space by the city. They even got the original models of Olivetti typewriters that were on display when the shop opened.

But the shop was never designed to be simply a shop. It was intended as a ‘business card’, that would showcase Olivetti’s attention to detail and affinity for good design, which was legendary. (Ettore Sottsass designed their amazing Valentine, in 1969.)

Despite his brilliance, Scarpa was apparently difficult to work with, often taking years longer to complete projects that was originally agreed.

But I think it’s clear in retrospect that it would have been worth the wait.

All photos by Scott Barker. More after the jump…

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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.