View on Canadian Art

I was fascinated by yesterday’s Slutwalk that took place in Toronto, and sorry that I wasn’t able to attend.

Slutwalk in Toronto yesterday. Image: scathinglywrongrightwingnutz.com

The walk attracted around 1,000 people and was arranged in part as a protest against comments by police Constable Michael Sanguninetti who, while speaking to students at York Unviersity, said “Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.”

Women were outraged, and rightly so. It is an outrageous suggestion that women should bear the full responsibility in a case where sexual assault occurs. Even if she is dressing ‘like a slut’, surely the man must take responsibility for his own actions. I mean it’s hard to believe that Sanguinetti was actually serious.

More, and the Quebec art collective Les Fermieres Obsedees, after the jump:

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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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The McMichael Canadian Art Collection – famous for its works by members of the Group of Seven – has hired Dr. Victoria Dickenson as it’s new Executive Director and CEO as well as President of the McMichael Canadian Art Foundation.

Lawren Harris, Afternoon sun, Lake Superior. Image: blindflaneur.com

Ms. Dickenson comes fresh from 18 months at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg, and previously from Montreal’s wonderful McCord Museum.

“My goal in coming to the McMichael,” said Dickenson, “is to make the institution stronger – locally, provincially, nationally and internationally – to reach our local communities, the tourists that come to the GTA and the visitors that we reach virtually, so that more people can experience for themselves what an outstanding institution the McMichael is and what an important part it plays in our Canadian history and heritage, today, tomorrow and for decades to come.”

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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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I’m happy to report that VoCA is featured in this month’s issue of ELLE Canada. The article on art collecting, subtitled ‘How to turn your living room into un petit Louvre’, is by Katie Addleman.

The March issue of ELLE Canada. Image: hotmags.net

In the article, she says: “A better bet is to spend on the established by still young: Though out of reach to some, they remain accessible to many others. Carson’s blog, the indefatigable art-world guide View on Canadian Art, vibrates with the names and news of such types. Among her favorites are Sarah Anne Johnson, whose photographs figure in permanent collections at the National Gallery of Canada and the Guggenheim Museum in New York; multidisciplinary artist and recent Grange Prize-winner Kristan Horton; and Shary Boyle, for whom the Art Gallery of Ontario cleared out four rooms’ worth of European art last fall, the better to accomodate her dynamic solo show.”

Full article after the jump…

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VoCA contributor Bill Clarke, a collector of art and artist books (see previous VoCA posts HERE and HERE) has come back once again with a wonderful post in honour of International Women’s Day.

Here is his blog post on a number of artist books by women artists that he has in his increasingly envy-inducing collection:

Dorothy Iannone: The Story of Bern (or Showing Colors), 1970. Self-published with Dieter Roth. Signed and numbered by Iannone (431/500 copies).

Dorothy Iannone’s colourful and boldly erotic paintings from the 1960s and early 70s seem to be gaining recognition lately. Her work was included in the revealing (in all senses of the word) “Women Pop Artists” show that toured the U.S. last year. Iannone met the artist Dieter Roth during a trip to Iceland in 1967, and they remained together until 1974. Drawn by Iannone in the format of a graphic novel, this book tells the story of the removal of Iannone’s work from an exhibition in Bern, Switzerland in 1969 because the gallery director, Harald Szeemann, felt that the sexual content would draw the attention of police. Roth stood by Iannone, threatening to withdraw his work from the exhibition if hers was not shown. Iannone’s work was removed, and this book documents the strained friendships, including Roth’s with Fluxus artist Daniel Spoerri (who sided with Szeemann), that resulted.

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From Winnipeg, VoCA contributor Whitney Light sat down with painter Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline to discuss the development of his painting practice, the importance of variation, biological systems and how he keeps it all interesting.

Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline, Rot Samba, 2009, oil on canvas. All images courtesy the artist.

VoCA: What is keeping you busy now?

KK: I’m at the start of something new. I’m interested in taking motifs from my paintings and reusing them over and over again, in pattern making and, in doing that, exploring a parallel with biological processes, or evolution. I’m trying to develop a way of painting that employs little systems. I’m interested in the way biological systems work rather than what they look like; how they make structures out of small bits.

VoCA: Who or what has motivated your ideas in this direction?

KK: Predominantly right now the two things I’m looking at are the history of ornamentation and also really trying to understand how certain biological processes work. They don’t come out directly per se, but I’m trying to use both to shape what I’m doing. Ornamentation became interesting to me because it’s a domain within which you can see an evolution of motifs and forms; it reveals small parts generating larger systems or patterns through time.

Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline, Untitled, 2010, Ink on paper.

VoCA: You have been looking for a model process. How does this new work compare to your previous?

KK: I was looking for ways of making things that I could get behind. My previous work (around 2008) was really almost about working without a model. On some level I had a reticence about having a model or a system. At that time, I was really interested in making paintings that would to some degree explore ideas about the production of subjectivity, or even express doubts in relation to this idea. This also paralleled an interest in and doubt around how to pursue making paintings. Rather than depicting the figure as a discrete whole, I was interested in looking at it as an assemblage of heterogeneous parts that come together briefly to form a kind of shifty multitude as opposed to an individual.

I think that my reticence around the idea of a system or a model really came out of not seeing one that didn’t in some way involve an appeal towards some kind of abstract ideal or involve me having to impose my will on the process in an aggressive way. I was more interested in pursuing something more passive and more like tending to a practice as one would a garden, preferably a pretty scruffy English garden.

I think with the newer work, looking at areas like the study of biological systems, has provided me with models or ways of working that seem less determinist or reductive. It presents models and systems that at their core are about variation, interconnectedness, evolution, and change. So things are explored as being dynamic and in constant motion as opposed to being static.

Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline, Comedian (blk), 2009. Oil on canvas.

VoCA: This seems to have taken you away from representational imagery toward greater abstraction. Would you agree?

KK: When I was coming out of undergrad, my favorite painters were late Medieval and early Renaissance. I pursued that for a while. And then I became done with that idea.
I still consider my work to be representational in many ways. I think it is a myth that “abstraction” operates outside of the field of representation. I find it more useful to consider the term abstraction in its original meaning as a representation that is severed from its material referent. In this sense I just think about the more painterly effects in the work as being a kind of profane or material exuberance. I think these material events maybe open up a space in the more representational aspects of the paintings and allow for a slippery read of the image. The formal play becomes a kind of categorical play in relation to the figure depicted.

I think the move away from a more concise form of representation happened because my ideas changed. When I was making my most finely tuned representational paintings (from the spring of 2007 until winter 2008) I was interested in looking at the painting as a kind of stage or virtual arena where motifs would move around within a narrative. I was really interested in Hogarth’s paintings. On some level I think I was trying to paint a movie almost. I was really interested in seeing what could go on in that virtual space but also how things could come out of that space, and tracking those movements. So the painting surface became the looking glass or a kind of fold between two types of space.

But the problem I started having was that the actual making of the work became sort of boring to me. I would figure out the image in drawings and then just paint it to the best of my abilities. In that sense the painting was just there to fulfill a technical requirement in order to create the virtual space. I always think of that work now as some sort of failed conceptual art for a really good video game.

Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline, Untitled, 2010. Ink on paper.

VoCA: Whose work interests you right now?

KK: Hans Arp really interests me right now. The way he works through his drawings and his paintings and his relief sculptures. He used a lot of chance but then took the results of that and it almost became a little system. I’m interested in his drawings and collages in particular, the way he reused them to make new works. They became like little machines that function on their own.

A lot of the stuff that I’m looking at right now is anonymous patterns not attributed to anybody. They’re these free-floating entities. There are motifs that go through cultures and they’re not attributed to anybody but they’re used by everybody. For instance, in Moorish architectural patterning. There were specific influences, but the motifs got adopted by successive generations and then they become these traditional forms. But they mutate as they’re used.

VoCA: Are you interested in the motifs that pervade society today, then?

KK: I am not appropriating any specific motifs, though I look at them and try to understand them; I’m actually more interested in generating my own. It’s more interesting to start from scratch. They start really simply and then I sort of reuse them in different ways across different mediums and as I do that they change and become more complex, develop relationships with each other. It’s becoming like a kind of population that I’m using and the work itself is a trace of those interactions.

Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline, Mellon, 2010 Oil on canvas.

VoCA: It sounds like you’re creating a sort of microcosm of images, or a fabricated history of them. Does that adequately describe what you’re working towards?

KK: Yes, in some ways. I definitely recognize that there is a kind of formal genealogy being produced. As I make the work I am producing a lot of stencils, drawings and digital files so there is a really clear visual record of what’s being made. Each one is sort of like a little specimen in a field guide.

If You’re in the Hood….

Scott Massey, Two Yellow Lines, 2006. Image: Helenpittgallery.org

In Vancouver, I just got word of a video projection exhibition that will happen on March 18 at W2 Storyeum, 151 W. Cordova.

The show is the work of a new not-for-profit called Drop Out Video Arts that has brought together artists, artsworkers and musicians to create this one-off event. Expect 30 projections, alongside installation and interactive artworks.

And if you’re an artist, submissions are still being accepted until Monday. Check out their website at the link above and the submission form HERE.

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Although I stopped going to art fairs a while ago, after having been to many over the years both as a ‘gallerina’ and as a critic including Art Basel, Basel Miami, Art Chicago and Frieze, they remain popular venues for collectors, curators and, of course dealers and artists to hang out and do business.

Kristine Moran, Sidestep. Image: modto.com

New York’s Armory Show is one of the most prestigious and it takes place from March 3 – 6 in Manhattan.

Canada’s Art Dealers Association is – as per usual – organizing some programming around Canadians participating in the fair, but this year they are celebrating Canadian expat artists in New York with a series of discussions and tours of the show.

It’s a pretty good list of artists that I thought I’d share with you.

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