Loved and Loathed

VoCA went on a tour of some Toronto galleries this weekend.

Much of what we saw was forgettable, but the show Dead! Dead! Dead!, currently on at Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation, was excellent as usual. While we preferred Predators and Prey downstairs with its Nazi porcelain and Gucci heels, Ms. Hendeles did create a few masterstrokes in the Punch and Judy-themed show, including Joan Crawford’s fascinating charm bracelets and the potent Thomas Schutte sculpture spotlit in the back room.


Punch and Judy. Image: asymptotia.com

For more info on Punch and Judy, please click HERE.

LOVED: Monica Tap: New Paintings Wynick Tuck Gallery

November 24 - December 22, 2007 and January 8-12, 2008

It was refreshing to see such well considered Canadian painting. Landscape meets new media and good use of colour in a series of 15 paintings of a single second of video taken from a train passing through upstate New York. The work sits in a tradition of new media in painting whose precedents include Gerhard Richter, Luc Tuymans and Peter Doig among others.


Monica Tap, One-second Hudson no. 14, 2007. Image: monicatap.com


Monica Tap, One-second Hudson no. 15, 2007. Image: monicatap.com

LOATHED: Craft Up at YYZ

November 03, 2007 to December 15, 2007


A work by Ginger Brooks Takahashi. Image: chicagoreader.com

The use of craft techniques in art should be more than decorative, and more than a witty one-liner. Traditionally female handiwork has been used for decades by feminist artists to deconstruct patriarchal attitudes. So how come embroidered stains on the crotches of men’s Y-fronts are supposed to be interesting? The Allyson Mitchell installation was strikingly desperate – a tragic-comic, Pop piece.


Allyson Mitchell, My Fat Crotch, 2007. Image: allysonmitchell.com