Art Collecting: Living with Art

From the pages of Wallpaper magazine, to art-filled boutique hotels like Ian Schrager's new Grammery Park, to Tom Ford’s new shop on Madison Avenue furnished with artworks from his personal collection, these days it simply won’t do to have a home void of art.

Yet for the new homeowner, selecting and hanging art can be a daunting task. As with fashion, trends come and go, what’s in one year is out the next. And as with fashion, many of the old rules no longer apply.


Artist Julian Schnabel's interior design for the Grammercy Park Hotel, New York City. Image: nytimes.com

To help you navigate the waters, we’ve provided some tips on what to consider when you’re starting out. We also address some concerns you may have about adding art to your home. It’s easier than you think!

First, you will need to assess your space. Is it classic or modern? Large or small? How high are the ceilings? Are the furnishings large and boxy or fine and delicate? Is the room light-filled or cozy and dark? What kind of natural lighting have you got?

Next, assess your personal style. Do you prefer cutting-edge contemporary art? Colourful paintings? Prints? Photography? If so, what do you like images of? Do you like folk art? Do you buy art on your travels? In short, what are your interests?


Traditional Mexican ceremonial dance masks. Image: irisartes.com

If you already own the art, then great. If not, you might want to begin by visiting some galleries. See below for a list of some of Toronto’s best. They will be able to advise on framing, mounting and protecting your art from humidity, dust and sunlight.

Once you have a feel for the space and the type of work that you like, think about balancing rather than matching. Large walls can benefit from more dramatic pieces, while small spaces can handle more delicate artworks in tighter groupings, like prints or watercolours in slim frames. Black and white photography can look crisp and masculine, while mid-size oil paintings in gilt frames tend toward a classic look. And remember, dark artwork in a dark space will be, well, dark. And vice versa.


Country Rock by Peter Doig (after a scene familiar to anyone who has driven up Toronto's Don Valley Parkway).
Image: contemporary-magazine.com

Finally, don't be too precious with art - it only makes your interior seem untouchable. Yes, you should frame your children’s drawings and have them hanging in your living room, just be sure that they stand up – visually – to your other masterpieces. (You’ll find that lot of children’s art does.)


A painting of fireworks by a child. Image: show.me.uk

Having art in your home is all about creating a space in which you feel comfortable and that reflects who you are. Any individual touches, no matter how ‘improper’, will make your environment unique to you, and, after all, that’s what good style is.

SOME EXCELLENT TORONTO GALLERIES:

Photography:
Stephen Bulger Gallery - please click HERE
Jane Corkin Gallery - please click HERE
Monte Clark Gallery - please click HERE

Painting:
Odon Wagner Contemporary - please click HERE
Gallery Moos - please click HERE
Angell Gallery - please click HERE
Nicholas Metivier Gallery - please click HERE

Cutting-edge contemporary:
Jessica Bradley Art Projects - please click HERE
Diaz Contemporary - please click HERE
Susan Hobbs Gallery - please click HERE
Birch Libralato Gallery - please click HERE

Prints/multiples:
Art Metropole - please click HERE
Elizabeth Legge Fine Antique Prints - please click HERE
Stuart Jackson Gallery (Japanese prints) - please click HERE

This article first appeared in the Fall 2007 Toronto issue of Royal LePage e-newsletter by Kathleen Slater.

Adad Hannah speaks!

ONE TO WATCH: ADAD HANNAH


Adad Hannah, Traces, 2007 (video still). Image: Courtesy the artist

Montreal-based artist Adad Hannah makes video installations in which the videos appear to be still, when in fact they are videos whose subjects hold their poses...sometimes. The work holds the viewer - who is expecting some forward movement - in suspense.

VoCA caught up with Hannah after his installation Traces had been deemed one of the most successful installations at Toronto's Nuit Blanche. He also exhibited Recast and Reshoot, based on Auguste Rodin's sculpture The Burghers of Calais at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery in Montreal during Mois de la Photo, 2007.



VoCA: Let’s talk about Traces, the piece that you installed at the Rex Jazz bar in Toronto for Nuit Blanche 2007. How did people react to your piece?

Adad Hannah: I was happy…when you make a new commission, you’re nervous about what the response might be, but it was a great experience, and it was great how the piece progressed throughout the night. At 7 pm people who really wanted to see the piece came in, and then the bar filled up with people. It was neat the way that the art was inhabited by the people in the bar.

I was there from 7 pm until 2:30 am and then I came back at around 4:30 am.

After 4 am when they stopped serving, some of the ‘real’ viewers came back – people who had been told about the piece, who wanted to make sure they saw it.

VoCA: When I was there, I noticed that the actual goings on at the bar – the bartender etc, were integral to the piece. How did you find the Rex as a real working venue for your art? As opposed to a museum?

AH: At first I wasn’t sure, I’m not used to working in a functioning bar, but it worked well. The owner was really generous, they blocked off areas to do the shooting, and the owner was there quite a bit. The venue itself was great – at first I didn’t know about the Rex’s place in Toronto’s history. People seemed to really know about it. I think that people liked that Nuit Blanche changed the way people see Toronto for a night. It seemed important that my piece changed the way people looked at the Rex bar.

VoCA: What I really liked about Traces was the relationship between the videos, the setups and the actual people in the bar. It was like 3 spaces, or levels of awareness. How important is it to you to use the ‘real world’ in your work?


Adad Hannah, Traces, 2007 (video still). Image: Courtesy the artist

AH: When there are other people in the space with you (looking at the art), you might look at them and wonder what they’re doing. At the Rex, there was a further dimension – you were looking at other people around you who were also looking at the art, but then there were people sitting having a drink.

This might sound grand, but what I want my work to do is to change the way people see things, the way they see the world around them. In Traces, you see the work, the tables, the other people. It’s kind of folding back on itself, unpeeling, to show you more and more. You end up trying to figure out where it all begins and ends. Also the Rex had a great décor – adding to the ‘grey area’ between my intervention and the reality of the Rex bar.

VoCA: Your work can be seen as 'tableaux vivants' – an art form that was popular before the invention of photography. How does the history of photography relate to your work? (Famed Canadian conceptual photographer) Jeff Wall, as an example, could also be said to use tableaux vivants in his staged photographs.


Jeff Wall, After 'Invisible Man' by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue 1999–2000. Image: tate.org.uk

AH: I get to my work from a looking back, a playing with the origins of photography, and of long exposure times. Jeff Wall and others like him create a moment, captured in a flow of other moments and the viewer creates the before and the after in their mind. In my work, you have that at first, but then as (the still running video) unfolds over time with no change, it denies the urge to create narrative, in that time and space, it opens up into traditional video.

So my work views the person not as an actor, but as a human being standing there. They’re really presenting a situation that is similar to the viewer’s own experience.

VoCA: Your piece Cuba Stills was included in the National Gallery’s show Acting the Part: Photography as Theatre last year. How do you think photography relates to theatre?


Adad Hannah, Installation documentation of Cuba Still (Remake) at Gallery B-312, Montreal. 2005. Image: Guy l'Heureux/adadhannah.com

(Buy the excellent National Gallery catalogue HERE.)

AH: Whenever you have a picture taken of yourself, you create a mini-performance. You pose etc. It’s a murky area, of course, because you could say that people are always performing, as themselves. But there is a difference when you realize there’s a lens. The performance of aiming and shooting happens very quickly, and you revert to your relaxed state very quickly. In my Stills, those moments are elongated. It reveals the human body.

My pieces are definitely performances. I direct (the ‘actors’) and tell them what to do. It ends up being a look at the failures of people to stand still, to control their bodies…they are all small performances. The recording element means that there is a performance being presented to you at that moment.

VoCA: Do you see yourself coming out of a particular tradition? Is that important to you?

AH: I think…not. When I moved to Montreal, from Vancouver…My work sort of came from a performance art background, it came from looking at the history of photography through performance. In Vancouver, I also worked on commercials, both in front of the camera as an actor and in the art department. That experience was incorporated into the construction (of the images in my work).

Also, I had an understanding of Jeff Wall’s photographs…but I a strange relationship to that work. I knew lots of the people who are in his pieces, so in a way that knowledge broke down the illusion for me. I guess that’s why I talk about my work coming apart…

VoCA: Please forgive the question, but in what way is your work Canadian?

AH: My work is not so particularly Canadian. Making work with an eye towards…functioning in different places. The content can change the meaning of the work…but I don’t want to deny any Canadian-ness in my work…

For instance, in South Korea they teach (Korean video art pioneer) Nam June Paik in schools, so all kids know about that work. So there would be something that you could point directly to in Korean work.


Nam June Paik, L'Olympe de Gouges in La fée électronique, 1989. Image: ac-bordeaux.fr

There’s a history in Canada, but the artists are not household names, it’s more about being interested in art, not about artists as cultural heroes. In some cultures, they place an importance on that but not in Canada. Separating of art by region or by ethnicity, even, is not useful. It also creates pressures that are unnecessary.

VoCA: Tell me about Recast and Reshoot. It was shot in Korea, and it features a cast of Rodin’s famous sculpture the Burghers of Calais, which depicts defeat of the French by the English during the Hundred Years’ War. As part of the work, you then pose a number of Quick Service couriers in the same pose. What is the relationship between the two?


Auguste Rodin, The Burghers of Calais, modeled 1884–95; this bronze cast 1895. Image: metmuseum.org


Adad Hannah, Burghers of Seoul, 2006 (video still). Image: Courtesy of the artist and Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain

AH: It’s a moment of defeat, when the burghers are leaving Calais, but it is heroic. It’s about sacrifice, civic sacrifice. Initially the project…Recast Reshoot is part of a larger project, around the Burghers of Calais in each of the cities that have a cast of the sculpture. Initially I thought the Burghers sculpture had no place in Seoul. Then I thought the piece was there as a way to show Korea’s emergence on the international economy.

But that was too easy. So instead I tried to find relationships, new relationships that could be forged between the sculpture and the cities that they’re in. Relationships between the sculpture and the city. So that each project, in each city, will be seen as separate.

As for the couriers, for one I felt they matched aesthetically. Their uniforms look like leather and they could be ‘recast’ easily. Also, the couriers are heroes of the city, they are the grease that keeps everything moving. In Seoul, the couriers do everything. They are the unsung heroes. They are responsible for keeping business moving, and they are constantly in motion.

VoCA: How will this project develop then? You said it is part of a larger project.

AH: I’ve started shooting a bit in London, and I’ve got contacts with people at the Rodin Museum in Paris. It’s slow moving…and I’ll shoot some stills at the Prado. It’s something that I want to keep doing – without having the pressure to finish all twlelve. I don’t want to bring the same track to each one. I want each one to say something different, so that eventually they might be exhibited together and they wouldn’t be the same work or be done in the same way.

VoCA: Thanks so much, Adad. Very interesting!

AH: My pleasure.

Adad Hannah is represented by Pierre-Francois Ouellette Art Contemporain in Montreal. Please click HERE for gallery website.

Spotlight on Marcel Dzama & Brian Jungen

MARCEL DZAMA


A drawing by Marcel Dzama. Image: sobeyartaward.ca

Marcel Dzama was born and raised in Winnipeg. He made his name as one of the founding members of the Royal Art Lodge, an artist collective formed in 1996 by six students at the University of Manitoba.

The group would collaborate on artworks, each adding his or her own elements.

Although Dzama is now an international sensation, he is still a member of the group. Please visit their website HERE.

Read an article from the New York Times on Dzama HERE.

Dzama is now represented by David Zwirner Gallery in New York. Click HERE for the gallery website.

BRIAN JUNGEN

Brian Jungen is an artist from Vancouver, with Swiss and Dunne-za First Nations roots.

He made his name with a series of sculptures called Prototypes of New Understanding, which were aboriginal masks assembled from parts of Nike Air Jordans.


Brian Jungen, Prototype for New Understanding #16, 2004. Image: makezine.com

He has also exhibited an enormous, whale skeleton made from generic plastic lawn chairs.


Brian Jungen, Shapeshifter, 2000. Image: mocoloco.com

Brian Jungen is represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery in Vancouver. Please click HERE for the gallery website.

2 things: The World Press Photo Exhibition, Toronto & Evan Lee, Vancouver

1. The World Press Photo Exhibition, BCE Place, Toronto


1st prize Spot News Singles, Akintunde Akinleye, Nigeria, Reuters. Man rinses soot from his face after gas pipeline explosion, Lagos, Nigeria, 26 December. Image: picturesfestival.com

The result of the annual worldwide contest of photojournalism organized by the World Press Photo Foundation in The Netherlands, the World Press Photo exhibition captures our world through the eyes of international photojournalists.

Almost 200 images were selected from work by photographers from 124 countries. The exhibition runs from October 2 - 24, 2007 at 181 Bay Street, Toronto. It's FREE.


2nd prize General News Stories, Peter van Agtmael, USA, Polaris Images. Night raids, Iraq, January-March.
Image: picturesfestival.com

On Tuesday, October 16 at 7:30, Christopher Anderson, the World Press Photo 2007 winner will give A FREE TALK at Ryerson Unversity.


Chris Anderson. Image: Marion Durand

For more information, please click HERE.


2. Evan Lee: Drawing Photography at Monte Clark Gallery, Vancouver.


Evan Lee, Still Life with Decorative Spools of Thread, 2006. Image: monteclarkgallery.com

This show will feature new work by one of Vancouver's most promising young photographers. The exhibition runs from October 15 to November 17th.


Evan Lee, Still Life with Stones, Shells, Fish and Comb, 2006 . Image: monteclarkgallery.com

For more information, please see the gallery website HERE.

3 things: Wim Delvoye at the KWAG, Vik Muniz in Montreal & David Urban in Calgary

VoCA has long said that when it comes to Toronto, it’s all about the regional galleries.

Oakville Galleries, the Art Gallery of Hamilton and the Albright Knox in Buffalo all have regular, excellent exhibitions. Click on the links above to find upcoming shows at each gallery.

Closer to town, the AGYU, the the U of T Art Galleries and the Art Gallery of Mississauga are also all excellent.

1. The Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery is showing work by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye from September 14 – January 6, 2008.

Delvoye has become internationally known for his work Cloaca, a machine which simulates the human digestive system, and his work has been included in the Venice Biennale and the prestigious art exhibition in Kassel, Germany, Documenta.


Wim Delvoye, Artfarm China. Image: wimdelvoye.be

Pig Brother is a riff on the popular Big Brother reality TV show franchise. One part is a video projection entitled Art Farm that shows views of Delvoye’s pig farm just outside of Beijing, China. Delvoye’s farm houses 24 pigs tattooed with everything from luxury logos to Disney heroines, and the staff dedicated to caring for them.


Wim Delvoye, Cloaca, 2000. Image: blogs.usyd.edu.au

A Cement Truck sculpture also brings together a hybrid of industry and ornament. Delvoye’s sculpture is a scale model of an actual cement truck rendered in filigreed steel.

Delvoye is represented by Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto.


2. Vik Muniz: Reflex at the Musee d’Art Contemporain, Montreal.

The exhibition runs from October 4, 2007 to January 6, 2008


Vik Muniz, Marlene Dietrich (Diamond Divas), 2004. Image: balticmill.com

Brazilian artist Vik Muniz makes photographic pieces from peanut butter and jam, chocolate, sugar, wire, dirt and diamonds, all of which makes his work familiar and enigmatic at the same time. His work is often copied in these unconventional materials from early masterpieces – like his ‘cloud’ pictures, inspired by Alfred Steiglitz’ cloud studies – here re-made with lumps of cotton.


Alfred Stieglitz, Equivalent, 1923. Image: bampfa.berkeley.edu


Vik Muniz, Equivalent Series, 1993-98. Image: bildmuseet.umu.se

His Pictures of Diamonds from 2004 channel Andy Warhol. They are portraits of Hollywood stars like Elizabeth Taylor, made out of diamonds.

The New York Times described Muniz’ work as “an idea wrapped up in surprise and laughter”.


3. David Urban: Time Machines at Trepanier Baer Gallery, Calgary.

The exhibition runs from October 4 to November 3, 2007


David Urban, The Mountain Climber, Set of six paintings, 1997-2007. Image: trepanierbaer.com

One of Canada’s best known abstract painters, in this exhibtion, Urban returns to his original interest in pure abstract painting. “In abstraction there is a particular pressure that is put upon the very basic elements of painting, which are line and colour and volume and shape,” says the artist.


David Urban, The Cloud and the Tree, 2007. Image: trepanierbaer.com


David Urban, The Eye as Dove, 2007. Image: trepanierbaer.com

View the gallery website HERE