3 Things: Highlights from TIAF Part One, The Alberta Biennale & German Video Art in Toronto

1. Highlights from the Toronto International Art Fair – Part One

-Mike Bayne at Katherine Mulherin - Click HERE


Mike Bayne, Untitled. (Oil on panel, 6 x 4 inches)
Image: katharinemulherin.com

-Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay at Jessica Bradley Art & Projects - Click HERE


Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, Live to Tell, 2002. Image: jessicabradleyartprojects.com

-Karin Bubas at Monte Clark Gallery - Click HERE


Karin Bubas, Woman with Horse, 2006. Image: monteclarkgallery.com

-Spring Hurlbut at Georgia Scherman Projects - Click HERE


Spring Hurlbut, Mary 2. Image: keylight.org

-Fred Herzog at Equinox Gallery - Click HERE


Fred Herzog, Black Man Pender. Image: ericburke.ca


2. Alberta Biennal of Contemporary Art: Living Utopia and Disaster

October 27, 2007 - January 6, 2008

For the 6th incarnation of the Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art, curators Catherine Crowston and Sylvie Gilbert have examined the ideas of Utopia and Disaster within the context of Alberta.

The works in the exhibition act as reminders that hopes are often matched with impeding catastrophe, actions with adversity. As economic achievements are boasted and celebrated, misfortunes that have made such wealth possible are minimized or even dismissed.

The Biennale includes work by Sarah Adams-Bacon, Robin Arseneault, Richard Boulet, Jennifer Bowes, Ken Buera, Kay Burns, Chris Flodberg, Julian Forrest, Paul Freeman, Anu Guha-Thakurta, Terrance Houle/Jarusha Brown, Geoffrey Hunter, David Janzen, Jonathan Kaiser, Linh Ly, Annie Martin, Mark Mullin, Paul Robert, Laurel Smith and Kristy Trinier.


Robin Arsenault, Head and Mitts, 2006. Image: ubuart.org.uk

For more information please click HERE

Noteworthy events include:

U.K artist Hamish Fulton's talk at the Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre.

October 29, 7 p.m.


Hamish Fulton, the documentation of a walk. Image: khm.de

For more information, please click HERE


3. Camera, Toronto: Video Art in Germany From 1963 to the Present

6 nights of screenings:
MON-WED: Oct 29-31, 7pm
MON-WED: Nov 5-7, 7pm


Six evenings of screenings featuring newly-restored video works from 1963 to the present by such avant-garde luminaries as Marina Abramovic/Ulay, Samuel Beckett, Joseph Beuys, Valie Export, Harun Farocki, Rebecca Horn, Imi Knoebel, Marcel Odenbach, Nam June Paik, Ulrike Rosenbach, Rosemarie Trockel, and Robert Wilson.

For more information on tickets etc, please click HERE

Highlights include:

October 29, 2007

Eh Joe
Samuel Beckett
1965/1966, 33.52 min, b&w
October 30, 2007


Samuel Beckett, Eh Joe, 1966. Image:medienkunstnetz.de

Felt TV
Joseph Beuys
1970, 11.25 min, b&w

October 31, 2007

Space Seeing and Space Hearing
Valie Export
1974, 4.58 min, b&w

Berlin - Exercises in Nine Parts
Rebecca Horn
1974/1975, 40.00 min, colour

Video 50
Robert Wilson
1978, 51.40 min, colour

November 5, 2007

City of Angels
Marina Abramovic/Ulay
1983, 20.09 min, colour

As If Memories Could Deceive Me
Marcel Odenbach
1986, 17.35 min, colour

Good Morning, Mr. Orwell
Nam June Paik
1984, 58.00 min, colour

November 6, 2007

No Sunshine
Bjørn Melhus
1997, 06.15 min, colour


Björn Melhus, No Sunshine, 1997. Image: kunsthalle.nuernberg.de

Buffalo Billy + Milly
Rosemarie Trockel
2000, 05.45 min, colour

November 7, 2007

Prison Images
Harun Farocki
2000, 60 min, b&w

2 things: Luis Jacob in Vancouver, Comic Art at the AGSM, Manitoba

1. Luis Jacob: A Dance for Those of Us Whose Hearts Have Turned to Ice, and Other Works
at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver

October 26 — December 2, 2007

This exhibition features the Vancouver premiere of work from a new series of video installations—A Dance for Those of Us Whose Hearts Have Turned to Ice…—that Jacob produced for Documenta 12, which took place in Kassel, Germany, from June to September 2007.


Dame Barbara Hepworth with one of her sculptures. Image: geocities.com/hepworth

Jacob’s work explores the relationship between sculpture and dance, and takes its inspiration from two art historical sources—the sculpture of British artist Barbara Hepworth, and the choreography of Quebecoise artist Françoise Sullivan.

Sullivan’s performance of Danse dans la neige in 1948 was a seminal event in the history of modern dance in Canada. A Dance for Those of Us Whose Hearts Have Turned to Ice… pays homage to this legendary work of modern Canadian art.


Francoise Sullivan, Danse dans la neige, 1948. Photographs by Maurice Perron
Image: canadacouncil.ca

Opening reception:
Thursday October 25 , 8—10pm

*Artist Talk*
Thursday, October 25, 7 pm

For more information, please click HERE.

2. Comicshow: Drawn to Story at The Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba

October 26 – November 29, 2007


Drue Langlois, Bubble Boss. Image: katharinemulherin.com

Featuring work by Nicholas Burns, Terry Corrigan, Lee Elvers, Paul Kim, Drue Langlois, Brent Lowrie, Alec Matheson, Bruce Palmer, Fred Pashe, Peter Pomart, Andrea Robbins, Mark Saunders, Curt Shoultz and Garret Van Winkle.

This exhibition explores the comic book medium and also showcases works by Brandonite and Southwestern Manitoba artists.

Comic books and alternative cartoons have long been associated with youth culture and underground scenes. Lately they have been making their way into art gallery exhibitions because art reaches large audiences while also speaking to significant contemporary issues.


An image by Garrett Van Winkle for the Walrus Magazine. Image: walrusmagazine.com

For more information, please click HERE.

3 things: Ed Burtynsky book launch, No.9 at TIAF & performance art at the VAG

1. BOOK SIGNING: EDWARD BURTYNSKY: QUARRIES

At David Mirvish Books, Toronto. Sunday, October 28, 2007 from 2 - 4 pm.


Ed Burtynsky, Rock of Ages # 5, Abandoned Granite Quarry, Vermont 1991. Image: flowerseast.com

Photographer Edward Burtynsky and book author Michael Mitchell will be present to sign copies of the book.

After some 25 years of exploring the impact of industry on our planet, the celebrated Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky has accumulated a substantial body of work documenting the world's major quarries -- in Canada, Italy, China, Spain, Portugal, India and America.

For more information, please click HERE.


2. NO. 9 DEBUTS AT THE TORONTO INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR

No. 9 is a new Toronto-based, non-profit curatorial agency committed to the belief that contemporary art can stimulate positive social and environmental change.


Recycled Tube Light by Castor Canadensis. Image: mocoloco.com

At this year's Toronto International Art Fair, No. 9’s Lounge will features a commissioned environment by Canadian designers Castor Canadensis and a film program on themes of ecology, including work by Gordon Matta-Clark, Allora & Caladilla and others.


Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting, 1974. Image: davidzwirner.com

Manufactured Landscapes, the documentary on Edward Burtynsky will also screen.

For more information, please click HERE.

For more info on Castor Canadensis, please click HERE.


3. FUSE AT THE VANCOUVER ART GALLERY

October 26, 2007 from 6 pm to midnight.

That night, the Vancouver Art Gallery will be packed with an ever-changing array of programming drawing on Vancouver’s LIVE Performance Art Biennale and other thriving artistic communities.

Events will include a séance with a deceased neo-Dadaist, theatres where only human heads take the stage, music played on a frying pan, a performance of the seminal minimalist composition “In C” and much more.


Tanya Mars performing Bronco's Kiss, 1996. Image: uleth.ca

FUSE will present one of Canada's most renowned performance artists, Tanya Mars. Joined by Alissa Firth-Eagland in the ground floor rotunda, the artists will perform In Pursuit of Happiness, a meditation on excess and consumption in which the two lavishly dressed women will eat cake continuously for a 12-hour period.

Timed to coincide with the openings of major exhibitions, the Vancouver Art Gallery’s FUSE puts the city’s leading visual arts destination in an entirely new light—at night. FUSE tickets are $15 per person. Free to members of the VAG.

To visit the VAG's website, please click HERE.

Loved and Loathed

LOVED: The excellent craftsmanship of Quebec artist collective BGL at Diaz Contemporary.



Their sculptures are amusing and quite wonderful at challenging our expectations – especially the large format photograph (the same type that VoCA ‘Loathed’ several weeks ago) that literally falls off the wall every so often with a loud crash, before being pulled back to into position.

Click HERE to see images from the works on view.

The group says: “We like to put the work of art somewhere else than where people expect it. If we think about the photographs the viewer walks in and thinks, ‘Ah, what do we have here?’ But for us, the photos are not what is important. We don’t care. For us, the work of art is the piece falling.”

The show runs from October 20 – 17 November 2007.


BGL, Le discours des elements de BGL, 2006. Image: quebecscene.ca

The collective has another show up at the Koffler Gallery, Toronto. BGL: la senteur de mes mains/The marks of my hands is on through November 25, 2007. Click HERE for information on this exhibition.


LOATHED: Shoddy workmanship.


A work by David Altmejd at Birch Libralato. Image: birchlibralato.com

It was great to see the beautiful piece by erstwhile Canadian art star David Altmejd at Birch Libralato Gallery in Toronto. The artist, who isn’t represented by any Canadian galleries, contributed a large sculptural piece – a structured clean Plexiglas box draped with an elaborate sequence of delicate gold chains - to a show curated by gallery artist Micah Lexier.

We loved the piece until we got up close and noticed a huge broken hole at the bottom. Though it wasn’t very noticeable, it was most definitely there and took away from the pleasing symmetricality of the piece.

Micah Lexier explained how the artist embraces imperfections in his work, but VoCA doesn’t buy that. Perhaps we would feel differently if there was an apparent specific reason why the hole was there. We only hope that (although he shouldn’t have to), the well-known, flamboyant supporter of the arts who purchased the piece takes the time and expense to repair it.

The exhibition, which also includes paintings on linen by Renate Anger and Eric Cameron, runs October 20 – 17 November, 2007.

Visit the gallery's website HERE.

Art Review and Globe and Mail articles

Click on the thumbnail to see my review of Auto Emotion: Autobiography, Emotion and Self-Fashioning, which ran this summer at Toronto's Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery.

It's in the October issue of Art Review magazine.



And on this thumbnail to see my preview of the Toronto International Art Fair in the Globe and Mail:

One for collectors, one for artists

Eli Broad with his art collection. Image: forbes.com

1. American billionaire contemporary art collector Eli Broad, who has amassed an 1,800-piece collection and will have a wing of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) named after him in February, thinks art prices are heading for a fall:

Read the New York Post article HERE



Fully fledged art star Cecily Brown. Image: boston.com

2. Young artists, don’t despair. Read this handy program for attaining Art Stardom -- no student loans, art bins or social skills needed!

On Artnet.com. Click HERE to read the full article.