What is art?

Barnett Newman, Onement VI, 1953. Image: picassotopop.com

Of course, art can be anything...etc etc. But what is great art? Having been to see the Louise Bourgeois show at the Tate Modern in London – great art, indeed – has forced us to re-assess what we consider to be great art. We see and recommend the work of lots of young Canadian artists every week, and we believe in their work, but how much of it is truly great? And how do we define greatness? And is it something that an artist has any control over?

We have long believed that great art stems from an investigation, by the artist, into those deep and universally experienced emotions for which there are no words. The visual artist, effectively, creates through imagery what is impossible to express another way.


Picasso, Self-portrait, 1907. Image: blogs.princeton.edu

There are many, many examples of this, from Van Gogh to Picasso to Andy Warhol to Barnett Newman to James Turrell…to Cindy Sherman to Matthew Barney to Louise Bourgeois, to name a few.


James Turrell, Light Reign, 2006. Image: seattlepi.nswource.com

But what about the conceptualists? Sol Lewitt, Donald Judd, Agnes Martin…?

What about some of VoCA’s favorite artists like Rodney Graham, Thomas Schutte, Wolfgang Laib and Bruce Nauman?

If great art is about emotion, why are so few contemporary artists exploring emotion in their work? You could argue that the very best of them are. Gregor Schneider, for example, whose installations can be truly horrifying.


Gregor Schneider, Die Familie Schneider, 2004 - An Artangel production.
Image: state-of-art.org

Has the rise of art schools transformed from a ‘calling’ into a viable career? Look at the popularity of programs at Yale, Goldsmiths and other schools where gallerists pluck artists for their stables from grad shows.

Since Duchamp, who declared that art could be anything an artist deemed it to be, artists have set about making art from anything and about anything. Post-conceptual art has developed into relational aesthetics and ‘conceptualism-lite’, where art is often little more than a witty one-liner.


Simon Starling, Installation view, Turner Prize 2005 exhibition. Image: tate.org.uk

Art history no longer follows one (white, male) trajectory. There are as many forms of art as there are histories, each equally viable. Gay art, Feminist art, African American art, Outsider art…

Art wasn’t always seen as something that you could decide to do and become successful at. It used to be something that you did, and suffered the rest of your life for.

For more on this, please click HERE.

VoCA recommends...Free film *TONIGHT* at the AEAC, Kingston & Farouk Kaspaules at the Ottawa Art Gallery

1. Free screening of Sir John Soane: An English Architect, An American Legacy

*TONIGHT* Thursday 22 November, 7 pm

The Agnes Etherington Art Centre

Please click HEREfor more information.


Sir John Soane, British architect. Image: bankofengland.co.uk

Sir John Soane (1753-1837) has inspired many contemporary architects with his command of natural light and his inviting arrangement of spatially sequential galleries. This visually rich film presents a tour through Soane's life and works, with acknowledgements of his legacy from prominent architects such as Richard Meier and Robert Venturi.

Sir John Soane's Museum in London UK is one of VoCA's favorite places.


Sir John Soane's Museum, London UK. Image: timetravel-britain.com

Introduced by Pierre du Prey, Professor in the Department of Art, Queen's University, and author of John Soane: The Making of an Architect, who will also take questions after the screening.


2. Farouk Kaspaules: Be/Longing

23 November 2007 to 3 February 2008

The Ottawa Art Gallery


Farouk Kaspaules, Ottawa, 1999. Image: civilization.ca

Farouk Kaspaules began making art in the mid-1980s as a way to reconcile his daily life in Canada with the political, environmental and cultural instability of his home country, Iraq.

His visual experiments in mixed media employ a complex vocabulary of images, symbols and aesthetic forms derived from ancient and contemporary Iraq, as well as from his mixed cultural background (Christian, Chaldean, and Arab). Kaspaules strives "to relate daily events to broader geopolitical and social questions."


Farouk Kaspaules, ...and at night we leave our dreams on window sill, memory of a place, 2000.
Image: civilization.ca

This reflects his belief that art and politics are activities "that cannot be separated from lived experience."

Talk with Farouk Kaspaules (in English):

Friday 23 November at 12:30 pm


Farouk Kaspaules, ...and at night we leave our dreams on window sill, memory of a place (detail), 2000.
Image: civilization.ca

Please click HERE for more information.

Canada's newest art fair: The Artist Project

THE ARTIST PROJECT TORONTO

March 6 – 9, 2008

At the Liberty Grand, Toronto



We couldn’t help chuckle as we read that The Artist Project - Toronto's newly announced Independent art fair - “will include…the “Orange Competition” where exhibiting artists will interpret their feelings about the colour Orange."

Nonetheless, MMPI, one of the largest trade-show producers in the world, which has done Art Chicago, the Armory Show in New York and Toronto’s Interior Design Show, will bring The Artist Project Toronto to the city this coming March.

The Artist Project Chicago will run in April next year, concurrently with Art Chicago™, featuring independent artists undiscovered by the gallery community.

The Canadian version is billed as “a four day exhibition and sale of contemporary fine art, which will bring together for the first time a carefully juried selection of new and emerging artists under one roof. It will welcome over 100 juried independent artists selected to showcase their work to gallerists, collectors and art enthusiasts in an intimate environment. Approximately 85% of the artists will be from Canada.”

For more information, please click HERE.

Brian Jungen scupture scores at Canadian auction

A sculpture by Vancouver art star Brian Jungen, made of deconstructed Nike Air Jordan running shoes and hand-sewn into the shape of an aboriginal-style mask, was a big hit at yesterday's sale in Toronto of important Canadian art by Sotheby's/Ritchies auctioneers.


Brian Jungen, Prototype for New Understanding #5, 1999. Image: catrionajeffries.com

"All the bids came from outside Toronto via telephone. Bidding for about the first 10 seconds proceeded in increments of $10,000, but then at the $32,500, one of the callers "jumped queue" to $100,000, electrifying the packed house. A few seconds later, an anonymous New York collector claimed Prototype for $140,000..."

Read the rest of the article from the Globe and Mail HERE.

Jungen is represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver. Please click HERE.

VoCA recommends...Etienne Zack at Equinox Gallery, Vancouver

ETIENNE ZACK: AUTHORSHOP

Equinox Gallery, Vancouver

November 24 - 22 December, 2007



Etienne Zack, Cycle, 2007. Image: equinoxgallery.com


Etienne Zack, Cut and Paste, 2007. Image: equinoxgallery.com


Love it or loathe it, there's no denying that Etienne Zack's work is fantastically creative. At a time when many young painters are influenced by Neo Rauch and the Leipzig School or the grisaille of Luc Tuymens, Zack - whose work does carry echoes of the new German school - has created his own distinctive style, twisting and folding perspective, often drawing from his immediate surroundings, into something more reminiscent of 1980s-era David Salle.


David Salle, Satori Three Inches within Your Heart, 1988. Image: tate.org.uk

He's brave, refusing to shy away from looming forms or nonsensical imagery - witness the large (78 x 90 inches) piece Important Things, whose enormous eyeball in one corner put off several prospective buyers at the Toronto International Art Fair - or his signature murky palette of putty beiges and grey.


Etienne Zack, Important Things, 2007. Image: equinoxgallery.com

Zack arrived in Vancouver from Montreal in 1997 at the age of 20, and eight years later won the RBC Painting Competition. Since then, his work has been purchased by the National Gallery of Canada, the Musee D'Art Contemporain and the Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal.

For more information, please click HERE