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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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Top SevenDarling, Our memory for these things is awful. All this criticism business takes it out of one, but nevertheless, we assayed, and have come up with 7 entries. Last year, we seem to remember only mustering up 2 examples. At this rate, we'll get to an even 10 next year.
1 - Daniel Barrow, Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry
A new performance that further elucidated his particular peculiar world of the shy, the shunned, the damaged and the perverse: the fey drawings, the floating objects, the effetely tragic narrative; the headiest of vintage Barrow. Not only has his command of narrative deepened, his performance style has sharpened: his apathetic, lisping narrative voice feels like one's inner defeated child weeping softly in one's ear. Surely among Canada's greatest treasures. Which brings us to 2008's greatest failure: The Sobey Award. Already a laugh-fest with David Moos' nationally absurd nomination of the internationally absurd Terence Koh, the fact that Daniel Barrow was passed over merely confirms what we already suspected of this country's institutional curators: a pathetic lot, with not an ounce of imagination or originality to be had. Fire them all, now.
2 - Cathy Opie, An American Photographer (Guggenheim Museum, NYC)
A dazzling, moving collection of work, and a startling, invigorating exhibition. Her mid-career retrospective at the Guggenheim marks her entry into the contemporary canon of American photography. Consider Opie's oeuvre, its profound, unabashed queerness, consider the institutional monumentality of the Guggenheim, and consider just how much more exciting is her show. Yes, beautiful work, deeply personal work that mines (and exhausts) ideas of community and representation; yes, a questing photographic eye, yearning for meaning and beauty (rare enough these days, in the art world, where content is a hurdle to sales); also a shining example of curation that matters: a thoughtful, daring, highly original act of historicization. If only the institutions north of the 49th parallel were this singularly risk-taking.
3 - Ryan Trecartin, I-Be Area
The Pleasure Dome is to be lauded endlessly for a voraciously ambitious fall program: A Lower World was the result of the magical panache that can be the result of living and working beyond one's means. The timing of the screening of Trecartin's latest opus was slightly off, but a marvelous coup nonetheless. Torontonians were able to see, first-hand, the continuing formation of a (so far) deserved mega-reputation.
4 - Carte Blanche, Vol 2: Painting
Yes, yes, yes, there were a host of dubious production choices and decisions that can easily smack of unfairness. And yes, amid the choruses of complaints of Not Doing Things the Right Way (what IS it with Canadians and due process?) some of the critiques levelled at the organization of this tome of contemporary Canadian painting are valid and right. And we aren't particularly impressed by the resultant show. Still, the book stands on its own, and no one else seems to be devoted to or championing this country's artists the way MaryAnn Camillieri seems to be. A sumptuously designed object that can be a genuine ambassador for Canadian painting; people should have been positively throwing funding at her. But no (what are people throwing money at? Well, MoCCA seems intent on giving Matthew Teitelbaum, one of this city's wealthiest residents, a cheque for $20,000). So we would like to extend a hand of hearty congratulation to Ms Camillieri for having the cojones to do something profoundly un-Canadian: committed, concrete self-promotion. We eagerly await Carte Blanche Video, Sculpure/Installation, and Performance.
5 - People Like Us: The Gossip of Colin Campbell (Oakville, ON)
Too long in the coming (see: Canadians, failure to self-promote and-). A tenderly curated show that highlighted just how intimate, warm, and funny video can be. A massive installation comprised of roughly 15 hours of single-channel narrative video that seemed inviting and accessible. A tour-de-force primer of the foundation and generation of community. Campbell's verve, intelligence, and camp should be the stuff of enduring international legend. Furthermore, the sensitivity and humanity of this show only throws into high relief the cold, alienating, and ultimately pointless techno-masturbation of Gareth Long (the partner show at Gairloch Gardens).
6 - The Quebec Triennial (Montreal, QC)
Yes, we complained about much of the work here, but much of it was also excellent. More importantly, the sprawling show was ballsy, forward-looking, unashamed to promote and be definitive about its participants. It just shows how valuable is a sense of cultural identity (as opposed to WASPy anglo Toronto -- we're looking square at you, Power Plant -- too careful and prissy and conceptually precious to actually care about decisively curating their own city's art, or too juvenile and sloppy -- ahem, MoCCA -- to do so without self-sabotage). With shows like these, Toronto and Vancouver, with all their pretense of being international art cities, deserve to be left in the dust of Quebec's thrilling art production.
7 - Sophie Calle, Prenez-Soin de Vous (Montreal, QC)
The DHC/Art Foundation in Montreal brought in this astounding installation of a conceptual artist at the height her powers, and everybody but Heaven knows how much filthy lucre they threw behind it, but they did 'er up right. They paid due reverence to the relentlessly, exhaustively encyclopedic nature of this project of public revenge, sprawling it up, down, across, and all over two buildings. A coup for Canadian curation.