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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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| Sandra Rechico's TOP EIGHT (she got distracted) In no particular order  Atsuko Tanaka Mind and Matter: Alternative Abstractions, 1940s to Now MOMA A great show in the gallery near the bathroom and café. When I asked about a catalogue they said no, but they would be releasing the book below soon (because of course making a catalogue from a show with only women in it isn’t worth it But making a catalogue where you include ALL of them means you needn’t do it again for some time) sheesh Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art Edited by Cornelia Butler and Alexandra Schwartz  Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present MOMA makes up for how cranky I was with the abovementioned no catloguer 
Shary Boyle AGO beautiful  Arnaud Maggs Susan Hobbs these are funny, smart and beautiful  David Hoffos MOCCA and the NGC I liked the NGC install better, but either way, it was fantastic  Moshe Safdie NGC the models are worth the price of admission [some images of models here]   Natalie Purschwitz’s Makeshift Project Vancouver she made all of her own clothes for one year and documented it. The year ended in 2010  Art School (dismissed) The decommissioned Shaw Street School, Toronto All right, self-serving, I was in it, but so were scads of others and there wasn’t one bad piece in it. Hats off to Heather Nichol for organizing it. |
Peter Bowyer's Top Ten
1. I have been spending a lot of time in the bicycle friendly city of Utrecht in the Netherlands so my Top Ten list will branch out from here. Barry Flanagan’s monumental bronze sculpture, ‘Thinker on a Rock’ 2002, is a major landmark that I ride past on my bike regularly. A great piece of sculpture, and poignant for me because I knew him for a while in the late seventies when I was in my final year at Central Saint Martins. His oversized green high top sneakers and air of intellectual mischievousness made me think of a red haired Bugs Bunny. A year or so later, when he started to make his bronze rabbit sculptures, they appeared to me as self- portraits. Barry Flanagan,1941-2009.
2. My first side trip out of Utrecht was to Den Haag (The Hague) to see a sound and technology based art festival called ‘TodaysArt’ 2010. Here is a picture of Anke Eckardt documenting her sound sculpture from 2009 called ‘!’. The piece consisted of three speakers suspended in a vertical formation over a pool of black liquid. Like the high diver at a circus, the sound, (a kind of whistle that builds to a crash) travels downwards to the pool and make a big sploosh when it hits, like an invisible rock being dropped into a bucket of black water. Repeat.
3. Amsterdam is a twenty minute train ride from Utrecht. On my first visit to the city I mostly went around to commercial galleries, but also stopped at ‘Bureau’ a satellite space of the Stedelijk Museum. Joep van Liefland had an exhibition called ‘Black Systems’ which focused on relics of outdated technology, like VHS. It made me think how art has historically been made from the discarded tissue of other organisms.
At Ellen de Bruijne Projects there was a show by the two person collective ‘gerlach en koop’ called ‘Not not precise’. An arrangement of quite ordinary things with poetic attachment, and relations to a time the artists spent in Brussels. Beautifully presented objects and marks, ‘minimal gestures’ in an installation, that contained some very distinctive qualities of spatial balancing that I associate with Dutch Modernism.
4. London is not far away, so I headed over (or is it under) to check out the Frieze Art Fair and the multitude of other things going on in the city. I had some unexpected revelations about artists and objects at Tate Britain. I was anxious to see Fiona Banner’s suspended Harrier jet, which I assumed would be a grand critique of modernity. It was an impressive feat of art installation for sure, but it did not transcend itself as an ordinary (hollowed out) found object. A more surprising object at the Tate was a small cubist inspired rug designed by Francis Bacon from 1929. I felt privileged to see it, like finding something that had been hidden, a seemingly accidental object in the continuum of his work, but not a found object.
5. Frieze Art Fair was intense. Out of the hundreds of wonderful displays, the one that really stayed with me was the work of Marlo Pascual. Sculptural pieces from vintage photographs, most were printed as face to plexi and displayed like sculpture, either leaning up against the wall, freestanding or flat on the floor. I liked his direct manner of physically interrupting the two-dimensional.
6. Stuart Shave/Modern Art is one of my favorite spaces when touring around the commercial galleries in London. They had a show by Bojan Sarcevic called ‘Comme des chiens et des vagues’. There were similarities to my own work, in the use of metal and the way of combining two and three dimensions. Simple steel constructions on the floor, re-appear in the accompanying photographs as play things for partially dressed super-models.
7. Marina Abramovic’s two exhibitions at the Lisson Gallery were deeply profound. One gallery housed the older performance works, beautifully re-contextualized as framed photographic pieces with poetic text pages explaining the story behind what you were looking at. Across the street were the more recent works, just as powerful but without the violent overtones. A mature artist totally at peace with herself. In this video she calmly describes her parents tortured marriage, to an understanding donkey.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnSIYGV9dZU
8. The Rijksakademie in Amsterdam is a residency program for artists that does an open house once a year. A mix of painting, video and installation work displayed in the individual studio spaces. I really enjoyed Yaima Carrazana’s ‘Daniel Buren Nail Polish Tutorial’ 2010.
9. The Stedelijk Museum had a large group show called ‘Monumentalism’. Artists working in the Netherlands were invited to address concepts of history and national identity. In the projection ‘Exercise’ 2007, by Lucia Nimcova, the artist filmed older inhabitants of her home town in Slovakia re-enacting some of the exercise routines they were forced to perform in the old communist days. She captured an unexpected form of dance or ritualized movement. The exercises seemed funny, energizing and transformative...lots of laughing on both sides of the screen.
10. Also at the Stedelijk, and bringing to my mind Amy Wilson’s photographic project, ‘Carpets of Las Vegas’; was Job Koelewijn’s ‘Nursery Piece’ 2009. A colored sand painting (with printed stickers and eucalyptus) on pages of text by Spinoza. I share an interest in philosophy and optically complex structures with the artist, and I share a birthday with Baruch Spinoza, born in Amsterdam, November 24th, 1632.
| Jon Davies' Top Ten in no order, just in Toronto, and not including any of his own great triumphs of 2010 (ha ha). 1. The Monkey and the Mermaid by Shary Boyle and Christine Fellows at the Images Festival, April 10, 2010.  Shary Boyle and Christine Fellows’ musical, mixed-media magic lantern show was one of the most delightful, moving, awe-inspiring nights of my life – hands down. Especially the rendition of Dolly's Me and Little Andy and the rebellious young bat in his bedroom. 2. Hovering Proxies by Oliver Husain at the Art Gallery of York University, January 21 – March 14, 2010 and Cushy Number at the Susan Hobbs Gallery, December 11, 2010 – January 22, 2011.  Hovering Proxies  Cushy Number Oliver Husain’s enchanting film, fabric and sculptural installations set the stage for surprising encounters: you inevitably end up as a performer caught in a magical loop between the space of the gallery and his elaborate, whimsical fictions. 3. Un-home-ly curated by Matthew Hyland at the Oakville Galleries, November 27, 2010 – February 20, 2011. Artists: Lucy Gunning, Mako Idemitsu, Suzy Lake, Liz Magor, Luanne Martineau, Shana Moulton, Valérie Mréjen, Paulette Phillips, Pipilotti Rist, Martha Rosler, Nicola Tyson, Jin-me Yoon  Valerie Mrejen Matthew Hyland’s first major group exhibition at the gallery where the young chap is now Director is the first of several planned exhibitions (and a publication) charting contemporary feminist art practices. The work here on the female uncanny was diverse (in materials and perspectives), potent and expertly contextualized and presented (particularly in the Centennial Square library space), with the stand-outs being Paulette Phillips’ work and French artist Valérie Mréjen’s haunting 2006 video of housewife ennui, Manufrance. 4. The Four Times (Le Quattro Volte) by Michelangelo Frammartino, seen at TIFF, September 2010.  The best film of the year is a wordless Italian metaphysical epic – part Pasolini, part Tati – about the transubstantiation of a soul as it travels from the bodies of a shepherd to a newborn goat (!) to a fir tree to charcoal to smoke. Profound and utterly captivating. 5. Inside The Solar Temple of the Cosmic Leather Daddy by Will Munro at Paul Petro Contemporary Art, February 26 – March 27, 2010.  It’s impossible to talk about 2010 without marking the great loss of artist and producer (of everything) Will Munro, particularly as his last installation – which closed less than 2 months before his death from brain cancer – was essentially his sanctuary, where Munro staged a space to safely and comfortably spend eternity: a cozy macraméd sex sling surrounded by the iconography of his queer forefathers (and, at the opening, by scores of his closest friends and fans). 6. Scream: Ed Pien and Samonie Toonoo, curated by Nancy Campbell at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, April 20 – May 29, 2010.  Samonie Toonoo (left) and Ed Pien (right) Ed Pien is one of our most under-recognized artists, and this in-depth exhibition of his exquisitely perverse drawings alongside equally strong work by artist Samonie Toonoo was a dark, thrilling experience (courtesy of curator Nancy Campbell). 7. A to B curated by Micah Lexier at MKG 127, July 3 – 31, 2010.  Micah Lexier is the hardest working man in the Toronto art scene, and this brilliantly assembled collection of objects (art and not) was the perfect hall-of-mirrors showcase for his obsessions, in this case with order and likeness. 8. Once and for All We're Gonna Tell You Who We Are so Shut Up and Listen at Harbourfront Centre’s World Stage, February 16–20, 2010.  The misbehaviour of a big group of loutish Belgian youths is sublimated into a Charlie Kaufmanesque structuralist performance as a single scene of perfectly choreographed teen anarchy is re-enacted over and over again with increasingly mind-blowing variations. 9. Unfinished Business: Eric Baudelaire at Gallery TPW, May 6 – June 5, 2010.  Eric Baudelaire’s exhibition – which included a body of work based on Antonioni, a feature-length video (Sugar Water) chronicling a Parisian Metro posterer, and a stack of books all titled Unfinished Business – was a dizzyingly smart and perfectly executed Toronto debut for one of the most exciting younger artists at work today. 10. The Flesh at Work: A Lizploitation Cinemagoria, curated by Derek Aubichon and David Balzer, May 2 – November 7, 2010.  The activity I most looked forward to week after week was this private Sunday evening screening series focused on Elizabeth Taylor’s late “decadent” phase, exploring her persona as a “a blowsy, vulgar battle axe” from 1965–2001. While a library could be filled with my thoughts on these 23 movies – my faves were Losey’s Secret Ceremony (and Boom, natch), Minnelli’s The Sandpiper, the Carol Burnett co-starring and Shot-in-Toronto HBO hit Between Friends, the Cukor-directed and Soviet co-produced musical pablum The Blue Bird, euro-horror trash Identikit, and the beyond-belief There Must Be a Pony – suffice to say that the Bell Lightbox has nothing on these boys as far as rooting out the real classics of world cinema. Honourable mentions: The Fighter (dir. David O. Russell) and The Ghost Writer (dir. Roman Polanski), Jennifer Murphy and Dorian Fitzgerald at Clint Roenisch, David Hoffos at MOCCA, Red Bull 381 Projects in general but specifically Enthusiasm: Abbas Akhavan, Kelly Jazvac and Ron Tran, The Storyteller at the AGO, Christine Swintak & Don Miller at the Blackwood Gallery, Tacita Dean at Gallery TPW, and my boyfriend Sholem Krishtalka’s Lurking Tumblr. |
More top tens coming, too drunk to format. Soon. SOON.
Look at the poor doggy.
Rob Cruickshank's Top 11 Internet Cat Videos of 2010.
I was supposed to do some art this year, but I got busy watching cat videos, and the time just ran away on me. For those who actually spent the year doing art, or going to grad school, or going to shows, and generally thinking and stuff, here's a quick catch-up on the significant events of 2010.
#11 Joel Vietch, The Internet is Made of Cats
Not strictly a cat video per se, but it set the tone for the year to come, and we were all humming the tune for days, even whole weeks.
# 10 Ultimate Kitten Snuggle
One of the most significant cat videos of 2010.
#9 Cat vs Printer, the Translation
We'd all seen that video a million times, maybe even in a comic-sans email from Dad, but the voice dubbing made it new again.
#8 Fainting Goat Kittens -original video
Not every cat video made us LOL. Charlie and Spike made us cry. Ok, we laughed a little bit before we heard that they died. Then we spent the rest of the day sorting out our feelings, and watching the odd fainting goat video.
#7 Cat attacks Vicious Gators -Unbelievable.
Would they have intervened if the gator had eaten the cat? Who knows?
#6 Cats Playing Patty Cake, what they were saying...
The quality of voice dubbed cat videos just keeps getting better. It's offensively dumb when people do it with dogs or babies, though.
#5 Epic cat fight (cat's horror) Crows vs Cat vs Cat Street Fight
Inter-species weirdness is always a winner. These kitties are playing for keeps, which makes it a bit disturbing, but that's part of the appeal.
#4 Red Lights, by Holy Fuck.
Toonces, the Cat who Could Drive a Car Meets Bullit. How could it be anything but awesome?
#3 Sneaky Cat is Watching You
An instant classic in traditional internet cat video style.
#2 Kitten Riding Turtle
It's a tortoise, not a turtle, and it's not the original video, but if you don't have Baby Elepahnt Walk as the soundtrack, you're doing it wrong.
#1 Many too small boxes and Maru
Once again, Maru is the most famous cat on the internet. Mark my words, we'll be watching these as part of a big retrospective at MOMA within a decade.
Special honourable mention to Devo, whose live stream of a cat party to launch their latest album Something For Everybody cost the global economy countless person-hours.
Andrew Harwood’s Winnipeg top 10, Honourable Mentions & Dishonourable Mentions
1) Diana Thorneycroft, “Canada, Myth, and History, Group of Seven Awkward Moments Series” Winnipeg Art Gallery, June 12, 2010 to August 22, 2010
Diana Thorneycroft never ceases to delight me with her often humourous and darkly themed artworks. This exhibition of photographs toys with the paintings of the Group of Seven, as they serve as backdrops to plastic dolls and homemade props engaged in various “Canadian” activities. I haven’t laughed out loud in a gallery in a very long time. Thank you for this treat of a show and hilarious re-visioning of Canadian history and art history.
2) Deirdre Logue, “Rough Count”, Platform Gallery, Winnipeg, “Cabin Fever” group exhibition curated by JJ Kegan McFadden, October 30 – December 15, 2010
Counting confetti never looked so good! In this series of videos by Logue, she undertakes the onerous task of hand counting a big bag of confetti. “Rough Count”, 2006 –present, seems like an impossible task and according to her own rules, she stops and starts the counting over again as she miscounts pieces, she also stops taping and starts over again. This work is about patience, a playful form of obsessive compulsion and trying to make order out of chaos. Several monitors portray Logue’s counting so that while watching these works, I was almost overwhelmed with the idea of having to count and recount confetti.
3) Mary Anne Barkhouse “Game”, Urban Shaman, Sept 10 – Oct 2
Barkhouse uses nature and the idea of play in her whimsical and engaging show “Game”. One of the best sculptures/maquettes I have seen this year is “Beaver Lodge”; a riff on modernist architecture, doll houses and yes beaver damns. In “Beaver Lodge”, a mock up of a beautifully constructed modernist house scattered with toy-like beavers going about their work of making damns and chewing wooden bits. This work is deceptively cute in that it also questions our understanding of what is “natural” and “manmade”. And perhaps Barkhouse is also questioning our current obsession with modernist architecture?
4) Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, New Gallery at the Buhler Centre, University of Winnipeg
Congratulations to Plug In, on their groovy new digs on Portage Avenue. The grand opening of this gorgeous new gallery was also a fabulous event attended by thousands over the course of 3 official evenings of welcome. (Winnipeg Art Gallery – take note – Plug In knows how to host thousands of people, see: Dishonourable Mentions below.) Neil Minuk and his architectural firm, DIN, are also to be congratulated on a spare, bright, modernist-inspired building located on the campus of the University of Winnipeg, housed in the Buhler Centre. The whole centre was also designed by DIN and the Buhler Foundation is to be given huge props for donating $4 million to this project. Three great new galleries now house the exhibitions of Plug In; my only complaint – dump the florescent lights in the gallery spaces – this trend comes into vogue for galleries and artists every ten years or so (like camouflage in fashion). Otherwise - REALLY WELL DONE!
5) Lori Blondeau & Adrian Stimson, “Putting the Wild Back Into the West”, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, Nov 6 – Dec 19, 2010
OK I am so crushed out on these two artists, I am not sure I could ever be objective! Blondeau and Stimson exhibited restaged black and white photographs reminiscent of colonial portrayals of the west. They deconstructed the racist portrayals of “Cowboys and Indians” to revise and update the historical content. What was so fabulous about this work is, that these artists also had tonnes of costumes at the opening reception and the audience participated in dress up and a photo shoot! People learn way more through play than dusty inaccurate history books written by white dudes!
6) Eleanor Bond, “Mountain of Shame”, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, Nov 6 – Dec 19, 2010
Prairie fave Eleanor Bond’s new works, “Mountain of Shame”, looks at the naïve and vibrant aspects of modernist art in painting and sculpture. Bond makes reference to colour field and abstract expressionism in her lush, yet simultaneously spare paintings using a heavily 1970’s inspired colour palate. The child-like qualities and intentional naiveté of her works are wonderfully disarming and cheerful. I know you are not supposed to say that about art, but touché Eleanor Bond!
7) Ming Hon’s performance at Plug In ICA. Summer Institute, August 2010
Ming Hon is a Winnipeg-based performance artist and dancer who participated in this past summer’s Summer Institute at Plug In. Hon wowed a large audience at the Summer Institute’s closing reception in August with her dance performance that incorporated the use of a meat cleaver that she used suggestively on her body, but also clanged on the floor so that it issued sparks from the blade to punctuate moments in her dance. Her choreography and movements were elegant and also violent. The piece also hinted at the idea of the body as food and the tension between the knife and her body was electric.
8) “I Know What My Weakness Are, Probably Better Than You Do” August 2010, group show, Freud’s Bathhouse and Diner
“Freud’s Bathhouse & Diner is a private, artist-run gallery in Winnipeg’s Exchange District attempting to showcase the work of captivating and challenging artistic individuals and endeavors from Canada & abroad.” The name says it all for me! This new space is 3rd wave Grunge, with an emphasis on the juncture of music and art. Their summer Zine show in August “I Know What My Weakness Are, Probably Better Than You Do” was refreshing; featuring works by emerging Winnipeg artists such as Reuben Illanos, Zine artist Ameena Scream, genius live video mixer mrghosty and up-and-comers from out-of-town such as Toronto-based Beth Frey, Rhode Island artist William Schaff, and Ramsey Beyer from Chicago. I loved the sculptural piece by Kara Passey called “Foxes are the Wolves that Bring Us Flowers” using what looked like “Dad’s” beer bottles and his foam insulation sprayed and stuck together. This wonderfully hideous piece was set on a depressing wooden coffee table – perfection! Freud’s Bathhouse and Diner is so hip and grungy - you can feel the bedbugs crawling off the used furniture and biting you with provocative art!! Amazing! Or was that a performance?
9) “Remix City”, Kevin Fawley, October November 2010, Raw Gallery
“RAW: Gallery is a site specific art gallery dedicated to establishing a dialogue between artists/architects and the general public on issues pertaining to the art of architecture and design. Our mission is to promote experimental and exploratory architecture and design.” Raw Gallery is great new gallery in Winnipeg run by smart and sexy Joe Kalturnyk, located in the basement of 290 McDermot Street. The space is, as the title implies, quite raw, but beautiful, like a gorgeous version of the basement in “The Amityville Horror”, but not at all creepy. Kevin Fawley’s “Remix City” was a perfect fit for this space. He re-imagined the city of Winnipeg through the use of collaged imagery – portraying an apocalyptic future. He used historical photos and the use of drawings to imagine grayed-out visions of speculative pasts and futures colliding.
10) Leslie and the Lys at Plug In’s “DIY Craftiva” May 2010.
I had the great honour of hosting an event at Plug In’s DIY Craftival this past May. Leslie and the Lys performed their amazing music and sold all things crafty and Leslie at the Craftival, a three-day craft fair with performances and dj’s organized by Plug In. Her wicked beats and hilarious Iowa white rap holds up well and her new tunes got the entire gallery dancing with delight! It was so great to see her again after introducing her to Toronto at TAAFI 2005 (the year it was really good – thanks Barr & Pamila!)
1) Honourable Mention - Golden City Gallery
One of the new crop of DIY and alternative galleries sprouting up in Winnipeg. It hosts some of the best in emerging artists and throws wicked parties, thank you! Adrian Williams show rocked!
2) Super Honourable Mention – The Orphanage
Local booze can, speakeasy, after hours club – the best one I have ever been to anywhere. Dj Beekeeni (she’s worked with the B-52’s) plays the most delicious retro 60’s, 70’s music mixed with current dance faves. Dreamily beautiful bartender April doles out great cocktails! Artists love this place, on occasion there are Hollywood types here too, when in town they show up after long days on film shoots. A fascinating mix of fame, artists, grunge, booze, fags, dykes, trannies, dancing, music and the friendliest straight people evah! Wish I could thank the owner here, but its Winnipeg’s best kept secret!! Refuge and respite for all Orphans. Thank you!
1) Dishonourable Mention - Winnipeg Cultural Capital 2010
Who, what, when, where, why and how much? Well no one seems to know much about any of this. The Winnipeg Arts Council maybe largely to blame for the mismanagement of this enourmous failure of a project. It was granted federal monies and then made it difficult for artist-run centres and public galleries to access the funds and on top of this, they also then tried to control any of the funds that they did give to non-profits. The transparency of whom the monies were doled out to has not been made particularly clear and the “process” smacked of favouritism. Ouch, and well with the exception of Nuit Blanche no one seemed to go to any of the events planned for Cultural Capital LOL – disaster! Like a tornado of federal cash cascading over the Prairies – except where did it go? It may have gone down either the Red or the Assiniboine. Shame! We’re not talking $100 dollars here.
2) Dishonourable Mention - Winnipeg Art Gallery and Nuit Blanche Winnipeg.
Huh? The WAG hosted Winnipeg’s first Nuit Blanche. It seems to be too dangerous to have performances and art on the streets of Winnipeg by artists and also for the general public to attend. Mind you, also a bit late in the season to have artists out in the cold at the end of September, anyways. The WAG was reportedly prepared for roughly 400 guests, but had thousands and turned away that many people at the door. The building can easily hold 1,000 + people comfortably. They did not have enough security, gallery staff or hospitality to actually host the event. Apparently, Wanda Koop’s art also fell off the wall during the event and she insisted that it be re-hung by whatever overwhelmed and scant gallery staff present during all of the chaos, divine!! Diva! I would have done the same thing girl, even if it had been my shoddy workmanship that caused the installation problems in the first place.
3) Dishonourable Mention - aceartinc.
Do not ask any questions of the staff here, they are way too busy and self-important to talk to artists or writers. Do not enjoy yourself whilst viewing their shows or have fun at their fundraisers. aceartinc. feels like one of the most unfriendly places in Canada to view art, folks it’s colder inside this gallery than Mercer Union in the early ‘90’s after the Eli Langer debacle. Would it kill you to be nice for three seconds – does visiting an artist-run centre have to feel that uncomfortable for your viewers? Young commercial gallery receptionists and administrators from New York, should be sent to an aceartinc. residency to learn how to work with the public. Oh yeah aceartinc. is publicly funded – oh I almost forgot. P.S. I have discovered that I am not the only artist in Winnipeg that feels this way, without even prompting the topic. Public relations. People.
However, aceartinc. did sneak out a great two-person show by Elisabeth Belliveau and Jessica MacCormack, “Natural disasters, pets and other stories” August to October 2010.
This exhibition featured beautifully rendered animations, drawings, and collages using the themes of psychic phenomenon, animals and disjointed narratives.
Von Bark's Top 5 swell Epic Movie Musical set-pieces of the 20th Century:
Oliver!: Who Will Buy?
Carousel: June is Bustin' Out All Over
Sweet Charity: Somebody Loves Me (I'm a Brass Band)
South Pacific: There is Nothing Like a Dame.
Gold Diggers of 1935: Lullaby of Broadway (2)
Note: Also considered were West Side Story, New York New York, My Fair Lady, An American in Paris, and Forbidden Zone. Not included probably because selecting the Set-Piece didn't exactly conform to the 'set' perfectly..
| Top ten science fiction/speculative fiction novels Sally McKay was reading and/or pondering this year, with various tangentially related images for illustration. 1. Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood  I picked these scenes from 28 Days Later to illustrate Margaret Atwood's Year of the Flood because there are some real similarities, both in plot and atmosphere. In Atwood's book it's the near future and due to a technoscience catastrophe in genetic manipulation humans are pretty much done for while everything else organic, including weird new species, has started taking over. There are scary, macho, militaristic dudes with knives and guns and tough survivalist women who figure out how to deal with them. The main characters belong to a religious cult based on environmentalism and science. In their incantations they rhyme off their Saints, including Saint James Lovelock, Saint Stephen Jay Gould of the Jurassic Shales, Saint E.O. Wilson of Hymenoptera, and Saint Dian Fossey, Martyr. Oh, and Saint Jesus of Nazareth, Fish Conservationist. Atwood is really riffing in this book, and in parts the fast-paced complexity of cultural-referencing starts to feel almost like William Gibson or maybe more like Douglas Coupland. Anyhow, it rocks, and it's way more fun that some of her other dystopias, like Handmaid's Tale. Year of the Flood is an excellent sequel to Oryx and Crake (which I also loved) but it totally stands up on its own. 2. Dhalgren, by Sam Delaney  Urban sex and violence and the end of the world. Delaney writes great characters and sets them in a situation that is never really explained. Everything is fucked up. The sun is fucked up and the world seems to be ending. People are banding together in tribes and cliques in the streets of a big city (New York). Squatting, fighting, foraging, partying. The main character is queer and charismatic, one of those unwilling leaders who is forced to learn how to wield his power. It's a door stop, and a page-turner. I thought about using Escape from New York as an illustration because there's, you know, hedonism, punks and street gangs and fires-in-a-barrel. But there's an existential streak in Dhalgren that keeps it more interesting than just a porny paperback, and the book's cover, with all it's sci-fi cheese, is perfect. I also picked a stock photo of a dying sun. 3. Enchantress from the Stars, by Sylvia Louise Engdahl  I really ought to read this one again. It's been about 35 years. Here's what I remember — People from a technologically advanced sciencey planet show up on a peasant-type planet that has been taken over by a bunch of resource-extracting developer-types from a business-oriented planet. The advanced technology people are there to intervene and help the peasant people but they have a Star Trek-style prime directive thingy so they can't let the peasants in on any of their science secrets. The developer people have bulldozers plowing down villages and forests and the peasant people think the machines are monsters. The techno people pretend they are sorcerers and enchantresses so they can use their science weapons on the bad guys. Oh, and they have telepathic powers, which they have to hide. But it turns out that some (well, one) of the peasant people have telepathic powers too. Of course there's a transgressive peasant/techno BFF/love affair (written for 12 year olds). There's a frigging great scene where the main telepathic technology "enchantress" gives the main telepathic peasant character a wadded up bit of bread and tells him/her (can't remember the gender) that it's a magic pill that will block out pain because the peasant person is about to get captured by the baddies for some kind of torture. The peasant person is really smart and figures out that the so-called enchantress is messing with his/her head... stupid fake bread pill, not magic at all, etc. But the enchantress person breaks the prime directive, and, through the awesome power of telepathy, manages to communicate with the prisoner in his/her cell, and lets him/her know that yes, the bread pill is a fake but he/she has the power within himself/herself to detach from the pain and withstand the upcoming torture. Crazy! And It works! In the end, this being a kids' book, the smarty pants magic/techno people and the peasant people manage to drive the developer people away and then the techno people also leave so the peasant people can get back to their normal lives. But it's very sad because the main peasant character has had a taste of advanced science/telepathy/magic/technology but now has to stay behind in the muck to be a leader for future generations (at least, that's how I remember it, it's been a loooong time). 4. Neuromancer, by William Gibson  Who do you like better, William Gibson or Neal Stephenson? Stephenson can do character development and create a compelling narrative, but Gibson broke the seal on cyberpunk with his ruthless, hard-edged postmodern use of language. Gibson was a master of the plausible near-future and Neuromancer introduced readers to a world that was awful, familiar, prescient and also kind of fun. I chose Existenz as an illustration because the visceral, spine-crunching depictions of jacking-in evoke the kind of painful reality-wrenching that Gibson's characters undergo when they shift in and out of the matrix (way better than the smoothed off edges of The Matrix movies). I chose Blade Runner because, well it's just the best cyberpunk movie ever. Von Bark tells a tale of Gibson going to see Blade Runner right before Neuromancer came out and falling into a pit of despair because he felt like he'd been scooped. I chose Grace Jones because that's who I'd cast to play Molly. 5. Ridley Walker by Russell Hoban  Originally I was going to leave this one off because others seemed to be more in the forefront of my mind, but while working on this list I realised that some small part of my brain has been permanently assigned the task of thinking about Ridley Walker all day, every day. The book takes place in an invented language and you just have to keep reading until you get into the groove and start to understand it. It's a post-nuclear-disaster, medieval-style, pagan-ish society on the brink of re-discovering some get-us-out-of-the-dark-ages technology. Their creation myth is great, enacted in the form of a punch and judy style traveling puppet show. In the hart of the wood there's a little shining man, named Addom, who get's split in two. The hart of the wood is both a big stag, with a little dude hanging out between his antlers, and the heart of a tree, which provides fire. Some hero named Eusa did the whole Addom-splitting thing. Here's an eerie snippet from the post-apocalyptic lore. Owt uv thay 2 peaces uv the Little Shynin Man the Addom thayr cum shyningnes in spredin circels. Wivverin & wayverin & humin with a hy soun. Lytin up the dark wud. Eusa seen the Little 1 goin roun & round insyd the Big 1 & the Big 1 humin roun inside the Littl 1. He seen thay Master Chaynjis uv the 1 Big 1. Qwik then he riten down thay Nos. uv them.I collaged my own illustration of the little shining man riding the stag (Hoban himself was in part inspired by the story of St. Eustace who allegedly came across a stag with a little shining crucifix. I don't know how Eustace relates to Hubertus, but this is where I got my stag.). Of course there's also the whole Jabberwocky/crawling in the muck/medieval peasant thing going on too...with Punch n' Judy to make life bearable. 6. Never Let Me Go, by Kasuo Ishiguro   I loved this book so much that I can't bring myself to see the movie. Ishiguro is probably best known for Remains of the Day. There's a similarity, in that the characters are contending with unthinkable horrors by shifting between states of denial and resignation. Life goes on. Augh! It's horrible. I chose Charlotte's Web as an illustration because as I child I was utterly creeped out by the idea that humans could slaughter a talking pig and I was traumatized by the pathos of a spider and pig bonding out of necessity under such dire, tragic conditions. Never Let Me Go inspires the same feelings in me (except now I am a grown-up and the characters are human). And Animal Farm...well...it's just more of the moreness, only it's about how individual critters internalize state oppression so that the situation becomes self-perpetuating. OOf. It's all too nasty, but Ishiguro is such a good writer that the misery is somehow mitigated and everything that happens feels like it's bathed in a clear and watery light. That's why I chose the sanitorium. 7. The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin  I read this book several times when I was a kid because it just seemed so sensible compared to everything else out there. People can be androgynous — D-uh! There's some setting and plot and stuff like that but I forget it. The cover is a classic and the other images...well, let's just say that science fiction does gender-bending really, really well sometimes. 8. Fiasco, by Stanislav Lem  I restricted myself to one book by Lem because otherwise everything on this list would be by him. I don't want to write spoilers for Fiasco. I will say that the story lives up to the title. Lem is really really good at metalevels of thought and meaning. His plots are often quite unhinged, and, pre-cyberpunk, his characters slip in and out of various sorts of reality. But, you know, it's human astronauts in space dealing with time, technology, and the possibility of life of other planets. Sounds like classic sci-fi and it is - Lem's powers of description are great and the stories are gripping. His combination of philosophy & boys home adventure makes for rip-roaring tales with really awesome mind-bending twists. In Fiasco the world remains pretty consistent, but the story is a tangle of tangents, all of them page-turners, and everything classically structured to return the reader to the urgent, over-riding narrative. I chose this picture of Lem himself because you can see in his face how much fun he's having and that mischievous teasing is there in the prose as well (and comes through great in translation). Plus a really great fan drawing of Lem's recurring character, Pirx the Pilot. 9. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson  As implied above, back in the 90s Neal Stephenson gave William Gibson a bit of a run for his money in the cyberpunk genre. Stephenson's narratives were a little tighter and his characters a little less adolescent, but Gibson always had the edge with his fantastic lingo. Eventually Stephenson stopped writing straight-up sci-fi and moved into historical fiction about science and technology. Anathem is a return to the classic sci-fi arena, and this time it's all about language. It's as if Stephenson decided to take one more crack at Gibson, this time on Gibson's terms.* Anathem is full of made-up words, complete with etymological footnotes and dictionary definitions. At first I thought it was too clunky and forced. But after a while the cultural history of the fictional language just seemed to seep in and take on a deep, rich texture. I chose a big old monastery as an illustration because the book takes place in a setting much like this and — small spoiler — outer space is outer space. It's kind of like A Canticle for Leibowitz, only the story just charges along. Another door stop page-turner. Perfect for staying in bed or travelling. *I'm not totally fabricating this rivalry. Read this, it's hilarious. 10. Mocking Bird, by Walter Tevis  Are people getting stupider? I read this book right after watching Idiocracy. Mockingbird is better — mournful, heart-wrenching, nuanced. Yup, it's the future and everyone has become really, really stupid...and it's up to a couple of autodidacts to save the day. Autodidacts are the tribe I want to belong to, because while our puttering, quixotic information-seeking processes can seem rudderless at times, it's people who gain their knowledge through enthusiasm that really know how to spread it around. Mockingbird was published in 1980 but it keys right into 21st century anxieties.* There's a sad sad intelligent cyborg who just wants to die (but can't), an empathetic thought bus, and a couple of canny humans who teach themselves how to read and get a grasp on history. And a cat. I chose Miyazaki's cat bus as an illustration because of the obvious thought bus/cat bus connection, but also because the tensions of darkness and light in My Neighbour Totoro are laced with a similarly melancholic sense of hope. I picked the image from Man on a Wire beause it relates directly to the plot, but also for it's greyed-out, atmospheric, existential clarity which is the kind of feeling that permeates the book. *I don't believe for one second that people are getting stupider. But there's a polarized battle front emerging with we-don't-read-books-and-we're-proud-of-it types on one side and snobby-elitist-academic-ivory-tower types on the other. yike. As an auto-didact, I feel like I'm being forced to take sides and I don't like it. |
R.M. Vaughan's Top Five Disappointments of 2010 (it was such a disappointing year, I can't even come up with 10)
The Death of Gary Coleman
I always supposed that Gary Coleman would have a comeback - get a talk show, or a radio show, or a recurring part in an HBO series. Something. He was due: producers made millions off of him, but his parents stole his money, and then he tried to be a rapper and then he tried to be a preacher (and if you can't make money being a preacher in America, you are truly cursed). He married unwisely, and, of course, did not grow to an adult height.
The Elizabeths (Taylor and Windsor) continue to disappoint. They are just full of life.
Prince Harry
Speaking of the Windsors, Prince Harry is obviously on some very tight leash (maybe the Queen looked fish-eyed at him and made vague references to Parisian traffic?). He has not fallen in front of a cell phone camera red-nosed drunk, or in a Nazi costume, nor been photographed playing nipple bingo with his army buddies, all year long. Harry, Harry, Harry - you have a life of complete irrelevance awaiting you, why are you not acting like the wastrel you were bred to be? At least get caught with a tranny tart in 2011. You have a duty to your subjects.
Art World Crybabies
As at least 12 of you have noticed, I've taken to writing about art for The Globe and Mail. It's a nice job, for a people person such as myself - but, yikes, the hate mail! I can write the word "genius" next to an artist's name 99 times, and then finish off with the word "probably", and I'll get weeks and weeks of cunty emails. As Sky Gilbert once said to me, "what would these people do if they were in theatre, where an entire career can be destroyed by one 300 word review, written past the author's bedtime, in haste for the morning edition?" Indeed. In my own sad little enterprises, I've gotten the five stars and I've gotten the zero stars. On the latter occasions, I had a nice little cry and then carried on. But then, I'm an Atlantic Canadian. We fetishize disappointment.
The Departure of Nadja Sayej
Oh, now, stop it, stop yer fussin'. You know you watch her Artstars* videos, you know they make you laugh. And yet, you ran her out of town (see paragraph above). Say what you like about Nadja's journalistic practice, but she started a long-overdue conversation about the too ponderous tone of art reckoning in Toronto. Now she's doing it in Berlin - because that's what we do in Toronto, we drive all the clever people off the continent. Funny thing is, if she ever comes back, all you bitches will be clawing for her attentions, because she'll have been Berlinified, and you're nothing but a pack of whiny colonial neurotics. There, I fucking said it.
Democracy
The batteries are low. Not dead, but low, vole-belly low. For instance, in the recent civic election, I realized, as I sat behind the cardboard and made my marks, that I was voting for two gay men, neither of whom I actually wanted to represent me, in order to block the possible (and, it turned out, inevitable) win of two heterosexuals I really did not want to represent me. A pity date is not social progress.
Ross Angus Macaulay and Marlaina Buch' s Top 20/10 List (in no particular order)
FASTWURMS - Hood Woad at the Ministry of Casual Living, Victoria
The presence of a billboard sized, hot pink pentagram flag only upset one retirement party.
Die Antwoord - Launch of $O$ album, Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver
There's nothing hard to understand about Die Antwoord, people. They're from South Africa. Things work a bit differently there.
Ryan Trecartin - Any Ever at the Power Plant, Toronto
Your average day on Robson Street, now in contemporary art format for greater digestibility.
Alexis Gideon - Video Musics II: Sun Wu-Kong at Disjecta, Portland
Journey to the West related through the mediums acid rock and animation to a packed house in a post-war (does post-war even mean anything in America?) Portland burrough for five bucks.
Alison Pebworth - Beautiful Possibility, across Canada and the US
An entirely self-produced touring project as finely crafted and considered as Alison's handmade pioneeress outfits.
Adventure Time - The Cartoon Network, Everywhere
Stoner Bear/Man producer rolls out a charming, hazardous world charted by adorable protagonists surprisingly free of moral rectitude.
VanHalentine's Day Dance - Ministry of Casual Living, Victoria
IF YOU'RE NOT DANCING, YOU'RE GARBAGE.
Joon-ho Bong, Mother - at the Bloor Cinema? Toronto
DIY acupuncture and revenge.
Ross Macaulay and Luey McQuaid duet "Fire in the Disco" - Thanksgiving Day, The Astoria, Vancouver
The pregnant bartender says, "I think my baby likes this song."
Meatpaper Magazine - Issue 12, picked up in Portland
Did you know - dressing up your placenta used to be common practice?!
illustration by Emily L. Eibel
| Gabrielle Moser's Top Ten 1. Oliver Husain at the Art Gallery of York University  Photos by Cheryl O'Brien I think this is the first show I saw in 2010, and it set the bar pretty high. I love Husain's playful installations which combine unexpected, seemingly fragile materials with beautiful video pieces and audience interaction (The fan! The balloons! The scarves!). The AGYU solo show was impossible to explain to other people, and yet I kept talking about it all year. I still haven't caught his new solo show currently up at Susan Hobbs, but it is first on my post-comps viewing list. 2. "To Be Real," Althea Thauberger, Lars Laumann, Helen Reed, Prefix ICA, curated by Rose Bouthillier  Althea Thauberger This group show on art, ethnography and fandom, curated by recent OCAD Criticism and Curatorial Practice grad Rose Bouthillier, hit just the right mix of earnest and ironic for me. It was nice to see Althea Thauberger's work in Toronto, which seems to happen rarely, and to see Lars Laumann's very strange Berlinmuren put into conversation with Helen Reed's fantastic co-production with a bunch of Twin Peaks fan fiction writers (it helped that I was also re-watching Twin Peaks from the beginning at the same time). 3. Ryan Trecartin at the Power Plant, curated by Helena Reckitt and Jon Davies 
I usually have video art attention deficiency problems and find it difficult to sit through anything longer than 7 minutes, but I had to be pulled away from the beds, airline seats, picnic tables and bleachers that populated Trecartin's show at The Power Plant. The solo show was a big scoop for the gallery and, whether you love or hate Trecartin's frenetic, over-the-top productions, you couldn't deny that this seemed like an "important," truly international-caliber show. And, as Terence Dick pointed out in his list, after seeing so much work these past two years that was historiographic and obsessed with the past, it was refreshing to see an artist whose aesthetic seemed to herald something about the present/future. 4. "No Soul for Sale: A festival of independents" at the Tate Modern, curated by Maurizio Cattelan and curators Cecilia Alemani and Massimiliano Gioni  Black Dogs I caught this exhibition over two days at the Tate Modern while I was living in London. It marked the 10th anniversary of Tate Modern and invited more than 70 artist-run centres and non-profit/independent arts organizations to co-habitate in the Turbine Hall. The event was not without its political and organizational problems, such as a lack of artist fees or travel funding (some of them are outlined on Black Dogs' website, which used the event to discuss the implications of an "independent" event in a large institution like the Tate: http://www.black-dogs.org/index.php?/recent-current/how-not-to-sell-your-soul-at-tate-modern/), but it was also unlike anything I have ever seen before, and wandering amongst so many exhibits and events from all over the world did drive home the point that incredible things are happening in artist-run culture, in spite of (or because of) increased neoliberal pressures. 5. Wangechi Mutu at the Art Gallery of Ontario, curated by David Moos (I think?)  Maybe the biggest surprise of 2010 for me was Wangechi Mutu's solo show at the AGO, "This You Call Civilization?". After reading many critics' responses to her work, which can be a bit over-the-top (the pock-marked walls, for instance, were a bit much for me), I didn't expect to like the show, but Mutu's large-scale collage works, especially the ones that incorporate medical diagrams of women's reproductive "ailments", were both comical and icky. 6. Tacita Dean's "Craneway Event" at Gallery TPW, curated by Kim Simon  A co-presentation with the Images festival, this 16mm film that charts several days' rehearsal of Merce Cunningham's "Craneway Event" dance performance was more watchable and engaging than every commercial movie I saw this year. I brought several people to see it during its all-too-short run and kudos should be given to Kim Simon for bringing Dean's work to Toronto and presenting it with just the right amount of reserve. 7. Katie Bethune-Leamen at MKG127  I loved Bethune-Leamen's wacky mix of Victorian arctic explorers, experimental orchestral synth-pop, dazzle camouflage and Cold War spies. Her videos, sculptures and paintings were gorgeous to contemplate on their own, but also offered up more nuanced, layered meanings the longer you stayed with them and the more background research you unearthed about her references. 8. Ken Lum at Vancouver Art Gallery Offsite  Lum's from shangri-la to shangri-la seemed the perfect, subtle commentary on the effects of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games on Vancouver, recreating several shacks from the Maplewood Mudflats–the site of 1960s artistic radicalism on the city's North Shore where Malcolm Lowry and Tom Burrows both created work–at the Vancouver Art Gallery's "Offsite" location at the base of the city's largest building, a luxury hotel/condo complex called The Shangri-La. Whether you drove by it on your way to the North Shore, or saw it up-close, it was an understated reminder of the city's trajectory through urban development. 9. "Un-homely" at Oakville Galleries, curated by Matthew Hyland  Shana Moulton This two-site group show on the feminist uncanny was a pleasant reminder of what Oakville can do when it tackles a great combination of works in an original way (the Centennial location has never looked so different). Standouts were Paulette Phillips' new video work, seeing Martha Rosler's "Semiotics of the Kitchen" in larger-than-life scale and getting to watch Shana Moulton's "Whispering Pines" series in full. I'm already looking forward to the other exhibitions in the gallery's three-year series of feminist projects. 10. My favourite art discoveries of this year: Karen Asher's photography, Margaux Williamson, Carl Wilson and Chris Randle's blog Back to the World, Ryan Trecartin's list of inspirations/directions for his W magazine spread, "Studies in Motion" by the Electric Theatre Company, Bravo's "Work of Art" reality TV disaster, and the realization that NFL football makes pretty great animated gifs. |
Sunday - Miss Piggy
Woman w/ Raquel Welch
Never on a Sunday
Fuck the Pain Away
Joe McKay's top video game stuff of 2010
Minecraft
If you’ve ever said, “modern games are obsessed with graphics at the expense of innovative gameplay” and/or “sandbox games offer such promise yet never seem to really let you explore, interact and create in a fun way” then you must play minecraft. In fact, it’s about to come out of Alpha and go into Beta on the 20th which will mean a higher price so now is really the time.
You need to learn the basics (surviving your first night, finding coal and crafting) — http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Minecraft_Wiki — but I’d recommend against watching too many youtube videos (there are zillions) and explore the game on your own. Seriously - dude - this game is “emergent gameplay” at its fucking best.
Survivor mode is the only way to play, btw. All other modes are for posers.
Limbo
You’ll need to be on the Xbox, and you’ll need to have the xBox Live, but if you have all that get a download of Limbo. It’s a puzzle based side scroller with real innovative level design. You will die, a lot, and there’s real comedy/horror when you do.
Red Dead Redemption
The West done right (mostly). Rockstar realized that in the end, story is what makes a good western not horses and guns. A story about redemption and revenge and stuff. It’s the first GTA game that I actually finished, and the first game with cut scenes that I never skipped. Second best video game of the year (although I didn’t play Reach, Left 4 Dead 2, Masse effect 2, Grand Tourismo, or the new Need for Speed, so I’m not exactly an authority).
Peggle on the iphone
I’m still not sold on the iphone as a gaming device, but peggle was pretty fun.
HAWP
Hey Ashley Whatcha Playing is a very clever video-cast about games by brother and sister duo Anthony and Ashly Burch.
If you need to watch just one try this. It doesn't require any video game knowledge to get the jokes.
TRON (original)
In anticipation of having my childhood candy coated and turned 3D, I watched the original TRON again. My thesis has been that a remake will be impossible because the original was actually a crappy movie and our love for it is based on geeky nostalgia not actual movie goodness. But I was wrong. TRON is great! (Apologies and a hat tip out to Marisa - you were right, I was wrong, don't get used to it). There’s some seriously weird stuff in this movie and it handles the virtual world shenanigans with tongue in cheek cleverness, and NOT the naive 80’s optimism I was remembering. It’s refreshing to see after all the super seriousness post-cyberpunk Matrix / dark City / Johnny Mnemonic stuff that came later. Plus the graphics have that "they will never be this good again" feel vector graphics give you. It's hard to describe, but you can bet the new one is going to be ugly in comparison.
| Anthony Easton's Twelve Events 2010: 1. The weird fleshy exuberance of Gustave Caillebotte's dead pigs, esp in a room full of late renoirs.  photo by Jerry 2. Rachel McRae's difficult absorption and wrestling with the aesthetic and social potential of the monumental.  Rachel McRae, I Always Arrive At These Things Too Late, at Katherine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects 3. Pae White's delicate balance between the traditional and the digial, in how she attempts to eff the ineffable, esp her witty and meta wall hanging wall hanging and the hauntingly moving smoke tapestry.  4.The graphic design of 70s gay porn, esp. Honcho and Drummer at the National Leather Archives  5. Johns' Catenary series (From the Lagoon, 2003). ( Often this series is talked about formally or even mathematically, and it does bring of elements out of the formal plane. But the catenary is also the muscle that raises the testicles, and in this late work, the limpness has a pathos, compounded by the grey tones and the funerary seriousness. In a post-Viagra age they are oddly brave. (The one I saw in Philly was in a room of about 7 Johns, and it was a very small room. Next to the piece was Painting with Two Balls. That said, Philly had more than its fair share of cock art)  6. Jeff Thomas and Shelley Niro, contemporary 6 Nations artists who respond to the history of colonial portraiture, in a show about the politics of representation—v funny and v smart. It was part of the National Portrait Gallery, and this proves how much of a loss that gallery was. 7. This 8. The collapsing of homo-social and homosexual boundaries, as a broad chest pushes against white cotton—in this painting by Eakins:  9. Super Cross!  10. El Antusi's Peak Mountain: at ROM. first thing--why this show isn't at the ago, and the ethnographic history of that is a problem, but this one peice, a group of mountains constructed out of the gold lids of peak canned milk, has everything. it is beautiful, and it is redemptive, and it is easy enough for a five yr old to say shiny (& one did), but it is also about how Ghana was once an empire of gold, and ghana was the place where gold was made from slaves--the push and pull of commerce, acculmated into carefully constructed piles of detritus, has an intensity that rises and falls, like an undertow, never breaking the surface. 
11. Ryman at Beacon, an entire 6 rooms of them, but my favorite was a set of creamy grey white works on paper in a room of dusky grey lite.  12. Will Munro: his show at Paul Petro was vital, his show at the AGO was perfunctory, but the night he died, as facebook and email fired up I wrote this in an email a week after he died: “i went to his impromptu memorial a few days ago, and will go to the dancing party next Wednesday the memorial was profoundly moving, because it was unstructured... there was talking, and hugging, chatting, and casualness--fireworks were lit, there were candles and flowers--the touching that occurred came from our collective mourning, the collection of bodies emerged from a deep and profound feeling....happens...  |
Emails from mjean:
| Gabrielle Moser is running an interesting series on her blog, an "informal archive of Canadian curated moments put together by Canadian curators from across the country." She's invited curators to list 5 curated shows that had an impact on them. I decided to do one of my own. So here goes... |
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1) Free Parking Gallery (1996-1997) curators: Michael Buckland, Jill Henderson, Anda Kubis artists: Heather Allen, Julie Arnold, Louise Bak, Alan Belcher, Adrian Blackwell, William S. Brown, Peter Bryne, Michael Buckland, Neil Burns, Patriciu Calimente, James Carl, Roger Carter, Corinne Carlson, Carlo Cesta, Dave Clark, Don Collins, Reid Diamond, Rebecca Diederichs, Jerry Drozdowsky, Same Easterson, Pate Ellis, Kate Farrell, FASTWÜRMS, Bud Fujikawa, Eric Glavin, Lee Goreas, Janice Gurney, Sarah Hartland Rowe, Ken Hayes, Sue Havens, Greg Hefford, Jill Henderson, Karen Henderson, Alexander Irving, Luis Jacob, Luis Jacob & Andrew Power, Maura Jasper, Lisa Johnson, Susan Kealey, Robert Kennedy, Jinhan Ko & Gillian Frise, Nestor Kruger, Anda Kubis, Carter Kustera, Stacey Lancaster, Olga Lysenko, Daniel Lui, Kristin Lucas, Patrick Macaulay, Euan Macdonald, John Marriott, Dave McFarlane, Greg McHarg, Joe McKay, Sally McKay, Jennifer McMackon, Matt Meagher, Shanna Miller, Lorna Mills, Regan Morris, Lisa Neighbour, Jack Niven, Nathalie Olanick, Daniel Olson, Laura Parnes, Holly Polly, Marina Polosa, Coman Poon, Andy Patton, Heather Raymont, Brent Roe, Liz Rosch, Mario Scattaloni, Brian Scott, Dave Shrigley, Molli Simon, Carl Skelton, Matthew Sloly, Ben Smith Lea, Andrew Szatmari, Ho Tam, Laura Teneycke, Kika Thorne, Hendrika Sonnenburg & Chris Henson, R.M. Vaughan, Liselot van der Heijden, Neil Weirnik, Norman White, Kil-young Yoo Jennifer at simpleposie and I were chatting IRL about Free Parking Gallery the other day. It was a one-year curatorial experiment that had an enormous impact on artists of my generation in Toronto. By renting a raw space, shamelessly putting themselves in their shows, curating a whole pile of artists they liked, and providing free beer at openings, Free Parking showed me and my artist peer group that we could create our own discourse based around the practical-yet-radical assumptions that other people's art is exciting and putting on art shows is fun. It was a massive influence on Lola magazine, which we started up pretty soon after Free Parking shut down. Every generation of artists has to find a way to articulate their own context. Free Parking Gallery showed that generous, DIY, artist-initiated curation is a darn good way to go about it. |
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2) Persona Volare (2000-ongoing) artists/curators: David Acheson, Carlo Cesta, Michael Davey, Reid Diamond, John Dickson, Rebecca Diederichs, Brian Hobbs, Lorna Mills, Lisa Neighbour, Chantal Rousseau, Lyla Rye, Kate Wilson, Johannes Zits Persona Volare is a large, self-curating, artists' collective. I love this model. Before all the unused buildings in downtown Toronto were razed for condos, the city was bubbling over with artist collectives who would rent big temporary spaces and set up huge, rangey, diverse exhibitions. Nether Mind and Chromosome were famous ones, but I arrived in Toronto about a minute too late to catch that action. I remember Mud, Spontaneous Combustion, The Sex Show. Heather Nicol's big group shows at the Shaw Street school and Wallace Studios are reminiscent of that time. Persona Volare's first two shows, in 2000 & 2003, happened at the tail end of available real estate. They took place in an empty office building on College Street. Since then, they have shown together at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris, Rodman Hall in St. Catherines, the Tree Museum in Gravenhurst, and the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Owen Sound. I love the self-organised nature of Persona Volare. I'm impressed that a group that large has lasted this long. Emergent, consensual administration can be a nightmare, but there's something about this group that seems to click. The exhibitions hold together through a kind of organic dynamic. The works are always diverse and they resonate well with one another, but never in an over-determined way. The collective doesn't seem to worry too much about articulating why they are together in a curatorial sense — they just are, and it works. |
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3) House Guests: Contemporary Artists in the Grange (2001) curators: Jessica Bradley, Christina Ritchie, Jenny Rieger artist: Rebecca Belmore, Robert Fones, Luis Jacob, Elizabeth LeMoine, Josiah McElheny, Elaine Reichek, Christy Thompson I feel badly for the AGO. Even now, post-Transformation, the place sometimes feels haunted by the Boultons, that multi-generational Family Compact brood of social-climbing dunderheads who used to own The Grange. I sometimes think the best thing that could happen to the AGO would be to bulldoze The Grange and replace it with a skate park. Next best thing was the exhibition House Guests, where contemporary artists were invited to infiltrate the mansion. One of my favourite pieces was Rebecca Belmore's Wild — in which she made up the master bed with animals skins and slept on them. Her visceral presence as a First Nations woman in the master bedroom of The Grange made a simple statement—Aboriginal Canadians have been made invisible by British Canadians. The other overtly political work was Luis Jacob's In All Directions. Jacob invented an 'angel' out of lights that was dashing through the parlour, trying to get out. In the catalogue Jacob suggests that “It may indeed be more accurate to view the [AGO] itself as an annex to the Grange — as the gallery is linked architecturally and ideologically to the house from which it originated. These roots are nourished and perpetuated by the Gallery through its donated collection and sponsored programming.” House Guests was a brave project, an important piece of self-criticism that could easily have brought the wrath of wealthy patrons down on the gallery's head. It was like a kind of curatorial purge, an attempt to slip away from the clutches of the past. Unfortunately, Toronto's historical roots as a muddy little colony full of self-serving British colonials simply will not go away, and the Grange remains a physical reminder of the ties that bind the AGO to the city's colonial legacies. |
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4) Speaking about Landscape, Speaking to the Land, AGO (2005) curator: Richard William Hill artists: Rebecca Belmore & canonical Canadian art history greats Despite ongoing troubles at the AGO, there have been some really excellent and hopeful curatorial developments. In 2005 (pre-Transformation) Richard Hill put Rebecca Belmore's giant megaphone Ayem-ee-aawach Ooma-mowan: Speaking to the Mother, into the middle of a large gallery with paintings by from the Group of Seven, Emily Carr, David Milne, Jack Chambers, Paul Kane, and Cornelius Krieghoff. It was an in-house critique, shaking up traditional approaches to the historic Canadian collection by putting canonical works into a somewhat confrontational conversation with a contemporary First Nations artist. It was a powerful curatorial statement about the ways that museums shape historical narrative. Happily, the AGO has continued this trend post-Transformation, and Gerald McMaster's curation of the JS McLean wing puts a number of works by First Nations artists in direct conversation with the works from the colonial cannon. You can still hear the ghosts of the Boultons rattling their chains, but at least in this wing of the Gallery they aren't setting the agenda. |
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5) past now, MacLaren Art Centre (2010) curators: Lisa Myers and Suzanne Morissette artists: Meryl McMaster and Luke Parnell Lisa Myers and Suzanne Morissette are emerging curators with a kick-ass exhibition under their belts. past now is on view at the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie until Feb.21. The way that these artists' works speak to one another demonstrates a fine-tuned curatorial sensibility. Both Parnell and McMaster are really technically skilled, and the aesthethic clout of their work is really satisfying. And both of them are making very nuanced statements about the conflicted role of traditional craft practices and representations in First Nations art history. McMaster uses digital photography (but no photoshop) to create eerie layered portraits that reclaim a kind of Romantic image of the Indian from Colonial history. Parnell is a wood carver who situtates himself firmly within the tradition of the great West Coast carvers, yet his pieces are very of-the-moment and potent with a personal/political historical narrative. The exhibition is eloquently speaking to a past, now, without making any essentialist claims nor giving pedantic, didactic lectures. Either artist on their own would be wonderful to see, but placed together, their conversation resonates and grabs you by the throat. |
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Bonus (6) Unreal, York Quay Galleries at Harbourfront Centre (2010) curator: Patrick Macaulay artists: Tyler Clark Burke, Jason Dunda, Christy Langer, Sto, Jennifer Rose Sciarrino, Jennie Suddick, the slomotion, Jason van Horne I pick this engaging and utterly contemporary little exhibition in the vitrines at York Quay Galleries as a typical example of the ongoing curatorial brilliance of Harbourfront Centre's Patrick Macaulay. Disclaimer: I have co-curated an exhibition with Patrick that is also currently on view at York Quay Galleries so I'm biased. But I have seen Macaulay's curatorial brain in action and it is an awesome process to behold. He has a giant and ever-growing rolodex of contemporary Canadian artists in his head. His light yet poignant thematic touch creates the kind of dynamic discourse that makes exhibitions into idea-producing engines. He is dedicated to engaging with his public, which represent an unchartably vast demographic. Macaulay's exhibitions speak to art world experts and un-art-initiated audiences of all ages. The York Quay Galleries, comprised of many very public exhibition spaces, is veritable hive of contemporary art activity. |
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Bonus (7):The 1984 Miss General Idea Pavillion at AGYU (2009) curator: Philip Monk artists: General Idea Philip Monk can be pretty funny. His re-staging of two 1970s exhibitions by General Idea was contextualized as an historical tongue-in-cheek collaboration with the artists. It was humourus and exciting in a time-travel kind of way. I was too young to be there for General Idea, and the show was like a little window into an influential piece of the past. It was great to take my class of Canadian art history students there and watch them try to sort it out. They looked pretty puzzled, and I imagined that's just how people must have looked in the 70s too, when they were trying to parse the fact/fiction dynamics of General Idea's installations. Monk's layered histories worked simultaneously as a recorded document and an in-the-moment art experience, a real curatorial coup. |
Sunday - Aaron Neville & the Neville Brothers
One Love
Use Me
If I Had a Hammer
 drawings by Rob Cruickshank |
| Libby Hague's free
radicals project for the Art & Science Exhibition currently showing at Harbourfront involves a series of puppet shows by various performers that Libby is taping and editing for Youtube. Come by this Saturday and witness Zenexistential Puppet Theatre's Generic Creation Myth. Zenexistential Puppet Theatre VB and Rob Cruickshank A Generic Creation Myth Saturday Dec.11th, approx. 3pm Harbourfront Centre 235 Queens Quay West, Toronto |
Update: some images here and here and here. (This photo by tobadogs shows one my favourite moments: puppets putting on a puppet show.)
Michael Caines - Perfect Happiness at Mulherin Pollard Projects, 317 10th Avenue, New York
Twin Set 2010 india ink on paper
Lil' Kim 2010 india ink on paper
Perfect Happiness 2010 india ink on paper
David Wojnarowicz Gets It Better by Sholem Krishtalka (via Back to the World)
One Day This Kid… was made in 1990 and, twenty years on, I can’t help but think that Wojnarowicz, in a single print, has eclipsed the totality of the It Gets Better campaign. For one thing, each of the horrors that Wojnarowicz enumerates are still true, twenty years on (as I read through it, I can easily think of news items from the past year that bear these phrases out). Given his art-world fame, one might be tempted to infer that It Got Better for Wojnarowicz. But that’s not the point, and he knew it. (And, eighteen years after his death, conservatives are still attacking his work.)
See also: Q&A with Dan Cameron, curator of the New Museum’s 1999 David Wojnarowicz retro (via Paddy Johnson)
I think that David was pretty agonized a lot of the time, to be honest with you. He just didn’t understand why someone who wants to actualize their life, their consciousness, in the broadest and richest possible way, why they’d become targets for people who want to shut that down. There was an essential confusion with him, he’d ask it over and over again: What is the source of homophobia in our society, and why do we not look at homophobia as a disease the same way we understand racism and sexism are bad and negative, and that they harm and even kill people? We’ve never had that national conversation, and David insisted that it be in the forefront of discussion of his work.
It's Top Ten Aesthetic/Art Event time. (best or worst) (of 2010 or the last decade, we are lax about rules)
Send us your lists and links (so we can source images.)
You can be a detailed over-achiever like Anthony Easton
or you can complain a lot like R.M. Vaughan
Subtle self promotion is welcome.
Blatant self promotion is only welcome if you make me laugh.
Our sort of deadline is Dec. 27th. (once again, let's not leak too much into the new year because we're all sick of it by then)
(contact)
HAPPY KRAMPUS DAY TO ALL OUR EUROPEAN FRIENDS!
Bill Burns at MKG127 127 Ossington Ave, Toronto until December 18, 2010
Northern Trees and Moose Curator 2010 Watercolour, Illustrations from his ongoing autobiography
Anthony Easton on Jack Bush:
The thing with the Late 60s Bushes (and i saw an amazing one atMiriam SellnikMiriam Shiell today), is that one assumes that tthey are like noland or early stella, in their flatness, but their use of thin washes and subtle underpainting, combines a variety of modes of abstraction--here, with the underpainting of light purple on violet, then the impositon of a hot pink element, grounded onto a obliqued angle/tower of decortative colour--decorative colour that could be on couches or pillows or wallpaper, assumes a number of competing narratives of how to paint non-represenational them, and makes an anthology, that transitions b/w extreme comfort to jarring discord. The one at Sellnik, which is not on their website, does the same thing, but intsead of a collection of disparte elements, was 6 stripes in colours that were both clear and muddy, muted and bright, natural and fake, almost a dilaectic (a less sucessful one from the mid 70s had a swampy mudgreen ground with three bright swatches of colour, which indicates that the high risk/high reward compoenet of this kind of work)
