Percy, 20090101, HTML, 450 x 450 pixels
Clotilda, 20090102, HTML, 450 x 450 pixels
Eric Glavin's top ten for 2008
1) James Carl - Jalousie at Diaz Contemporary, Toronto.
2) Manfred Pernice - Diary at Anton Kern Gallery, New York.
3) Arundhati Roy - The Briefing, "Scenarios", Alexander Vaindorf - Detour. One Particular Sunday, "The Rest Of Now", Ricardo Valentim - A Form Of Display, "Principle Hope", Marcus Coates - Dawn Chorus, "The Soul" at Manifesta 7, Fortezza, Bolzano, Rovereto and Trento, Italy.
4) Patrick Bernatchez - Chrysalide Emperuer & David Armstrong Six - drawing for look into the light, light, light, light the Québec Triennial at Musée d'Art Contemporain, Montreal.
David Armstrong Six
5) Simon Starling, Cuttings (Supplement) at The Power Plant, Toronto.
6) Arni Sala - Naturalmystic (Tomahawk #2) & Omar Fast - A Tank Translated from In The Dark - Art In The Shadow Of War at Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto and Blackwood Gallery, Mississauga.
Omar fast - A Tank Translated
7) Omar Fast - The Casting, The Whitney Biennial at The Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York.
8) Sasha Pierce at Greener Pastures, Toronto.
Sasha Pierce- Dark Blue
9) John Eisler - Untitled at Diaz Contemporary, Toronto.
John Eisler Untitled acrylic oil on canvas
10) Marcel Dzama - Even The Ghost Of The Past at David Zwirner, New York.
Fist Born
(found)
Lorna Mills' Top Six or so List for 2008 Jam-packed with Oodles of Colonial Tensions.
1) My Trophy Nephew's RCMP Graduation Ceremony from the RCMP Academy, Depot Division in Regina, SK.
(Animated GIF's to follow sometime in the future).
(eat that Tonik Wojtyra!)
The Boots! The Riding Crops! The Red Serge! The Jodhpurs! Bossy Men Yelling! Hierarchy! A ten hour marathon of marching and prancing with three costume changes, lunch, signing ceremonies, more prancing, a dinner banquet, speeches, toasts, more prancing, a cool drinking game I invented, photos, video, and then more ceremonies where I sort of lost track what they were doing exactly. I felt like my family was the most Canadian family that ever was, on a higher plain of hyper-Canadianess, making me totally untouchable in my über Inner Canadian state, that was until it was announced this past week that Sally's dad, the poet Don McKay, will awarded the Order of Canada, so now I welcome her and joester up onto my Himalayan Heights of Personal Canadian Evolution.
This is now the most Canadian art blog in the universe.
2) Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams
The only Conservative politician in this country that will not be insulted or slandered on this blog ...for now. Over a hundred years ago the Crown leased water and forestry rights in Newfoundland-Labrador to a then British company who would run a lumber mill in exchange. The ownership of the mill and resource rights eventually came to AbitibiBowater Inc., who shut down the mill this year. Shockingly, a Canadian Politician grew a spine, and effectively returned the water, timber and lucrative hydroelectric rights into public hands.
Some observers warn that under the rules of NAFTA, Newfoundland will be sent to prison. And furthermore, no corporations will ever invest in Newfoundland ever again because their money is safer in Somalia. (They especially won't want their dumb old conveniently located off-shore oil). Danny gets a blingee.
3) Wil Kucey at LE Gallery - who looks at about 2000 submissions a year from young artists with small C/V's and few reviews, and is actually capable of figuring out who is really good and giving them shows. That's just not done, Wil, how the hell would you know good art without the supporting critical texts and sales to the Tate Modern. You aren't going to get on a Sobey Award jury just using your eyes and your brain.
4) Daniel Barrow - Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry (I think we all figured out where I was heading at the end of item 3)
5) Steven Cohen's Maid in South Africa part of the Images Festival, at V-Tape
Steven Cohen with Nomsa Dhlamini and Ann Cohen (a nice family picture I found)
I'll just copy and paste my earlier comments on the work:
Keeping in mind that I get embarrassed at re-runs of "I love Lucy" (it always made me squirmy and slightly sick and I'm not the only one), I was expecting to be cringing my way through this work when I went to see it.
First of all, Cohen's timing and edits were impeccable, he starts by leading us down the garden path with such a sweet elderly shuffling woman, slowly showing us brief glimpses of images and objects in her world that indicate the struggle against apartheid. The tenderness of that sequence, Nomsa's frailty and the subtle indication of the historical events she has lived through made me cry. Of course he's set me up for the cleaning-stripper sequence.
When Sally writes that he "is merciless to his audience, and delivers the debasement of this woman he cares about with unrelenting shots of her cleaning the filthy toilet, crawling on the carpet to sweep up cigarette butts". I can only partially agree with that, I thought he showed incredible restraint, this wasn't twisted cruel granny porn that he was producing. Each shot and angle went just far enough to torment the audience, make us fear what may be exposed next, but he's too much of an artist to debase her as a performer.
I saw the stripper sequence with the disco fuck me soundtrack as defiant, yet that defiance was oddly contradicted by her slow purposeful cleaning activities. She floated above Cohen's art video set-up, and he knows it. Defiant, as well, in the context of a national domestic economy that takes a huge servant class for granted, rendering them invisible, inconsequential and even despised. (That's before you even take into account the national legacy of slavery and abuse.)
I also had less of a problem with the sight of an almost nude 84 year old woman, in fact I was reminded of an early work by Lisa Steele, Birthday Suit - with scars and defects from 1974. She'd probably agree that eventually getting outfitted with an old body is a major sign of success.
I wish there had been a transcript of the phone interview between Steele and Cohen because I had a hard time understanding his accent so I know I missed a lot of additional information, but there were a few things he said that were very powerful. Several times he described her actions as "cleaning the uncleanable" --a brilliant metaphor for the larger political conditions of South Africa-- "with optimism and commitment".
There's one other thing that came to mind with Cohen's statement that the piece is truly a South African work. Participation in a international art scene does not have to simply translate to star-fucking festivals, V-tape has all my admiration for programming an artwork that purposely contains the peculiarities of a specific place, and I am so glad that I saw this video because I left the screening thrilled and moved.
6) Finally, I found this animated GIF:
Hannah Evans' Top YouTube Finds of 2008
2008 was the year YouTube melted my brain. Late in 2007, I met one of the founders - a nice, unprepossessing young man with floppy blonde hair. He didn't seem like a mad, brain-sucking genius. Then I started spending more time on the site. And even more time. Banal but true: there is an infinite variety of creative endeavour captured there. Here's my top 3 of the year:
1. Marvin Gaye sings the star-spangled banner : Best performance of any nation's anthem ever, delivered at a 1983 all-star basketball game. I wonder, is there anyone who could deliver the Canadian anthem with this kind of panache? Buffy Sainte Marie, maybe?
2. Riding a bike with Lucas Brunelle: Lucas Brunelle straps a camera to his head and races in alley cats across the world. His work is thrilling and the music always rawks. This one is from NYC.
3. Diva wars: There is a corner of YouTube where it really matters that Whitney kicks Mariah's ass. Or vice versa. A lot of sincere time and effort appears to be spent on this question and the posts are deeply infused with passion. I like that.