ROM: JANUARY EXHIBITS;
MOCCA: WILL GORLITZ: NOWHERE IF NOT HERE / ALWAYS ALREADY;
NARWHAL ART PROJECTS: THE TAXALI 300 / MAGIC PONY;
SHOW & TELL GALLERY: TESSAR LO EVERYTHING WE WANTED IN OUR NOSTALGIC FUTURE
/ NIMIT MALAVIA: I CAN'T LOVE YOU BUT WE CAN ROMANCE;
VARLEY GALLERY: THE AUTOMATISTE REVOLUTION: MONTREAL 1941-1960;
AGO - MUTU / REMBRANDT/FREUD / PALMSONNTAG;
AGO - DEPRESSION PRINTS / EGYPT / SCULPTURE AS TIME / SULLIVAN;
NATIONAL BALLET: WINTER SHORTS PROGRAM 2010;
JAPAN FOUNDATION: COUNTER-PHOTOGRAPHY;
MOCCA: UNTITLED SEVEN / CINEMA X: I LIKE TO WATCH;
EDDIE IZZARD: STRIPPED;
NATIONAL BALLET SUMMER MIXED PROGRAM (PUR TI MIRO, OPUS 19/THE DREAMER, WEST SIDE SUITE);
AGO: DRAMA & DESIRE, PHOTOCOLLAGE;
JAPAN FOUNDATION: TENUGUI TOWELS;
ROM: TERRACOTTA ARMY;
ROM: DINO EGGS;
ROM: LATE NEWS, etc;

ROM: JANUARY EXHIBITS

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

I went to the ROM to catch up on a series of small exhibitions.

On its last day was Cut/Paste: Creative Reuse in Canadian Design, which was kind of fun.

Lamps made from old fire extinguishers, toaster made from cigarette case and guitar string, glove with rivet ring inserted for smoking, clock made from ties, lamp made from a designer chair.

Then it was on to Fakes and Forgeries: Yesterday and Today, which was a series of interactive displays on the difference between genuine and forged 'antiquities' - all of them actually owned by the ROM.

Third was Canadian Content: Portraits by Nigel Dickson, a Canadian photographer. Kinda interesting.

Fourth was Kings of Punjab, a couple of very large paintings of two 19th century Punjab kings.

A little bigger was Coffee & Smokes in Medieval Yemen. Drinking coffee was virtually invented in Yemen (though the plant was across the Red Sea in Ethiopia), but was very expensive. Smoking probably was much older, though the exhibit is talking about tobacco, which would have been new to the region then. Interesting.

Harem women smoking their shisha.

And finally i saw East Asian Paintings & Prints: Recent Acquisitions - 40 never-before-seen acquisitions, all important examples of paintings, calligraphies, and prints from Korea, China, and Japan.

The acquisitions have been both old and contemporary.

MOCCA: WILL GORLITZ: NOWHERE IF NOT HERE / ALWAYS ALREADY

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

Gallery Saturday, part one

I went into TO with a busy agenda.

First up was MOCCA, with exhibitions of Canadian artist Will Gorlitz, including Nowhere If Not Here in the main space and Always Already in the project space. In fact it was the opening reception.

Part of a series based on numerals.

Very large.

I really liked this series - 3/4 view tends to be distant, but these were very intimate shots of people walking.

I liked these too.

At first i thought the work was pretty conventional, which it was to some extent, but it pulled me in. I couldn't find a shot of one fave series, which was a series of still lifes, which would have been ordinary if they hadn't been painted on the pages of a book. The rendered forms popped out on the flat paper.

NARWHAL ART PROJECTS: THE TAXALI 300 / MAGIC PONY

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

Gallery Saturday, part two

Next up was Magic Pony (the gallery/store) and its sister Narwhal Art Projects (a few storefronts down the street., which had The Taxali 300 Gary Taxali Solo Exhibition. He works in a very retro style, and in this case often on old books. Interesting.

I'd actually gone to the store first.

There was a Junko Mizuno print - i have some of her books.

Tara McPherson - i met her at a Comicon in TO.

Kozyndan - never heard of him(her?)* before, but i loved this - when you realize what the crest of the waves are made of.

*turns out it's both, a couple!

SHOW & TELL GALLERY: TESSAR LO EVERYTHING WE WANTED IN OUR NOSTALGIC FUTURE / NIMIT MALAVIA: I CAN'T LOVE YOU BUT WE CAN ROMANCE

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

Gallery Saturday, part three

The last place (whew!) was at the Show & Tell Gallery on Dundas just west of Ossington. First was Tessar Lo's solo exhibition, Everything We Wanted, In Our Nostalgic Future. He's ethnic Chinese, born in Indonesia, grew up in Canada.

Then it was I Can't Love You, But We Can Romance by Nimit Malavia, a grad of Sheridan's Illustration program.

VARLEY GALLERY: THE AUTOMATISTE REVOLUTION: MONTREAL 1941-1960

Saturday, February 28th, 2010

"...an untamed need for liberation..."

On Saturday, i went to Unionville to the Varley Art Gallery in Markham to see the show The Automatiste Revolution: Montreal 1941-1960. The Automatistes were a group of avant-garde artists in Montreal (Canada's art centre in those days), kind of the equivalent to the Abstract Expressionists in New York. Aside from heradlding the abstract art revolution (including dance, theatre, etc, as well as painting), they were political 'radicals', issuing the Refus Global manifesto at a time when Quebec was still very conservative and controlled by the Catholic Church. They helped bring about Quebec's Quiet Revolution. Anyway, i really like their art styles.

From one of Francoise Sullivan's dances.

An early Paul-Émile Borduas.

Claude Gauvreau.

Marcel Barbeau (very Jackson Pollock-y).

A later Paul-Émile Borduas.

Jean-Paul Riopelle, my fave (buy me one, will you?).

AGO - MUTU / REMBRANDT/FREUD / PALMSONNTAG / DEPRESSION PRINTS / EGYPT / SCULPTURE AS TIME / SULLIVAN

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Friday after class i went down to the AGO to see a bunch of exhibitions that have piled up.

First up was This You Call Civilization? which "features stunningly intricate collage-based works by African-born, New York-based artist Wangechi Mutu in her first major museum exhibition in North America." It was good, although i can't really identify with her identity politics.

Then it was Rembrandt/Freud: Etchings from Life which "creates an opportunity for a visual conversation across the centuries between two great masters of the human form, Rembrandt van Rijn and Lucian Freud. Both artists regarded printmaking as an integral part of their art practice and created extraordinary images using the etching process." I had assumed it was Sigmund Freud when i'd seen the listing, ha ha. Rembrandt (a painter as well as an etcher) is from the 1600s, Freud 1900s (and still kicking). The Rembrandts are all from the AGO's collection, and surprisingly small.

American Prints of the Great Depression "features 30 prints [from the AGO’s permanent collection and private Toronto collections] that take viewers from the roaring 1920s through the dirty 1930s, from New York to the American Midwest, through a time of great political and social change in America". Another good one.

Egypt in the Western Imagination, "features 9 exquisite historic works... these prints (augmented by a great 1880 photograph of the pyramids) highlight the European fascination with all things Egypt, an attraction that has been going on for centuries." It's a little misleading, as it focusses particularly on one man who eventually joined the AGO in the early 20th century, and became a professor at U of T and Trent.

Then it was up to the 5th floor for Sculpture as Time: Major works. New Acquisitions, which "explores sculpture’s relationship with time, featuring recent acquisitions and major works from the AGO’s collection. These dynamic artworks do not just occupy space, but also time. They invite visitors to think of art as more than an inert image or object, but also as a personal experience lived through time." Kind of a mixed bag. I liked the room set up with motion sensors, so as you move around the room, the fluorescent tubes follow you (rather noisily!). The other photo is a still from a short video where the artist made the animal glow. I'm always dubious about 'video art installations', as opposed to actual video art, like films. There was a bunch of other stuff i couldn't find images for, ha ha.

The other side of the floor was Anselm Kiefer: Palmsonntag ['Palm Sunday'], "a monumental installation consisting of a 30-foot-long palm tree cast in fiberglass and resin, its roots clotted with mud, surrounded by a cycle of 44 large paintings encased in glass and framed in lead." The sheer scale of it was impressive, and the individual paintings, which were not small, were interesting too.

Finally there was Françoise Sullivan: Inner Force, "...includes five large scale canvasses from the artist's recent Hommage series - majestic, abstract works exploding with colour and rhythm, each one dedicated to an artist colleague or friend who has died.... The exhibition also features a ground-breaking series of photographs dating from January 1948 when Sullivan staged her famous Danse dans la Neige". Odd how connections keep showing up - it was only a few weeks ago i went to the Automatistes exhibit in Markham. It had shots of her dance there too, but i really liked her paintings, were are very recent, and remind me of 'colorfield' paintings. She's also been a sculptor and photographer!

NATIONAL BALLET: WINTER SHORTS PROGRAM 2010

Friday, March 5th, 2010

I had tickets for the dress rehearsal of Swan Lake, but i'm kind of Swan Laked out, so i bought a ticket to the Winter Shorts program.

The first piece was 24 Preludes by Chopin. I didn't realize until it started that i'd seen it before, in 2008, but that's okay, i love it. I'm lazy, so i'll use the same review, ha ha (but new photos):

"...was my favourite - i'd pay to see it again. It was very modern, dramatic, athletic, inventive, even a bit erotic (choreographed in 1999 by Canadian Marie Chouinard) - i kept thinking of both life drawing poses and animation. One bit had a woman speaking musical notes (Doh, Re, Mi, etc), as if it were some kind of protest, then a marching unit of dancers would come towards her, and as they pass around her, she'd fall in line. They'd go off stage, and she'd run back and start speaking again. Meanwhile, another woman in the background was engaged by herself in a very dramatic dance. Another bit had a woman doing a dramatic dance across the stage, and as she reached one end, a male dancer would come in, pick her up, and drop her off at the other side again, and she'd go forward again. Eventually, one of the male dancers flipped her the other way, and they went off stage. She came back on, started over, but the three males came on again, "tapping their toes" at her, so to speak. She gestured her displeasure at them, and then made her way off stage. At times it was quite emotional. The men wore semi-transparent shorts, with an opaque strip from the waist front to back, the women wore a similarly made bodysuit, with a strip across the breasts. "

Then it was A Suite of Dances by Jerome Robbins (West Side Story, etc), originally created for Baryshnikov, which is a kind of pas a deux (though it's actually a solo), between the female cellist and male dancer. It "...glides through a variety of moods, from the nonchalant to the introspective to the ecstatic, addressing both the audience and the baroque sensuousness of Bach’s music with the same studied abandon." Fun! Unfortunately, i couldn't find a National Ballet photo, so this is from some English ballet.

Finally, The Four Seasons, "a powerful exploration in dance and music of the seasons of a man’s life." The most serious piece, treating the seasons as allegory for life.

JAPAN FOUNDATION: COUNTER-PHOTOGRAPHY

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

Saturday i went to the Japan Foundation for their latest exhibit, Counter-Photography. It was excellent - i definitely recommend it (and it's free!). I found it inspirational.

"Photography is generally known as a medium that accurately records reality. In fact, however, its unparalleled ability to faithfully reproduce reality can also be put to exactly the opposite effect. This characteristic of photography has given rise to the desire to reveal objects that cannot be seen with the naked eye – in other words, to photograph the invisible world."

"The present exhibition attempts to introduce this approach to reality through the photographic works of contemporary Japanese artists. The exhibition is divided into two sections, based on the artists’ choice of subjects and approaches. One section is called To Distill: Another Appearance. In this section, the artists’ intention is to extract the essential 'spirit' of the subject – be it a plant, stone, or any other item – thereby revealing a dimension of the subject entirely separate from conventional aspects. In other section, To Reverse: Another Relationship, the artists adopt a more social approach. The works in this section explore one’s relationship with self, others, and ultimately one’s country – in other words, they represent attempts to depict the relationships between people from an entirely new perspective."

60 works by 11 artists: Eikoh HOSOE, Hiroshi SUGIMOTO, Miho AKIOKA, Miyuki ICHIKAWA, Akiko SUGIYAMA, Chie YASUDA, Kazuo KATASE, Hiroko INOUE, Tomoko YONEDA, Tomoaki ISHIHARA, Michihiro SHIMABUKU.

It was a bitch to find parking, but i found a place that will be good reference in the future, lol.

MOCCA: UNTITLED SEVEN / CINEMA X: I LIKE TO WATCH

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

I made it down to MOCCA (Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art) for the Opening Reception of two shows.

Untitled Seven by Emma Hart & Benedict Drew: "which explores and destabilizes moving images, sound and performance. By inverting the technologies used to create and project images, Hart and Drew create anarchic systems which make the process of their creation explicit. The physical world is made manifest, through the complex web of projections and sound loops the duo creates: a length of 16mm leader “plays” the strings of an electric guitar, a large speaker which is amplifying the fan noise of a video projector sends a explosive cascade of dishwashing detergent into the air as a closed circuit video camera records the powder’s movements, projecting them onto a screen."

I can't say it really grabbed me - although seeing myself projected on the walls played into my insecurities, lol.

The other show was Cinema X: I Like to Watch, which "showcases the works of a series of international artists who have surveyed in a fruitful manner the relationship between visual arts and sex, sexuality, and eroticism", with works by Carlos Aires, Regina Galindo, Bruce LaBruce, Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkacova, Dani Marti, Erwin Olaf, Steve Reinke & Jessie Mott, Santiago Sierra. I'm not particularly shocked by the sexual imagery (seriously, check the internet), and i guessed the surgery was something like hymenoplasty, but i don't think any surgery looks particularly attractive. I do admit to wincing at the nipple piercing video, lol.

from 'Wet' by Erwin Olaf.

"Sexual expressions like voyeurism, onanism, S&M, transvestitism or dark rooms are the reflection of our contradictions with regard to sexuality, while they embody the times and society we live in. Perhaps we should ask ourselves if our promiscuity is a defiance of sexual repression or just a submission to its consumerist variant." I think an exploration of this idea would be interesting - sex still offends some people, but it's no more edgy than rock (or punk, or alternative music is), being packaged and sold like any commodity.

So, i was somewhat disappointed in the shows this time around, although there was some yummy food - i think pakoras, and some other spicy pastry thingy.

Speaking of commodifying rebellion, Malcolm McLaren died this week.

EDDIE IZZARD: STRIPPED

Friday, April 30th, 2010

I love Eddie Izzard - he assumes a certain level of intelligence, and actually has a point to his pieces, despite the overall freeform and improvisational flow. His 'new' tour, Stripped, finally hit Toronto, and he talked about the history of the world, covering "everything that’s ever happened, along with a few gaps because it’ll be a long show." A lot about religion (e.g., if God were real, he would have flicked off Hitler's head...).

"I think that if God did exist, he had many children. I think Jesus proves this. Jesus must be the seventh son of God. A-sus, B-sus, C-sus, D-sus, E-sus, F-sus, G-sus. That's just logic. That's just Math-sus. And T-sus would always be fucking about. And P-sus does deliveries. C-sus started the Roman Empire. Cae-sus. F-sus, City in Turkey. B-sus was covered in something. Some people applauding there; other people going, 'What?' ... B-sus was covered in bees."

Monday May 31, i saw Eddie Izzard again.

NATIONAL BALLET SUMMER MIXED PROGRAM (PUR TI MIRO, OPUS 19/THE DREAMER, WEST SIDE SUITE)

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Last Wednesday i went to the National Ballet to see their summer mixed program, which included Pur ti Miro, Opus19/The Dreamer and West Side Story Suite. Pur ti Miro ("I adore you") was a world premiere from Jorma Elo, a superfast and fun mix of classical and contemporary dance, music by Beethoven and Monteverdi. What surprised me most was the amazing soprano duet - it literally brought tears to my eyes. Maybe i should go to the opera?

That was followed by two works by Jerome Robbins. Opus19/The Dreamer, set to Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, was more romantic and reflective.

Finally it ended with a selection of dances from West Side Story, which was fun - some of the dancers even sang their own parts.

MOCCA: EMPIRE OF DREAMS (PHENOMENONLOGY OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT)

Saturday, June 19th, 2010

I went to the opening reception for Empire of Dreams (Phenomenology of the built environment) showcasing work by contemporary artists from Toronto. It was fun walking around the gallery with a glass of wine. Good exhibit, interesting things. Wish i'd found a photo of the car that had film taken from its windows while driving projected onto them (you could go inside and experience the ride).

"The things that we build embody our highest aspirations and our essential instincts to survive. They also express our will to find place, to establish dominion over territory, over our destiny. Empire of Dreams is an exhibition of recent work by artists that looks at ways in which we exist within our built environment – the phenomenon that is our experience and interaction with structures and architectures that shape complex sensory and cognitive relationships to our surroundings."

David Trautrimas

Tristram Lansdowne

Alberto Guedea Zamora

Alex McLeod

An Te Liu

Janet Jones

AGO: DRAMA & DESIRE, PHOTOCOLLAGE

Thursday, June 24, 2010

I made it downtownto see a movie with plenty of time to spare, so i did a quick trip into the AGO.

The first show i saw was Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage, which "showcases the little-known phenomenon of Victorian photocollage. ...it features more than 40 of the best albums and loose pages from collections across the United States, Europe and Australia — many rarely, if ever, seen in public before." Interestingly, it was mostly a pastime of wealthy women.

Oh, she is portraying her relatives as pickles! So dreadfully witty!

Then i saw The Storyteller, which features video and photography, drawing, mixed media and installation works by leading international artists, "exploring how contemporary artists use storytelling to understand the social and political events of our time". Meh, i don't think installations tell stories as well as proper films.

I also got about halfway through Drama and Desire: Artists and the Theatre, "the exhibition includes over 100 paintings, drawings and theatrical maquettes, by masters such as Edgar Degas, Eugène Delacroix, Jacques-Louis David, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, William Blake, Aubrey Beardsley, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Édouard Vuillard" before the place closed. Good stuff! I'll have to go back.

"Hamlet, honey, wake up!"

Lear, why be such a dick to Cordelia?

Famous Victorian actress as Lady Macbeth.

Degas sure liked the ballet...

JAPAN FOUNDATION: TENUGUI TOWELS

Monday, June 28th, 2010

I went into the city to go to some exhibits. First up was Tenugui Towels: Design Excellence in Japanese Daily Life at the Japan Foundation. "Tenugui are towels made of bleached cotton, approximately 34 cm wide and 90 cm in length.... [which are] used for a remarkable number of purposes; not only for wiping and cleaning, but also for wrapping and wearing, and even as advertising tools... Some are elaborate while others are transparently simple. Whimsical humor, refined sophistication, and modern-looking bold composition …" Cool show.

ROM: TERRACOTTA ARMY

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Then it was the ROM for The Warrior Emperor and China's Terracotta Army, which was a pretty awesome show. There were plenty of artifacts and information setting up the period for the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty, and for the era after too.

The faces were so distinct, it seems as if they must have used actually people as models.

ROM: DINO EGGS

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Next, i saw Dinosaur Eggs & Babies: Remarkable Fossils from South Africa. "...a rare opportunity to see real dinosaur eggs and babies! Fossilized just prior to the point of hatching, view nests of prosauropod eggs, some which include beautifully preserved embryos." Another great (although smallish) exhibit.

Wow, the ROM was really empty....

Massospondylus eggs.

Massospondylus embryos.

Close up.

Massospondylus skeleton.

ROM: LATE NEWS, etc

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Hmm... what is that building, i like it.

Finally, i saw Dan Perjovschi: Late News: "Using permanent markers directly on the walls of museums around the world, Perjovschi’s simplified style of line drawing allows him to condense the conflicts and dilemmas of the world into a distilled personal commentary."

Meh, not very insightful, really.

.