We live part-time in a small town where yellowcake is king. No, not a town with a big bakery...a town with a big uranium processing facility. Which gives us an extra-special appreciation of the latest work from animation genius Nick Cross of Ottawa.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Nick Cross: Yellow Cake
We live part-time in a small town where yellowcake is king. No, not a town with a big bakery...a town with a big uranium processing facility. Which gives us an extra-special appreciation of the latest work from animation genius Nick Cross of Ottawa.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Widening Gyre
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold"
William Butler Yeats
Here is a stream-of-consciousness spiral-inspired art hop on a theme of the land and the landscape, intervention and impermanence.
Starting here, with "Respect: A Photo Odyssey Celebrating Canada's Boreal Forest" :
Photo Credit: Dan Riedlhuber
According to the press release, "RESPECT takes an innovative and thought-provoking look at Canada's Boreal Forest. Nine Canadian photographers braved weather and time constraints to collectively create a vibrant picture of Canada's North. The sweeping vistas captured digitally convey the fragility as well as the brutality of the Boreal Forest.The Boreal Forest accounts for 58% of Canada's land mass. 70% of it remains untouched. It is also home to two-thirds of the 140,000 species of plants, animals and micro-organisms identified in Canada."
The exhibition runs until October at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre.
Next stop: Utah...
Photo Credit: Francisco Kjolseth
Photo Credit: George Steinmetz
...and Robert Smithson's extraordinary earthwork, "Spiral Jetty, 1970", on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point in Utah. The work is owned by New York's Dia Art Foundation. "Owned" does not seem to be quite the proper word: I think the idea of stewardship is closer to the spirit of the thing. Spiral Jetty is in a constant state of flux as the natural conditions of the Great Salt Lake change. During periods of drought, it is exposed. It can be submerged for years at a time when the water level is high. Originally black basalt rock, it is now largely white against pink due to salt encrustation and lower water levels.
Entropy and temporality were central concepts in Smithson's work: he wrote at length about mutability and impermanence as it applied to his art. He was killed in a plane crash on July 20, 1976 while surveying sites for his work "Amarillo Ramp" in Texas.
Early in 2008, change threatened Spiral Jetty, and not the kind of change that
would in any way be sympathetic to Smithson's ideals. It was announced that there were plans for exploratory oil drilling approximately five miles from the jetty. There is a sad Canadian connection to the story, in that the company in question is Alberta-owned oil sands player Pearl Montana Exploration. Their application was quashed after effective protests from both the arts and ecological conservation communities. In January 2009, Dia learned that Pearl would resubmit its application.There has now been a reprieve and the company's plans have been put on hold due to a reorganization of the company and falling oil prices.
Just two days ago, Dia reported a new threat to Spiral Jetty: an application has been filed by Great Salt Lake Minerals to increase the number of solar evaporation ponds which they use to extract potassium sulfate for fertilizer. Some 80,000 acres are proposed in the North Arm of the Great Salt Lake where Spiral Jetty is located.
(Addendum (July 13): Thank you to Michael Buitron for alerting me to his amazing aerial photographs of Spiral Jetty, taken on a trip last fall. Go here to see them, and to read a very interesting commentary on Smithson's choice of Rozel Point as the location for Spiral Jetty. Buitron points out that Smithson chose the location not only for the extremes of the natural environment, but also because of the lengthy history of man's industrial exploitation of the area (oil from the tar pools: minerals from the water). If Smithson were here to speak for himself, would he applaud Dia's preservation/conservation efforts, or would he prefer allowing natural (an unnatural) forces to simply take their course?)
And on to Edward Shalala.
(Look closely: These works are very subtle and do not translate well to the small screen.)
string painting, 2006
documentary photograph
Martha's Vineyard, MA
digital print 11"x14"
raw linen canvas thread painting, 2009
documentary photograph
basketball court, Sara Roosevelt Park, NYC
c-print 11"x14"
Thanks to Joanne Mattera's blog for introducing me to Edward Shalala's work.
Here is his artist statement:
"In 1973-76, while in graduate school at The University of Wisconsin, I began making abstract paintings using pieces of torn canvas in which I would poke holes, rip, cut, glue and assemble. I used aluminum and black paint mostly then, and later because I was aware of the work of Fontana from Italy, I made paintings using no paint at all. Often I used wire, jute, or narrow strips of torn canvas. As my graduate work developed I continued to make work using these materials, and these were included in my MFA show in 1976.
After graduating I moved to Boston Massachusetts, where, in 1977, I made and outdoor painting using only string, I documented that piece with a photograph. That year I moved to NYC where I have continued to work. Today I use raw canvas thread, and raw canvas dust, to make outdoor paintings. I work in NYC parks and grasslands and document the canvas thread paintings with photography. The paintings and pictures are simple and complex. They involve the ground, the sky, the weather, grasses, plants and trees, fences, sidewalks, architecture and people. This is a landscape and arena like no other space for abstract painting. My work suggests a different type of surface for the painting. The painting is 360 degrees around the thread and dust and is involved in an intricate crossing back and forth across the ground creating interior shapes of open space on the ground. The work is different from the familiar warp and weft of the canvas, and is expressed in canvas thread and dust. I am making an effort to add to the dialog after Fontana and the minimalist. My paintings focus also on the idea of flattening the painting. They go to the outdoors and nature. They flatten beyond the gallery and architectural walls.
Being on the ground and vulnerable to the elements, these canvas thread and dust paintings are temporary in nature."
Shalala's work made me think of a beautiful Cal Lane installation I saw a number of years ago:
Cal Lane, Dirt Lace installation at Wynick Tuck Gallery (Toronto, 2004)
Lane was born in Halifax and raised on Vancouver Island. After a brief career as a hairdresser, she became a certified welder. She then went on to an M.F.A. from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. It was there that she developed her highly unusual artistic practice: producing impossibly delicate lacelike sculptures from decidedly macho steel objects, using a plasma cutter. From an earlier series involving earth-related objects such as shovels and wheelbarrows, she has moved to progressively larger and larger works, and outdoor installations.
Over time, her work has become more overtly political:
"I have always been interested in embracing the very thing that repels me in order to understand it: I prefer to make sense of things or in order to suspend (or pass) judgment."
Her most recent work involves drums and tanks used to store or transport oil. The titles of her two most recent series, Sweet Crude and Crude, not only refer to the original uses of the drums and tanks but also comment on the consequences of our dependence on oil.
Lane's next project is scheduled to begin in October, 2009, in Tivat, Montenegro. The object of her affections this time will be a 62 foot long submarine.
Finishing the spiral with work that takes us back to the subject of trees and the land:
Melissa Doherty paints aerial views of trees in settings which are neither wild nor natural.
Doherty presents an imagined suburbia, where man encroaches on nature, retaining and enclosing groupings of trees as captive specimens of beauty. Doherty is a recent graduate of the FIne Arts program at the University of Waterloo. She currently has work in a group show at Edward Day Gallery.
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold"
William Butler Yeats
Here is a stream-of-consciousness spiral-inspired art hop on a theme of the land and the landscape, intervention and impermanence.
Starting here, with "Respect: A Photo Odyssey Celebrating Canada's Boreal Forest" :
Photo Credit: Dan RiedlhuberAccording to the press release, "RESPECT takes an innovative and thought-provoking look at Canada's Boreal Forest. Nine Canadian photographers braved weather and time constraints to collectively create a vibrant picture of Canada's North. The sweeping vistas captured digitally convey the fragility as well as the brutality of the Boreal Forest.The Boreal Forest accounts for 58% of Canada's land mass. 70% of it remains untouched. It is also home to two-thirds of the 140,000 species of plants, animals and micro-organisms identified in Canada."
The exhibition runs until October at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre.
Next stop: Utah...
Photo Credit: Francisco Kjolseth
Photo Credit: George Steinmetz...and Robert Smithson's extraordinary earthwork, "Spiral Jetty, 1970", on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake near Rozel Point in Utah. The work is owned by New York's Dia Art Foundation. "Owned" does not seem to be quite the proper word: I think the idea of stewardship is closer to the spirit of the thing. Spiral Jetty is in a constant state of flux as the natural conditions of the Great Salt Lake change. During periods of drought, it is exposed. It can be submerged for years at a time when the water level is high. Originally black basalt rock, it is now largely white against pink due to salt encrustation and lower water levels.
Entropy and temporality were central concepts in Smithson's work: he wrote at length about mutability and impermanence as it applied to his art. He was killed in a plane crash on July 20, 1976 while surveying sites for his work "Amarillo Ramp" in Texas.
Early in 2008, change threatened Spiral Jetty, and not the kind of change that
would in any way be sympathetic to Smithson's ideals. It was announced that there were plans for exploratory oil drilling approximately five miles from the jetty. There is a sad Canadian connection to the story, in that the company in question is Alberta-owned oil sands player Pearl Montana Exploration. Their application was quashed after effective protests from both the arts and ecological conservation communities. In January 2009, Dia learned that Pearl would resubmit its application.There has now been a reprieve and the company's plans have been put on hold due to a reorganization of the company and falling oil prices.
Just two days ago, Dia reported a new threat to Spiral Jetty: an application has been filed by Great Salt Lake Minerals to increase the number of solar evaporation ponds which they use to extract potassium sulfate for fertilizer. Some 80,000 acres are proposed in the North Arm of the Great Salt Lake where Spiral Jetty is located.
(Addendum (July 13): Thank you to Michael Buitron for alerting me to his amazing aerial photographs of Spiral Jetty, taken on a trip last fall. Go here to see them, and to read a very interesting commentary on Smithson's choice of Rozel Point as the location for Spiral Jetty. Buitron points out that Smithson chose the location not only for the extremes of the natural environment, but also because of the lengthy history of man's industrial exploitation of the area (oil from the tar pools: minerals from the water). If Smithson were here to speak for himself, would he applaud Dia's preservation/conservation efforts, or would he prefer allowing natural (an unnatural) forces to simply take their course?)
And on to Edward Shalala.
(Look closely: These works are very subtle and do not translate well to the small screen.)
string painting, 2006
documentary photograph
Martha's Vineyard, MA
digital print 11"x14"
raw linen canvas thread painting, 2009documentary photograph
basketball court, Sara Roosevelt Park, NYC
c-print 11"x14"
Thanks to Joanne Mattera's blog for introducing me to Edward Shalala's work.
Here is his artist statement:
"In 1973-76, while in graduate school at The University of Wisconsin, I began making abstract paintings using pieces of torn canvas in which I would poke holes, rip, cut, glue and assemble. I used aluminum and black paint mostly then, and later because I was aware of the work of Fontana from Italy, I made paintings using no paint at all. Often I used wire, jute, or narrow strips of torn canvas. As my graduate work developed I continued to make work using these materials, and these were included in my MFA show in 1976.
After graduating I moved to Boston Massachusetts, where, in 1977, I made and outdoor painting using only string, I documented that piece with a photograph. That year I moved to NYC where I have continued to work. Today I use raw canvas thread, and raw canvas dust, to make outdoor paintings. I work in NYC parks and grasslands and document the canvas thread paintings with photography. The paintings and pictures are simple and complex. They involve the ground, the sky, the weather, grasses, plants and trees, fences, sidewalks, architecture and people. This is a landscape and arena like no other space for abstract painting. My work suggests a different type of surface for the painting. The painting is 360 degrees around the thread and dust and is involved in an intricate crossing back and forth across the ground creating interior shapes of open space on the ground. The work is different from the familiar warp and weft of the canvas, and is expressed in canvas thread and dust. I am making an effort to add to the dialog after Fontana and the minimalist. My paintings focus also on the idea of flattening the painting. They go to the outdoors and nature. They flatten beyond the gallery and architectural walls.
Being on the ground and vulnerable to the elements, these canvas thread and dust paintings are temporary in nature."
Shalala's work made me think of a beautiful Cal Lane installation I saw a number of years ago:
Cal Lane, Dirt Lace installation at Wynick Tuck Gallery (Toronto, 2004)Lane was born in Halifax and raised on Vancouver Island. After a brief career as a hairdresser, she became a certified welder. She then went on to an M.F.A. from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. It was there that she developed her highly unusual artistic practice: producing impossibly delicate lacelike sculptures from decidedly macho steel objects, using a plasma cutter. From an earlier series involving earth-related objects such as shovels and wheelbarrows, she has moved to progressively larger and larger works, and outdoor installations.
Over time, her work has become more overtly political:
"I have always been interested in embracing the very thing that repels me in order to understand it: I prefer to make sense of things or in order to suspend (or pass) judgment."
Her most recent work involves drums and tanks used to store or transport oil. The titles of her two most recent series, Sweet Crude and Crude, not only refer to the original uses of the drums and tanks but also comment on the consequences of our dependence on oil.
Lane's next project is scheduled to begin in October, 2009, in Tivat, Montenegro. The object of her affections this time will be a 62 foot long submarine.Finishing the spiral with work that takes us back to the subject of trees and the land:
Melissa Doherty paints aerial views of trees in settings which are neither wild nor natural.
Doherty presents an imagined suburbia, where man encroaches on nature, retaining and enclosing groupings of trees as captive specimens of beauty. Doherty is a recent graduate of the FIne Arts program at the University of Waterloo. She currently has work in a group show at Edward Day Gallery.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Melanie MacDonald: Home Court Advantage
Melanie MacDonald is an emerging artist with a remarkable facility for capturing light and reflection. Working in acrylic on canvas, she paints highly realistic, somewhat off-kilter, close-up depictions of everyday objects. Paintings in the current series consist of vintage board games, ceramic figurines, and dishes: images from a pre-digital world of domestic kitsch. Two generations removed from Mary Pratt, MacDonald similarly explores the quotidian and seemingly mundane aspects of domesticity as a means of providing a symbolic allusion to the human condition.
MacDonald was included in Carte Blanche 2 (2008), flagging her as one of Canada's best and most promising emerging artists.
Kitsch, by its nature, undercuts the precious and turns the precious inside out as cheap, all too accessible objects. We can supposedly have it all through kitsch, but the desire to have it all is evidence of an inner void that longs for a kinder, simpler world. (Philipp Blom, To Have and to Hold: An Intimate History of Collectors and Collecting, 2002)
Artist Statement:
"I regard my contemporary domestic paintings as visual poems marking the brief, curious, moments that punctuate the everyday. I attempt to realize small particulars within a close-up domestic foreground. In this kind of kitchen-sink realism, objects are isolated, set apart, and gathered together' without any deliberate, overriding purpose. My wish is to see and hold small moments caught on the fly, the fleeting shapes of ordinary living as they shed light on what is constant in our human condition. In the tradition of the still life, my paintings arrest time for the sake of contemplating the transient nature of our lives.
As Dennis Lee has observed in his exploration of Al Purdy's poetry, the everyday physical world can at times seem other-wordly, an alternate galaxy that is both utterly present and wholly transparent, a window into some ineffable dimension where [the individual] is at once lost and at home (Dennis Lee, Body Music, 1996). It is this kind of window that I attempt to realize with paint on canvas."
Melanie MacDonald"Home Court Advantage"
July 3 to August 8, 2009
A.K. Collings Gallery
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Not a Nice Place to Visit, and I Wouldn't Want to Live There, Either
ROM-ruining architect Daniel Libeskind has just unveiled "Villa", a "luxury" mass-produced pre-fab house that can be shipped and assembled anywhere in the world. For a mere $3 million to $6 million (depending on finishes and location), you can own a cookie cutter home, which may or may not be suitable to the climate, geography, or building site of your choice, and which may or may not leak, but which IS guaranteed to induce a state unease, if not out-right high anxiety, in all who enter (let alone try to eat or sleep in the place).
I tried, I really, really tried, to find something to like about the Libeskind addition to Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum. But: it's not a "crystal", it's trailer-park siding. It's depressing and disorienting from the moment you walk in. It's got little functional exhibition space. The execution and detailing is abysmal throughout ("Staircase of Blunders"?). It sends such nasty feng shui poison arrows at its neighbours on Bloor Street that I don't even want to go to my favourite roof-top bar anymore.
As an architect, Libeskind seems enjoy making people feel uncomfortable in his buildings. There is nothing pleasant, uplifting or humane about the experience. Oddly, he manages to get handsomely paid for designing the same thing over and over. With "Villa", at least the marketing is straightforward: it is a pre-fab. Anyone foolish enough, or status-seeking enough to buy one will have only themselves to blame. Unfortunately, Torontonians who love the ROM can only wonder how on earth this project, literally based on a sketch on a paper serviette, ever came to fruition.
However, the European design and architectural community is not proving to be as gullible. An article published yesterday in the respected online architectural and design journal "De Zeen" has generated 36 comments so far, almost entirely negative. Here is a sampling:
(Some of the respondents obviously are not native english speakers, but their meaning is "crystal" clear)
"This makes me so sad, when architects don’t care if its a museum or a private house, it all looks the same. This is where our bad reputation is founded. Care more about the content DL!"
"And where exactly is architecture here??? Money making machine! You can just order the same house, put it on the beach or in your backyard… North, East, nomether where, it belongs everywhere??? Pack up the house, load the truck, put it anywhere you want just show us the money! That should be the line for seling it! This man cannot be serious!!!"
"I live on Greenland. It will perfectly fit on the climate there :-P
The real good thing in this project that I have finally found out what kind of architect he is. Daniel, please find another job. Please."
"Design Summary:
Stupid shape - [Check]
Pretentious logic - [Check]
Corny symbolism - [Check]
Rehash of unbuilt project - [Check]
Stupid diagonals - [Check]
Immature design rational - [Check]
Sloped wall gimmick - [Check]"
"For $3mil - $4 mil. a wealthy client should expect a unique house that responds to a specific site, a highly personal lifestyle and individual aesthetic goals. Libeskind’s mass-produced, “one-size-fits-all” house, however glorified in the jargonistic buzzwords of the day (i.e. “sustainability”), satisfies none of those ideals. Hence it can never truly be considered high-end design. It will never be more than something for the intellectually insecure to use to try and achieve social credibility. Only a fool would buy into the hype."
"Architectural Masterpieces, I think not!
Emperors New Clothes, anybody?"
Ouch.
You can see pictures, read Libeskind's promotional materials, and read the commentary in full here.
How Young Artists Live
Photo credits: Jordan PrusskyWhether the economy is good or bad, young artists have always been adept at finding creative ways of supporting themselves and their artmaking. For some, this means leaving the city for a more affordable rural or small town existence. For most, it means a day job, and a live/work arrangement. Robert Malinowski and Erin Glover are a case in point. They share a 900 square foot space which provides both living accommodation, and studio.
The couple lives in a re-purposed mattress factory located in the arts-rich and still (marginally) affordable Parkdale neighbourhood of Toronto. In spite of space constraints, and some unusual "architectural" features, Robert and Erin have created a welcoming home and an effective workplace, consisting of a cozy bednook, an all-purpose living room with a galley kitchen, and a separate studio area for each. Their space was formerly the shipping and receiving area for the mattress factory. The freight elevator is still functional. A vaguely menacing industrial sculpture consisting of wheels and turbines hangs over their bed: it is the motor for the elevator. It is conversation-starter to be sure, and , when in operation, also a very effective conversation-stopper. Fortunately, the elevator does not see heavy use, and is not in operation at night.
In addition to their own art, the couple also has found room to display some very fine work by fellow artists. The painting above the sofa is a gift from their close friend, Paul Fortin. (Fortin is an artist whose paintings and sculptures I very much admire. He shows with Patrick Mikhail in Ottawa.)Malinowski and Glover currently have an exhibition entitled "Ties That Bind" at A.K. Collings Gallery. This is the final week of the show.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Bruno, Saskatchewan Declares June 7 Julie Doiron Day
This story is tangentially related to the "power of one"/creative contagion theme in the previous post.
I've written before about All Citizen's Gallery, and the two young artists who brought their artistic and creative energies to the tiny farming community of Bruno, Saskatchewan, pop. 590. Julie Doiron recently gave a concert at All Citizens, and was surprised when the Mayor declared June 7 to be "Julie Doiron Day". Ms. Doiron was further honoured by the unveiling of a bench and plaque.
I love this video clip of Tyler Brett and the Mayor making the presentation. A bit of research was required to uncover the Mayor's name: she is Audrey Ludwig. I'll bet she'd have a thing or two she could teach big-city politicians about community-building and the "creative class". Richard Florida might want to consider inviting her to deliver a guest lecture at the University of Toronto.
Click here for a lovely Julie Doiron music video.
I've written before about All Citizen's Gallery, and the two young artists who brought their artistic and creative energies to the tiny farming community of Bruno, Saskatchewan, pop. 590. Julie Doiron recently gave a concert at All Citizens, and was surprised when the Mayor declared June 7 to be "Julie Doiron Day". Ms. Doiron was further honoured by the unveiling of a bench and plaque.
I love this video clip of Tyler Brett and the Mayor making the presentation. A bit of research was required to uncover the Mayor's name: she is Audrey Ludwig. I'll bet she'd have a thing or two she could teach big-city politicians about community-building and the "creative class". Richard Florida might want to consider inviting her to deliver a guest lecture at the University of Toronto.
Click here for a lovely Julie Doiron music video.
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