Why You Should Buy Art

I am back from New York, and this William Powhida print is one souvenir of a wonderful and art-filled trip. You can click on the image to enlarge.
(Actually, I bought the print online at Jen Beckman's "20x200" which is well worth a virtual visit, whether you can get to New York or not.)

I am an erratic blogger, and for that, I apologize. You'd think I'd have plenty to write about, having just spent the last week in New York, in the company of Our Montreal Correspondent. The problem is, I am slow thinker, and I need time to mull before I write...not a trait particularly well suited to the pace of the blogosphere.

While in NY, OMC and I visited the William Powhida and Jennifer Dalton event, "#class" at Winkleman Gallery, and participated in Saturday's Powhida-led "Art Walk" through a range of Chelsea galleries.

And since I am still mulling over that experience, for now I'll leave you with Eva Diaz's description and contextualization of the goings-on at #class, from Artforum:

"Mass education in the post–World War II period positioned pedagogy as a pivot between personal growth and wider sociopolitical transformation. Recent large-scale student protests against fee hikes and the profit-driven campus at the New School and throughout the University of California system can be seen as part of a larger reaction to how the prospect of education was subsequently instrumentalized as a consumer transaction. Similarly, a spate of artist collectives are reassessing how progressive pedagogical models can be employed as consciousness-raising tools. Joining related endeavors such as 16 Beaver, the Public School, e-flux’s Night School, and the Bruce High Quality Foundation University, artists William Powhida and Jennifer Dalton have created #class, a series of public workshops in a classroom setting that, in its eclectic sprawl, seeks to investigate the effects of the economic downturn on the field of art: on its production, reception, distribution, and consumption; on its educational institutions and its institutions of display.
The setup is simple: A room contains several worktables and chairs lined with four chalkboards. Dozens of programs and open-ended brainstorming sessions have been scheduled for the one-month duration of the exhibition, and the artists will be present on a daily basis to use the gallery as a studio space. The “curriculum” ranges from the intentionally hokey (motivational speakers promising to unleash “wild creativity”) to the near heretical (dealers guaranteeing to answer questions about the art market with complete transparency)."

You can follow the events for yourself, by visiting the #class blog, and Ed Winkleman's blog, where you'll find a link to a gallery cam running a continuous live feed during gallery hours.

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

How Young Artists Live

Photo credits: Jordan Prussky

Whether 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.

Ties That Bind, Part 2

Svava Thordis Juliusson is a sculptor who works with zip-ties and other found materials. In "Ties That Bind" she has installed sculpture from the "Svona, Svona" series, and the "Nerve" series. "Svona, svona" is a term of consolation in the Icelandic tongue, the equivalent of saying "There, there", while gently patting a crying child on the back.

The work is as delicate and ephemeral as hoar frost on a window: extremely difficult to capture in a photograph. In some instances, the shadow made by the sculpture is more prominent than the piece itself, giving the sense that the work is at once present, and not present.


Juliusson was born in Siglufjordur, Iceland, immigrating to the Canadian prairies at age ten. She began undergraduate studies at the Alberta College of Art and Design in 1993 and completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at NSCAD University in 1997. Juliusson completed her MFA in studio at York University in 2007.

"Svona II" is a larger and more robust work, approximately 6 feet outstretched. It is constructed of heavier cable ties (approximately 3500 of them). Suspended from the ceiling, it has an oddly anthropomorphic quality, and seems to bow in a formal, albeit icy, gesture of greeting. The cable ties glitter and have the property of capturing even the weakest rays of ambient light. The work has a shimmery glow when the lights are turned down.





Two examples of the smaller works which comprise the "Nerve" series are seen below:




Artist Statement

"I am interested in using and manipulating traditional sculpture techniques and various non-traditional sculpture materials to express my concerns and ideas. There is often a blurring of that which locates me as an artist who is compelled to consider for example the pigeon and that which causes me to reflect on rearing children and planting a garden. The studio investigations, which often commence at the kitchen table or the laundry room, tend to oscillate between a curiosity of the methods and materials of object making and the desire to articulate a response to my surroundings and certain events such the much publicized outbreaks of Avian Flu, Hoof and Mouth disease and BSE; which have become illustrative of the beginnings of the 21st century."

"Ideas around transformation are at root of my current studio investigations. After recent move, a recent graduate degree and recent entry into my fortieth decade, I became overwhelmed with my surroundings and specifically the objects, the material or stuff that I have accumulated in cupboards, closets and bins in my home and in my studio. This is not the ordinary kind of clutter; there are containers full of Styrofoam balls and some that contain only shards of plaster; and others that are full of bungee cord remnants and pieces of old linoleum. So rather than taking it all to the landfill as was my first instinct, I have begun to re-assemble, or re-invent the accrual. Some of it has been already configured directly on the walls of my studio, and other works were developed on paper. Simply put however, the project is about recycling – a topical and highly politicized issue that relates to my ongoing desire to respond to current events - and the idea that all of my detritus can become something else."


"tiedwithgreenredyellow" (metal packing straps, coloured zip ties, approx 50" x 40 ")

"Ties That Bind" will be on view at A.K. Collings Gallery until June 27, 2009.

Ties that Bind: Part 1

June is Wedding Month and in keeping with that, the next exhibition at A.K. Collings Gallery is entitled "Ties that Bind".

The opening reception will be on Sunday May 31, from 2 to 4.

Robert Malinowski and Erin Glover are two young artists who will be departing for their honeymoon in Paris on the weekend following the opening. They have produced a series of delicate drawings which are romantic and just a tiny bit odd...capturing the truth and intensity of married life.

Svava Thordis Juliusson is a sculptor who works with zip ties and other found materials. She will be installing sculpture from the "Svona, Svona" series. (this is a term of consolation in Icelandic, roughly meaning "there, there"). Juliusson's work and the Glover/Malinowski collaborative drawings relate thematically, and her work will be discussed in my next post.



Artist statement for "Ties That Bind": collaborative drawings by Erin Glover and Robert Malinowski:

"In our most recent work, we have staged small vignettes that unveil personal encounters in public spaces. The mixed media pieces sew together delicately rendered drawings and gem – like photo based images onto the same surface. The work is intended to hold conversation between the two of us as artists, as well as tell an intimate story as you travel through each image. We have both carried solo artistic careers in our respective media for the past seven years, but relish an opportunity to work together on collaborative projects. Our duet work has grown to hold a history of its own."


"Robert’s drawings depict moments excerpted from every day. The figures are shown overwhelmed by thoughts or emotions or both. Rendered as pencil drawn portraits, the characters are perfectly composed except for their heads which appear to fragment and float away from their bodies. Replaced by hearts, letters, numbers, or a variety of combined symbols, the identities are lost in an eruption of penciled markings."


"Erin’s work paints a series of domestic tokens. A gathering of garments that wrap, cover, and protect; and furniture pieces that shelter and embrace. Each item is shown empty, but carrying shapes and forms that reference the body. The collected personal objects and furniture are all worn from use and tend to adopt grand and layered personalities when planted into the new compositions. These works are small pockets of private space."


"In our collaborative work, the space is a shared landscape between the domestic tokens and the story book portraits. Sometimes, through the process, the negative space becomes more important. Large expanses of unclaimed white allow for tension and connection to grow between the figures and the objects in each piece. In our newest pieces, the figures and the household items will be shown close together, often overlapping. Robert will draw people huddled on a sofa and Erin will carefully paint a quilt over and around them. Erin will paint patterned sheets on a bed and Robert will gently pencil lovers sleeping underneath."


"It is critical to our development as artists to continue working together as an artistic team. In the process of producing collective artwork there is an natural critique that occurs. With each artistic mark, a partnered response. We are each others art community, critic, and collaborator. It is an invaluable experience to have the opportunity to work so closely with another artist to develop an ever growing series of pieces."


A.K. Collings Gallery
Hours:
Fridays and Saturdays, noon to 5
(Sundays, by invitation, for Artist Receptions)
otherwise, by appointment

New Paintings: David Bolduc

I hardly know what I can add to the discussion of David Bolduc. A masterful artist, who loves to move paint around on the canvas. Rigour, repetition of form, mathematical precision, colour field influences: lyrical abstraction with an increasing level of texture and intensity as the years have gone by.

Click here to see Linda Corbetts's documentaries/interviews with Bolduc, done for the Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art Database project.

Some of the luscious paintings now showing at A.K. Collings Gallery.

Jay Wilson: New Sculpture

You Can Do It! (wall installation approximately 65" x 27": Toothpicks, safety matches)

You Can Do It! (Detail)

I love this Wilson installation for its quirky Boy Scout humour, and equally, for the obvious patience and process. Viewed close, the work brings to mind a polynomial equation graphed in 3-d. In fact, mathematics and modularity are important underlying concepts in his practice. His first degree was in mathematics and biology, but at the age of 26, an encounter in Toronto with a large scale temporary architectural intervention by Tadashi Kawamata had a profound impact.

Kawamata's Colonial Tavern Park installation, Toronto, 1989.

A few years later, Wilson left his position as a zookeeper, and enrolled at Ontario College of Art.

Wilson made art, but primarily worked as a graphic designer for a number of years. The art he created during this period was concerned with letter forms and print. The influence of his design background remains obvious in "You Can Do It!". However, his encounter with Kawamata remained as a strong subconscious motivator. The urge to create conceptual work led him to an M.F.A at York U., which he completed in 2008.

In his new three-dimensional pieces, Wilson's diverse interests and expertise come together in a a beautiful and astonishing way. These biomorphic forms are constructed of modular 6-point elements, which aggregate in a random yet predictable fashion. They are temporal and fragile, but as sturdy as the Golden Gate Bridge. The obsessive hands-on process requires the contribution of other artists and friends to bring each work to completion.


"mediumorangeyellow": toothpicks, flocking approximately 16"x 21"

The more time an artist spends in the digital world, the more the desire to work with the senses, and with a co-operative, actual, real-time social group of like-minded souls.

Jay Wilson's words:

"Lately I’ve been working on labour-intensive works that involve hand-gluing thousands of toothpicks together. I invite assistants to come and help me in the studio. We chat, build and listen to music. I like to engage in one thing so that I can think about another.

My process-based practice uses convenience, play, mistakes, logic and intuition, pattern and colour, and juxtaposition. The work is complex in arrangement, involves changes in composition, scope and tempo of process. It is both highly structured and developmentally random. It is complexity and the lack of hierarchy that is the work’s thrust and provokes questions as opposed to declaring answers, definitive statements of central themes."


These works are on the cusp of something. I do not know what. But I am determined to follow Wilson's career. Watch and wait.

Jay Wilson: New Sculptures
A.K. Collings Gallery
April 23 to May 17, 2009

Own Art

Why not in Canada?

Arts Council England's Own Art scheme celebrates its fifth anniversary this week. Own Art operates "to make contemporary art affordable and accessible to all" by offering buyers interest-free loans from L200 to L2000 to spend on contemporary art. The loans must be repaid over 10 months, and may be applied to a range of artworks, including paintings, photography, sculpture, glass and more.

The program was established for the following reasons:
-to encourage new buyers and audiences for the visual arts
-to develop the visual arts economy by encouraging an increase in the sale of work by contemporary artists
-to support a breadth of practice from traditional to the innovative, by artists at all stages of their career

Since its launch five years ago, the program has generated L6.5 million in income for artists through more than 12,500 loans.

All Citizens Shop

I hear that there is a new breed of pioneer settling the Canadian prairies: avante-garde artists. I've always believed farmers and artists have a great deal in common: they are entrepreneurial and independent, they have an appreciation for beauty, they persevere against all odds, and if they won millions in the lottery, why, they'd just keep on doing what they do until that money ran out, too.

Tyler Brett and Serena McCarroll are two graduates of Emily Carr University of Art + Design who fled Vancouver to settle in the town of Bruno, Saskatchewan, population 590. They have opened a gallery on main street: "All Citizens", which as you can see, is next to the senior's clubhouse. I confess that I am not familiar with Serena McCarroll's work, although I have seen Tyler Brett's work at Clint Roenisch Gallery in Toronto, where he exhibited with Tony Romano as part of T&T .

You can visit www.allcitizens.org to see what's happening in Bruno, browse the gallery and buy something from the on-line store:

Billy Mavreas: "YESbunny" poster

Cole Johnson: "Friends" block print


(thanks to Cliff Eyland for his akimblog post )

Overheard in the Gallery

"I may not know much about art, but I know what I like."

If I had a loonie for every time I've heard this, I'd be able to buy....maybe not a Peter Doig, but I am sure you catch my drift.

I think what many people mean when they say "I know what I like" is "I like what I know". The real rewards come from exploring the edges of what you know, and then stepping beyond those edges. Contrary to the conventional image of the "unapproachable gallerist", most are very happy to talk about their passion to anyone who expresses even the slightest interest. So, when you visit a gallery, ask questions: you'll have more fun!

E.H. Gombrich ("The Story of Art") approached the question of taste in a characteristically gracious manner:

"The old proverb that you cannot argue about matters of taste may well be true, but that should not conceal the fact that taste can be developed. This is a matter of common experience which everybody can test in a modest field. To people who are not used to drinking tea one blend may taste exactly like the other. But if they have the leisure, will and opportunity to search out such refinements as there may be, they may develop into true 'connoisseurs' who can distinguish exactly what type and mixture they prefer, and their greater knowledge is bound to add to their enjoyment of the choicest blend."

(If Gombrich had used 'scotch' as his example rather than 'tea', then I'd have succeeded in mentioning 'scotch' twice in this blog in less than a month. There now, I've done it!).

By the way, a loonie is currently worth about three quarters of a U.S. dollar, and a little more than half a Euro.

Gertrude Stein, Collector

Gertrude Stein lived a fabulous life, choosing to direct all her financial resources to the purchase of art, and to the sustenance and support of an extraordinary circle of friends. Art, literature, companionship and really good food were her priorities, through thick and thin.

Asked by one visitor how she had managed to build her famous art collection, she replied, "My dear, look at how I am dressed!".

Herb and Dorothy Vogel

Megumi Sasaki's award winning documentary, "Herb and Dorothy" was a hit this weekend at the Reel Artists Film Festival in Toronto. Click on her name to see a trailer of the documentary.

A photo of the Vogels has been the inspirational screen-saver on my laptop for some time now. Theirs is a story of obsession and commitment, and proof that "you don't have to be a Rockefeller to collect art". He was a postal clerk. She was a librarian. With their modest means, the couple managed to build one of the most important contemporary art collections in history.

The Indianapolis Museum Of Art has been one of 50 institutions to receive works from the Vogel's collection:



Sasaki's comments on the making of her documentary:

"From the beginning, my intention was to make something other than a so-called "art film." I wanted to capture how these two ordinary people accomplished the extraordinary in the field of art collecting. The film is about the power of passion and love, and a celebration of life.

The story of Herb and Dorothy Vogel is unique not only because of their avant garde vision and discernment as collectors, but also their love and dedication. It is through their loving partnership that the viewer truly experiences this remarkable story.

The Vogels' message is also about access. Art is not limited to the elite few. You don't have to be wealthy or an art school graduate to enjoy art. If you are interested in collecting art, you don't have to follow trends or others' advice, just listen to your own voice. Trust your eyes and instinct. Simply take the time to look, look and look.

In today's world, where art is treated as another commodity and a work's investment value takes precedence over its artistic value, Herb and Dorothy offers us an important question: What is it to appreciate and collect art?

My fortunate encounter with these beautiful people has changed my view of, and appreciation for, art and life."

Roula Partheniou

Ceci n'est pas une livre.
Roula Partheniou delights in books as objects, and loves the look of print. In 2005, she began her series of "Handmade Readymades", stretched canvases of the same dimensions as books, painted to replicate particular books.

These individual paintings of books evolved to loose sculptural stacks of paintings, wherein the books relate according to particular themes:
Partheniou's work was also featured in the series of three one-night exhibitions entitled "On Painting: History, Surprise, Restraint" curated by Richard Rhodes at last fall's Toronto International Art Fair. Partheniou's library-like installation held the "Surprise" spot in the series.



The work is indeed surprising, and witty, and attractive, and very collectible. But, like all good art, it can be read on several different levels. Initially the work appeals as a cheeky nod to the importance of language and punning humour in contemporary conceptual painting.

However, Partheniou has begun screwing her canvasses together, in order to create permanent sculptural piles. Now, not only are these books you cannot read, they are paintings you are are not allowed to see. She explains that the act of screwing the canvasses together has a queasy sense of finality for her, in that the paintings have now been defaced and further, will never be fully available to the viewer.
There is something about this rescinding act that reminds me of the twin myths of Pandora and Lilith. In Greek and Judeo-Christian mythology respectively, Pandora and Lilith were each first-created human women who were reviled and punished for their intellectual curiosity and strength . In the common versions of the myths, they were disobedient, and as a result, unleashed evil in the world. In other versions, what they did was to change human nature by acquiring and sharing the power of language. Partheniou's permanently unreadable sculptural stacks reminds me that language and literacy changes everything. Once emancipated by literacy and a free press, the only means of imposing absolute control upon social groups is through brutality or complacency... and in the latter case, we all get just what we deserve.

A small collaborative installation by Partheniou and Micah Lexier "Works, Works 1, Twice" can currently be seen at "Queen Specific", a vitrine gallery next door to (and sponsored by) Dufflet Pastries at 787 Queen St. West, Toronto.

Artist Books from Art Metropole

This week, all posts will be bookish, to honour the final days of David Mirvish Books.

Collecting artist books is an interest of mine, and since these books are often fabulously inexpensive, it always surprises me to find that some of my favourite editions are not sold out.

I have three books to suggest, and you can own them all for less than the price of a very cheap dinner out. Eat at home, and buy some art!

All are available at Art Metropole, itself a landmark institution in Toronto. They celebrate their 35th anniversary this year. Visit in person, or online.

Book #1:

Stephen Andrews, Three Hundred Sixty Five Pictures, 1998
$40.00
"A beautiful and thoughtful collection of the artist's works frm 1994 to 1998. 17 b/w tipped-in images plus one unique Fingerprint portrait included with every copy. These drawings reflect on the resilience of the human spirit undaunted by the challenges of time, love and loss. Includes "Sonnets", "Album", "Fingerprints", "Personals" and "Crosswords" pieces. Essay by Cheryl Sourkes."
(Update: No longer available at Art Metropole)

Book #2:
Barbara Balfour, M, 1998
$10.00
"Artist's book bringing together the psychological and somatic states of skin cancer and melancholy, linked etymologically to the word melanin. Includes autobiographical texts written by the artist. English and French texts with b/w images printed on sandpaper and mushroom speckled paper."

Book #3:
Katie Bond Pretti, Sonority of Words, 2007
$15.00
"Three chapters designed to develop a narrative as the drawings progress from beginning to end. Though not containing any literal message, the lines and shapes which form each drawing direct the viewer through a sequence of events. Similar to way in which the letter-symbol elements of sound poetry necessitate that the viewer forms their own associations, this story depends upon handmade marks to express dynamics and intonation. The format of the book echoes the linear theme featuring fold-outs to accommodate larger and continuous images, while its scale maintains intimacy."