Brad Copping: Prairie Portage Primer

A very nice interview and video tour of Brad Copping's exhibition, "Prairie Portage Primer", on view at Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery through September 2, 2012. I was honoured to have been asked by curator Heather Smith to write the catalogue essay.

VSVSVS: Graffiti Removal Removal

VSVSVS is a collective of young artists based in an industrial space in the Port Lands on Toronto's eastern waterfront. Current members include Stephen McLeod, Wallis Cheung, Miles Stemp, Laura Kreviazuk, Ryan Clayton, Anthony Cooper, Jemma Egan, Laura Simon, and James Gardner.

"Graffiti Removal Removal" is a public art project which VSVSVS has recently done as part of Art of the Danforth 2012 . This festival  is a welcome newcomer in the Toronto free-art, community-engagement scene. Bracketed roughly by the Greenwood and Woodbine subway stops, "Art of the Danforth" celebrates a stretch of the Danforth that has yet to see much in the way of gentrification. The festival runs from May 20 through June 10 this year, but "Graffiti Removal Removal" should be around for some time to come, or at least until someone removes the removal removals.

Graffiti Removal is what you get when city workers, or private property owners, attempt to erase graffiti by painting over it. You see these erasures everywhere, as floating and layered blocks of colour which almost, but not quite, match the tones of the underlying surfaces on the original buildings or fences. The resulting forms can be pretty interesting, if unintentionally so.

I have not asked the members of VSVSVS, but their project seems to be the logical extension of ideas introduced in the wry mocumentary short film "The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal" (2001, director: Matt McCormick, narrator: Miranda July,  based on an original idea of artist Avalon Kalin).

"Graffiti Removal has become one of the more intriguing and important art movements of the early 21st century. With roots in abstract expressionism, minimalism and Russian constructivism, Graffiti Removal is both a progressive continuation of these movements and an important step in the future of modern art. What makes graffiti removal particularly intriguing, though, is that the artists creating it are unconscious of their artistic achievements."

Here is a clip:



And so, we have "Graffiti Removal Removal". Works of "removal art" are unintentionally made by city workers and property owners who have the conscious intention of erasing that which they do not sanction as art. With the addition of carefully chosen colour and occasional sculptural elements, VSVSVS consciously and deliberately "removes" the graffiti removals in such a way as to elevate the erasures. The graffiti removals now become validated and sanctioned works of ART as we more commonly define it: that is, work created purposefully and thoughtfully by professional artists. As is always a trademark of VSVSVS at their most successful, this project manages to be tongue-in-cheek and utterly serious at the same time. Unsanctioned artists make graffiti, which the city and the property owners do not consider to be art. The city and property owners make erasures, which they do not intend to be art, but which are now defined as such as a result of the intervention of professional artists. Next up?

Three of my favourite works in this series can be seen in the laneway which runs from Greenwood to Linnsmore Crescent, behind the stores on the north side of the Danforth. (Shot with my iPhone, and not the best. Go see for yourself, if you are in Toronto.)

The door, the post and the stairs have been painted in the same colour as the removal removals.

Sculptural elements are sometimes included in the removal removals: note the addition of spray-foam insulation on the right of the door. Note, too, the dash of aqua at shoulder height to the left of the door, nicely enhancing the divot which a truck has taken out of the corner of the building...

...and a pink-painted padlock installed on the pole.

The colour of the removal removal on this fence was inspired by the weathered siding on the adjacent garage.

The property owner attempted a white-wash removal of an entire wall of graffiti, but could not paint around the permanently parked van. VSVSVS helpfully added the text, reading "WHITE PAINT" (vinyl lettering, thus itself easily removable).

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.

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.

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

2009 Governor General's Award Winners (Visual and Media Arts)

The winners of the 2009 Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts have been announced. The laureates are, from left, Tony Urquhart, Raymond Moriyama, Robert Morin, Kevin Lockau, Gordon Smith, Nobuo Kubota, Rita McKeough, Kim Ondaatje and John Greer. (Photograph: Martin Lipman)

The awards have recognize the following contributions to artistic life in Canada:



• Kim Ondaatje and Tony Urquhart, recognized jointly with an Outstanding Contribution award for their work on behalf of CARFAC (Canadian Artists’ Representation / Le Front des artistes canadiens). 


• Toronto architect Raymond Moriyama, designer of the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Toronto’s Bata Shoe Museum and Science North in Sudbury, Ont. 



• Video artist Robert Morin of Montreal



• Glass artist Kevin Lockau of Bancroft, Ont., who wins the Saidye Bronfman Award for fine crafts



• Ninety-year-old Vancouver painter Gordon Smith



• Zen-inspired Toronto sculptor and musician Nobuo Kubota


• Calgary-based installation and performance artist Rita McKeough

• Nova Scotia sculptor John Greer


As a gallerist , I am very very proud to have shown the work of Tony Urquhart as well as Kevin Lockau.

Urquhart is absolutely one of my favourite Canadian painters. His self sufficient and wise attitude toward the artistic process is both grounding and inspiring: he is fond of saying that the great thing about never having been in fashion is that you never go out of fashion. (As I've noted previously, however, I believe really good painting will be very much in fashion again soon, as we generally tire of excess, vanity and greed as guiding principles in both the art world and the financial world.) Urquhart's career has spanned more than 50 years and he has received many awards and honours for his painting and sculpture. However, his GG, which he shares with Kim Ondaatje, is an Outstanding Contribution award for their work on behalf of CARFAC (Canadian Artists’ Representation / Le Front des artistes canadiens).

It is the award to Kevin Lockau which I believe will generate the most gossip within the art community... or certainly within the craft community. The GG for craft (aka the Saidye Bronfman Award) typically has gone to an artist for whom technical prowess is as important, and sometimes more important, than concept. Lockau is certainly capable of virtuosity when it comes to technical matters; however it simply is not what drives him. He played an important role in developing the glass studio at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, where he taught for 20 years. Over his career, he invented three hot glass casting techniques, producing an unique material which he incorporates in his sculpture with carved granite and welded or cast metal elements. His work is raw and urgent, combining animal, natural and human forms. Lockau has largely eschewed the gallery "system", and has never been persuaded that saleability is a suitable motive for artistic creation. He chooses to live and work in relative isolation, on a plot of land outside Bancroft, Ontario. This rugged region, where rural farmland gives way to wilderness, has been his muse. The making of glass leaves an unfortunately large carbon footprint, and this is a conundrum for Lockau. He has been driven to reconcile his love of glass-as-matter with the fact that the process of creating this material is far from ecologically sound. This conflict is embodied in the raw and energized nature of his sculpture.


Lockau was nomnated for the GG by Lafreniere and Pai, his Ottawa gallery. Hats off to them: I am one of this gallery's many admirers. They support a roster of artists who consistently challenge and push traditional boundaries in the "art v craft" debate.