Suzy Lake, Alex Kisilevich and Geoffrey Pugen reviewed in esse
Two new reviews from Toronto appear in the Fall 2011 issue of Montreal's esse magazine, both dealing with photographic practices. The first is my take on a retrospective of the work of landmark performance artist Suzy Lake, which appeared at the University of Toronto...
cheyanne turions’ Canadian curated moment
Curator, writer and all-around amazing thinker cheyanne turions is currently in Banff, participating in a residency led by Dexter Sinister, called From the Toolbox of a Serving Library. The premise of the residency, as cheyanne explains it, is to "take the icon of the...
Kelly Mark and Luis Jacob reviewed in esse
It’s been a busy couple of months, with Images blogging happening in April and lots of behind-the-scenes work on a forthcoming article for Fillip about Jon Rafman’s Nine Eyes of Google Street View project. But, among all those more long-term projects, I’ve also been writing a few reviews, including my regular reports from Toronto for Montreal’s esse magazine. In this issue, I had the pleasure of reviewing two artists whose work I’ve long appreciated, Kelly Mark and Luis Jacob.
Review of Geoffrey Farmer at Casey Kaplan, New York
My review of Geoffrey Farmer’s first US solo show (no, seriously, it’s the first one) is now up on Canadian Art’s website. It was a difficult show to summarize given the sheer number of materials being used and all of the incredible figures and objects at play (I think a characteristic common to many of Farmer’s works), but it is worth a look if you’re in New York over the next few days. It seems a promising start to Farmer’s US presence.
Stan Douglas’s “Every Building on 100 West Hastings”, at home and away
The issues surrounding representations of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighbourhood in contemporary art have bothered me (in the best sense of that word, as in, it keeps tugging at my brain when I least expect it) for several years now. I think it began with Charo Neville’s “Picturing the Downtown Eastside” exhibition in 2005, which I saw when I was in Vancouver and which featured Stan Douglas’s panoramic photograph, Every Building on 100 West Hastings (2001). But the area, and its depiction, has continued to interest me, even from afar in Toronto, especially the reception and discussion around Althea Thauberger’s Carrall Street project, commissioned by Melanie O’Brian while she was the director of Artspeak, an artist-run centre that has long called the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood its home.
Shannon Anderson’s Top 6 Canadian curated moments
[This list is part of an informal archive of Canadian curated moments put together by Canadian curators from across the country. Shannon Anderson is an independent curator, writer and editor. Her writing has been published in Canadian Art, C Magazine, Art Papers and she has written essays for publications produced by Oakville Galleries, the Thames Art Gallery and the Koffler Gallery, among others. She is currently curating exhibitions for Oakville Galleries, the Blackwood Gallery and the Varley Art Gallery.]
“Working-through” public and private labour: Sophie Calle’s ‘Prenez soin de vous’
Ever since seeing it in its Montreal incarnation at DHC/ART, I have been fascinated by Sophie Calle’s exhaustive installation about a breakup email, Prenez soin de vous. The project is engaging, sometimes funny, sometimes ridiculous and not without its faults. In this month’s issue of London-based journal n.paradoxa, which is themed around women’s work, I finally had the chance to unpack my experience of the piece in an article about how Calle frames women’s psychic and affective labour, and her own work as an artist, through the installation.
“To Be Real” and Duke and Battersby reviewed in esse
The Winter issue of the Montreal-based, bilingual magazine esse, this time themed around “Inventories”, is out this week and includes two of my reviews from Toronto: Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby’s solo exhibition at Jessica Bradley Art + Projects and the group show “To Be Real” at Prefix ICA, which also made by Best of 2010 list.
Jon Davies’ Top 6 Canadian curated moments
This list is part of an informal archive of Canadian curated moments put together by Canadian curators from across the country. Jon Davies is a writer and curator based in Toronto and is the Assistant Curator at The Power Plant.
Top Ten shows of 2010
The list of my favourite exhibitions from 2010 has been up on Sally McKay and L.M.’s blog for a while now, but I thought I’d put a shortened version of it up on here for posterity’s sake. This week has also reminded me of some of the exciting things to look forward to in 2011: the next Quebec Triennial at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, curated by Marie Fraser; a list of fantastically promising curators for Nuit Blanche (Shirley Madill, Nicholas Brown and Candice Hopkins); and the debut of new Curator of Programs, Melanie O’Brian, at The Power Plant.
Sally McKay’s Top 7 Canadian curated moments
Curator, artist and kick-ass neuroaesthetics researcher Sally McKay has put up her own list of her favourite 7 Canadian exhibitions/events/moments on the blog she shares with L.M. It’s a great list that combines DIY, artist collective moments from the likes of Persona Volare (who McKay considers self-curating, an apt description I’d never considered before) with big institutional exhibitions at the AGO and recent group shows in Toronto and Barrie (happy to see Meryl McMaster on the list, who is doing some incredible things with portrait photography).
Posting Notice: Comprehensive Insanity
A quick note to say that my already-sporadic updating will be even more sporadic as I try to prepare for my comprehensive exams up at York University this Friday. So, even though I am overdue to post another list of great Canadian exhibitions (and there are some good ones coming), you will have to wait a little longer until I survive this madness.