Top Tens of 2009

I should be doing the last of this term’s schoolwork, but instead I’m doing this: compiling my list of top ten, favourite art-related exhibitions and events from 2009. Both Canadian Art and akimblog published theirs last week, and Sally and LM have just started their annual lists. Plus, I always try to get mine up before Jon Davies to try and prevent overlap (he always remembers 2 or 3 amazing things that I forget, however). Unlike last year, where hotly anticipated events like the Quebec Triennial and Nuit Blanche lived up to their hype, this year, for me, was characterized by unexpected discoveries and subtle interventions into the status quo.

We joked at work about compiling a “worst of 2009” list, which did not happen, but I’m considering taking it on as a holiday task (after some wine, perhaps?). But here for now are my favourites, in no particular order:

1. Discovering Owen Kydd at Clark & Faria

I wandered into Clark & Faria‘s Distillery District location last spring on a trip with my parents who were in town visiting during their group exhibition of gallery artists, elusively titled “Clark & Faria Presents.” While much of the work was strong, Owen Kydd’s nearly silent, long-take, documentary-style videos of figures and scenes from small towns haunted me for the rest of the year. Turning Vancouver School photoconceptualism on its head by making photographic films (rather than filmic photographs), Kydd’s video triptychs create unusual compositions that are less about their figurative subjects than the subtle movements of light, air and facial expressions that intervene in the otherwise perfectly staged sets. I haven’t seen his solo show at the Vancouver Art Gallery yet, but am hoping to catch it before it closes over the holiday break.

2. Artur Zmijewski’s Sculpture Plein-air. Swiecie 2009 at the Museum of Modern Art

Forget Tim Burton.* The best thing on at the MoMA right now is the premiere of Artur Zmijeski’s newest film, Sculpture Plein-air. Swiecie 2009. Set in a small Polish town where the artist paired up seven visual artists and a company of steel workers and set them the task of collaboratively creating public sculptures that represented the steel plant, the film documents the group’s cordial negotiations and collaborative physical labour, with heavy emphasis on the steel workers’ perspectives on the changing economy and cultural value of their work. Considerably subtler than his past work, the documentary’s most memorable parts are the workers’ spot-on critiques of the artists’ designs (“The one with the three figures holding the pole is fine, but I think it is a bit too simple and obvious”) and the incredibly awkward unveiling of some of the pieces to the townspeople.

*And when I say “forget,” I mean, of course, go see it, especially after you’ve dropped $20 on MoMA admission. The black light entrance with a crazy miniature carousel is pretty cool.

3. “feelers” at Susan Hobbs gallery, with Sarah Massecar, Sandra Meigs, and Arlene Shechet

4. “Gakona” at Palais de Tokyo

5. Cedric Bomford’s TOWER BLOCK at Red Bull 381 Projects

6. “We Interrupt This Program” at Mercer Union

Curator Sarah Robayo Sheridan (with Steven Leiber and Ted Purves)’s long overdue survey of artists’ interventions into print and television advertising at Mercer Union provided a thorough but well-edited overview of mass media strategies. It had all the heavy hitters one would expect–Dan Graham’s magazine pieces and ads, Lynda Benglis’s infamous Artforum ad, Chris Burden’s landmark series of commercials broadcast in LA–alongside some lesser-known and delightful examples by Joseph Kosuth, Yoko Ono, Valie Export and Keith Arnatt. Sheridan’s strength is in her ability to make convincing curatorial choices, such as excerpting longer video works and ending the survey at 1993, when internet self-publishing negated the potency of many of these interventions. Her accompanying film screening of related works, called “Identifications” and co-presented with Pleasure Dome, was similarly short and pithy and the clip of Joseph Beuys sitting in front of a TV set, pummeling his head with boxing gloves, was in many ways a meta-narrative for the entire show.

7. Apichatpong Weerasethakul‘s Phantoms of Nabua at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art

While wandering through the opening of a not-so-impressive restaging of the traveling show “Arena: The Art of Hockey“ (which looks like it had more teeth in its original incarnations), a friend and I ended up seated and transfixed in front of Weerasethakul’s gorgeous video, shown as part of TIFF’s Future Projection series. You can watch almost all of it online, so I won’t spoil it with what will be an inadequate textual description, but it is worth every second of its 11 minute length. Kim Tomczak and Lisa Steele tell me everything Weerasethakul has made is equally captivating and I’m looking forward to keeping an eye out for him in future.

8. Reece Terris‘ Ought Apartment at the Vancouver At Gallery

9. Jon Rafman‘s “The Nine Eyes of Google Street View” project on Art Fag City

As part of Art Fag City’s IMG MGMT series of image-based artist essays, Jon Rafman put together a terrific survey of the images that have resulted from the creepy-cool Google Street View tool. The text is sharp and provocative and the images are, of course, weirdly voyeuristic and often unexpectedly aesthetically impressive.

10. ArtStars*

Just them, period. Though I am sad that Artfag is gone (and was unmasked by none other than Nadja Sayej, the ArtStars* host), his absence is a little less painful knowing I can count on Nadja, Jeremy Bailey and Ryan Edwards to point out the ridiculous at events like Nuit Blanche, the Power Ball and even a project I was involved in. You know that if they can make you laugh at yourself, they must be doing something right.