Knowing that my chances of guessing as well as I did in 2009 were pretty damn slim, I wasn’t terribly surprised to see that the proper, jury-selected Sobey Art Award Shortlist is not the exact mimic of my personal dork-motivated picks. Only two of my selections - Brendan Fernandes for Ontario, and Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby for Atlantic Canada - proved correct, though I feel honour-bound to point out that I did favour the odds on both Brendan Lee Satish Tang (West Coast and Yukon) and Daniel Barrow (Prairies and the North) before passing them over for invariably nerdier options. To quote from my longlist prediction:
[Daniel Barrow]’s probably the safe bet this time around too, but I clearly have a weakness for the work of fellow Doctor Who dorks, because I think Robyn Moody is far more deserving of that spot on the shortlist.
Truth be told, my opinion hasn’t shifted even in the wake of being proven wrong. I can’t pretend that Daniel Barrow isn’t making good quality work, but I’ve seen far too many other artists adopting the same faux-nostalgic, pop-inflected drawing technique fused with projection to truly comprehend what the fuss is all about; I’d rather have seen the award go to Shary Boyle last year when she made the shortlist (no offence to David Altmejd, of course, he definitely deserved that win).
The only way in which I feel truly remiss is having not given due props to Quebec’s candidate, Patrick Bernatchez. Having never seen his video work in an exhibition context, I’ll admit he was a tough one to read based on what was available on the interwebz, and that poor disadvantage hasn’t really changed since. So my thoughts on this shortlist are honestly failing to take his practice into account, but that’s why I’m always willing to own up to my biases.
Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby, Beauty Plus Pity, 2009, Installation view (Source: canadianart.ca)
So, with what we have to work with, I think the strongest work in the lot resides with our two Brendans, both of whom coincidentally (or not) are rocking some amazing cross-cultural currents in their work, from Tang’s Japanese-Chinese-French porcelain fusions to Kenyan-born Fernandes’ mix of African and Canadian archetypes. I enjoy both artists immensely, but I think my pick for this year is going to be Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby. There’s an immediate sense of wonderment that hits the viewer in any of their installations, but more importantly this surface pleasure conceals the ingredients of some truly dark commentary suffused with a complicating dose of hope. It’s vital and complicated work and would be plenty worthy of the recognition that a Sobey win would bring the pair.
Canadian Art provides a useful if non-committal run-down of the shortlisted artists for those who want a quick review of the candidates and make their own predictions in the lead-up to the Gala announcement of the winner on November 18 at the Musee d’art contemporain de Montreal. Not that I’d be surprised to see it go to Daniel Barrow, but I’m definitely in favour of something not seen elsewhere in every region of our fine art-making nation.
- BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
- « New Hamilton-based Blogs
- » The Bigger Picture
- BROWSE / IN Canadian Art News
- « James North Art Crawl: June
- » Akimblog Hamilton now online
SPEAK / ADD YOUR COMMENT
Comments are moderated.
