- The 2010 Sobey Art Award Longlist
With spring blowing warm into my open studio door and bringing a fresh wave of bees and flies with it, it looks like it’s also time to kick off the slow march towards the 2010 Sobey Art Award with yesterday’s announcement (via Akimbo, anyway) of the longlist.
I took on the sport of trying to pick […]
- The Regional Dialect
If there’s anything truly symptomatic of my stubborn Hamiltonianism, it’s my refusal to believe that Canadian art begins and ends at the borders of Toronto. Much of my critical writing has been bent towards proving that point by championing art activity not just in Hamilton, but in other regional centres that fall outside the predominant […]
- Gatekeepers, Copyright and Curatorial Quandries
While there have been numerous developments as a consequence of Diana Poulsen’s criticism of Vantage Art Projects, I have been content to let Diana report those updates on her own follow-up post. Even at the expense of much dramatic name-calling and editorializing of certain actionable phrases, the value of the dialogue is clearly demonstrated in […]
- Steve Mazza: Unnatural Selection
I’m sure there’s a comment to be made upon the fact that I had to drive out to Cambridge to see a solo installation by a Hamilton artist the likes of which I can’t imagine having ever happened in the city itself. But it’s Friday and a week before Christmas, so I’d rather be charitable […]
- Honey vs. Oil: On Pedagogy in Art
While last week’s three-parter on The Big Picture Revisited revealed time and again that Hamilton sorely lacks a granting body for artists, that fact doesn’t save me from pending grant deadlines for both the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council. And yes, both anecdotal and statistical evidence from that forum showed quite plainly the […]
- Le Cyc at Workers Arts and Heritage Centre
Between last night’s James North Art Crawl and today’s The Big Picture Revisited forum, there’s a lot of weekend content to be digested, enough that I hesitate to comment on any of it here with any degree of authority. It’s a good weekend to be critical, and I suspect that I have a few bones […]
- Art Toronto 2009 Preview
I’ve attended the Toronto International Art Fair in some capacity or another ever since my return to Canada in 2007, though most frequently at the behest of MAP Magazine back in Scotland. And while I’m grateful that the magazine isn’t participating in this year’s fair, the affiliation still allowed me the dubious privilege of grabbing […]
- Thoughts on Honeybees
The same day I was in Toronto doing my last-minute viewing at MKG127, I also had the chance to catch Adrianne Rubenstein’s first solo show at Board of Directors. I had previously viewed her earlier drawings in a group show at the same gallery and was appropriately blown away by her tangled compositions of colour-shifting […]
- Survival and the Seventies at MKG127
I’m grateful June is almost over as this whole month has been the death of good intentions, one of which was to go see I Can’t Stop This Feeling: Crisis, Comfort and Craft at MKG 127. Of course, this exhibition closes June 27 and while I will be in Toronto tomorrow, it’ll be to watch […]
- Smug gloating mitigated by a worthy cause
It’s been a busy week, so I had nearly forgotten that the shortlist for the Sobey Art Prize was due to be announced today until the results popped up on my RSS feed to View on Canadian Art (before they showed up on the Prize’s website, even, so good on Andrea Carson for that one). […]
