- Loving the KWAG
First things first for my Canadian audience - if you haven’t yet done so, get your ass away from your computer and VOTE. Seriously, if you read this before you’ve voted you’ll make the ghost of Sir John A. MacDonald sob into his scotch. And if you really care about art, don’t vote Conservative but […]
- Michael Allgoewer at b contemporary
The same night I was milling around the reception for Paul Cvetich’s exhibition at transit Gallery, word was circulating about the concurrent opening of b contemporary, a new gallery on James Street North. Whether by choice or circumstance, former transit gallerist David Brace had kept news of this first reception fairly quiet - b contemporary’s […]
- New gallery bringing the old and hopefully something new
Now that I’m officially snowed in and bored out of my skull, I find myself with an excess of time in which to catch up on recent goings-on in Hamilton art; namely, the grand opening last weekend of Focus Gallery, the latest addition to an ever-expanding string of arts-based establishments on James Street North.
Despite any […]
- Prescription for a Healthy Art Scene
Not for the first time, I’m going to let Art Fag City do the heavy lifting on this post while I try to get some real work done. They’ve been a bit busy this week too, but made up for reduced content with a lovely smorgasbord of links today, including a dip into the SFMOMA […]
- James North Art Crawl: February
One of the unspoken tensions of the Art Crawl is the extent to which the event revolves around spaces rather than their contents. There is a predictable assortment of galleries along the street that establish an art crawler’s routine more than the prospect of the art itself (if only because oftentimes the exhibitions are poorly […]
- Excerpt: An age of austerity for the arts
A side-effect of my recent love affair with Adrian Searle’s Private Views has been an expanded interest in the other cultural podcasts offered by The Guardian’s website. While the critical heft doesn’t quite compete with CBC’s Ideas (a long-standing favourite of mine), the series of recordings from the 2009 Cambridge Festival of Ideas have been […]
- Top Five Hamilton Hits of 2009
When I spontaneously decided to compile a Top Five of Hamilton art events and exhibitions last year, the job practically happened on its own - 2008 was a promising year full of unexpected things in wonderful places, from Christ’s Church Cathedral to Cootes Paradise to 270 Sherman. There was a forward momentum that I had […]
- The Big Picture Revisited Part Two: Sustainability of Arts Organizations
Continuing from yesterday’s report on The Big Picture Revisited with a focus on Support for Individual Artists, today’s post will cover the forum’s discussion surrounding Sustainability of Arts Organizations.
In his introductory remarks on the topic, Ivan Jurakic cited an exceptional quality in the James North landscape that has intrigued me for some time now […]
- Off the oft-beaten path
Most of my critical writing energies these past few days have been gobbled up in the task of producing another Hamilton report for Akimblog. As this is the fifth cross-city blog post that I’ve written for Akimbo, I’m beginning to recognize an alarming trend in my coverage - namely, my reliance upon a mere handful […]
- 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 […]
