- 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 […]
- Off the Shelf: The DIY artist book edition
I’ve been thinking a lot about artists’ books lately, from future possibilities in my own studio practice to the collection I’ve accrued to date and my wish that more of these beauties were being produced in my immediate creative orbit. Which brings me back around to that impulse to simply do it myself, but that’s […]
- Friday Links: A Fire in My Belly
I’ve been following the controversy around the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and their removal of David Wojnarowicz’s video A Fire in My Belly from the critically acclaimed exhibition Hide/Seek with a stomach-churning mix of disgust at the repressive forces at work in American society and relief that I live in Canada. The fact that I […]
- Saltz and the new definition of “dickish”
I’ve resisted commentary on the more prolific Jerry Saltz drama taking place these days on the grounds that any refutation of a critic’s reasoned argument that opens by calling said critic “dickish” is not worthy of intelligent consideration - although the underlying dickishness of the hollow discourse in itself is intelligently examined here.
Instead, I’m backtracking […]
- Tomorrow: Art Museum Wager Resolved… oh, and Superbowl XLIV, too
Come next week I expect to bring some meatier critical fare to the table, but in the meantime I have paid writing obligations that can’t afford to get sidelined by playing referee to excessive blog histrionics.
So… how about that not-so-local sports team?
Even though my play-off picks leading up to tomorrow’s Superbowl were ridiculously bad […]
- Vital Donation Via Vital Africa
The media invite for this morning’s launch event for the Art Gallery of Hamilton’s Vital Africa year of exhibitions was sweetened by the dangling carrot of a donation announcement that drew a substantial crowd and mild speculations that proved essentially accurate. Frequent AGH benefactors Joey and Tony Tanenbaum already have a well-known history of bequests […]
- 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 […]
- ‘A Field Guide to Observing Art’ at McMaster
After a series of delays and hints over the past week or so on this blog, I’m glad to finally have a sufficient window of opportunity to say a few things about A Field Guide to Observing Art at the McMaster Museum of Art. While I’ve already commented in passing on this exhibition’s value as […]
- Three Reasons Why Power Brokers are Bad for Art
Having just fallen under a sudden avalanche of task-mastering, today’s post has been outsourced to the wider wisdom of the internet: yes, it’s a links post. Let’s just pretend this is an episode of Connections, and hope the whirl of to-do’s settles in time for something profound come Friday.
From CultureGrrl - “United We Serve”: Should […]
- Picasso prints uncovered at McMaster Museum of Art
As announced yesterday on McMaster University’s Daily News feed, a complete set of Pablo Picasso’s Sueño y Mentira de Franco prints in their original case were recently discovered in the Museum’s archives by Adam Belovari, a fourth-year art history student assigned to research some of the lesser-known portions of the collections as a Humanities 3W03 […]
