Dive into the archives.

  • The Real Sobey Shortlist Announced

    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 […]

  • Louise Bourgeois, 1911-2010

    After spending most of the last two days in my new studio on James North, there is something truly bittersweet and sad about coming back home tonight to learn that Louise Bourgeois, that veritable grand dame of contemporary art, has passed away today at the age of 98 in Manhattan.

    Robert Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois, 1982 (pictured […]

  • Tivoli Theatre - a treasure worth preserving

    My customary report on the most recent James North Art Crawl will be pending in the next day or two, but while I’m sorting through my myriad photos and notes (it was a busy one), I’d like to give a bit of extra attention to one of the unexpected highlights of the night.
    Near the end […]

  • 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 […]

  • Update: Sky Dragon Community Meeting

    In the interests of viral proliferation, I’d like to throw down a quick update on the Sky Dragon Centre’s mission to save itself from foreclosure - and in turn, to save our arts community from the loss of a uniquely valuable institution among our number.
    As promised, the people at Sky Dragon have announced a second […]

  • Sky Dragon Centre Facing Foreclosure

    I hope to post my report on the James North Art Crawl later today, but before that I feel obliged to draw attention to some recent bad news that threatens to change the shape of Hamilton’s downtown arts community.
    The Sky Dragon Community Development Co-operative at 27 King William has occupied a considerable niche in the […]

  • 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 […]

  • Writing in the snow

    Despite this blog’s title, neither of the two links I’m about to throw out here have anything to do with writing your name in the snow by urinating, so if you’re looking for that, you’ll have to try somewhere else.
    But if you’re any sort of writer, and especially the sort of writer toiling away north […]

  • 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 […]