- 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 […]
- James North Art Crawl: January
As I was pulling together my thoughts on this month’s uneven exhibition efforts and not-entirely-pleasant cold, I finally recalled that I have no basis for comparison to last year’s January Crawl. This time last year, I’d been in Toronto for the opening of Misplaced: Animals Lost and Found at XPACE, in which I was showing […]
- 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 […]
- Akimblog Hamilton Update
My most recent Akimblog post for Hamilton is now online for your reading pleasure. As I mentioned on Monday, this month’s highlights include Tomer Diamant’s installation at the Royal Botanical Gardens - which unfortunately ended today, but there’s still plenty of time to check out the other exhibitions covered in my report.
Jesse Boles, Hot Mill, […]
- James North Supercrawl: October
I went out into the rainy night of Supercrawl with a resolution in mind: already grouchy over the shit weather and exhausted by preparations for next weekend’s Hands-On Hamilton Art Party for the Print Studio, I decided to simply enjoy the music and the mood as the lay pedestrian I am where such matters are […]
- ‘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 […]
- James North Art Crawl: July
For the second month running, I’ve got another paid-writing deadline conflicting with my (unpaid, obviously) Art Crawl ritual, which accounts for this repeated lateness. It also probably explains the HTML markup that keeps sneaking into the in-progress Word document of my review for Sarah Anne Johnson’s House on Fire - maybe this multi-tasking rubbish isn’t […]
- 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). […]
- James North Art Crawl: April
While I had heard speculation through the week over whether Good Friday would impact attendance, this month’s Art Crawl still saw a healthy turn-out in the street and galleries, and just as well given that the range of exhibitions on offer was of a higher standard than I have seen in several months.
Elizabeth Chitty’s installation, […]
- ‘Not Quite How I Remember It’ at The Power Plant
I’m writing these impressions of The Power Plant’s summer show, Not Quite How I Remember It, from the other side of a somewhat fuzzy Canada Day weekend that stands as a handy temporal buffer between the moment of viewing the exhibition and my writing on it now - it’s a gesture that is either an […]
