Author: artoronto

Christian McLeod, Rain Bird, 2013, oil on wood panel, 30 x 24 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

March 20 – April 26, 2014
The Al Green Gallery

Particle Collisions is an apt name for Christian McLeod’s paintings at the Al Green Gallery in Toronto. For some time now McLeod’s pigment-laden canvases have conveyed a restless geology, the pulverizing of forms that speak of the forces of nature at a perpetual gallop. It would be a misnomer to label these works as abstract, since that would suggest something rarified, etherial and remote, which these paintings are insistently not.

Christian McLeod, The Garden, 2013, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

The roots of McLeod’s impulse to paint digs deep into the soil of the primitive. His stance as “an outsider within an outsider culture” betrays a cocky defiance against the grain of the institutionalized academia of video and installation art. As he says of his joining the fray of art-making in the 80s and 90s, “It was kind of punk to be working in this ancient discipline!”

Christian McLeod, Frozen Particles, 2013, oil on canvas, 28 x 22 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

McLeod is not alone in mining territory staked by the German artist Gerhard Richter. When comparisons are made, however, similarities are out-stripped by stubborn differences. The tracks that blare through the scrapes and gouges of the pigment are distinctly Canadian. The sound we pick up is ice, water, freezing, melting, and the abrasive weathering by endless cycles of summer and winter, that pummel the Canuck landscape into an unyielding submission. Painting dons the uniform of combat, when greens bruise into reds and the frost crackles over navy ground like artillery fire.

Christian McLeod, Light Particles, 2013, oil on canvas, 56 x 48 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

To his credit, there is nothing serially programmatic about McLeod’s oeuvre. When the same furrow isn’t ploughed twice, the promise of the yield is freshness. In that sense, the artist arches to the restlessness of the explorer over the settler. The Forest, Frozen Particles, Arrival, The Beginning, Rain Bird, Myth, The Crossing, The Forest and the Trees, and Before the Crossing are a sampling of McLeod’s painterly “yield” over the past year or so. If the painting titles suggest a blunt literalness, the works themselves are open-ended and expansive. It’s all that we would expect from “the particle physicist of Canadian art.”

Christian McLeod, Myth, 2014, oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

Steve Rockwell

*Exhition information: March 20 – April 26, 2014, The Al Green Gallery, 64 Merton Street, Toronto. Gallery hours: Tues – Wed and Fri – Sat 12 – 5 p.m., Thurs 12 -7 p.m.

O.W.N. (Object Work Notation)
February 21 – March 29, 2014
Open Studio

There is something strange about this exhibition, even at first sight. Some of the works don’t seem to be prints or related to printmaking at all. However hard I try to find elements of printmaking, in some pieces I can’t. What does a monogrammed piece of cutlery have to do with printmaking? Other pieces clearly belong among textile art like Jae Lee’s Pojagi or Liz Parkinson’s Thicket Setting. There is a box with tubes of paint, another with children’s building toys, an oar, a little heap of dirt with a small red plastic building on it. Of course there are some prints too, but still it’s strange. Works and objects occupy the walls, some of them close to the floor and others with writing close to the ceiling. After a while I just gave up analyzing the techniques. Who cares about the boundaries of printmaking when the show is so enjoyable? It is a wonderfully installed exhibition with playful details and a lot to see, so I just let myself look.

I finally understood the concept when I read the interesting curatorial statement from Richard Sewel: “O.W.N as occurrence(s) evolved from locusethics, a theory about location as morality. Here occurrence is about manner as a located heuristic, a notation that enables individual objects as linked to individual. Here the observation within locations is as narrative – sequence about a myriad of and as one’s experience. Here as cultural significant – each local is as a foci – a clarifying about one’s observation.” O.W.N. is a visual occurrence of 33 located objects by eleven Open Studio members. O.W.N. as occurrence is evolved from pre-literate chanting. As in chanting, some works are like a gesture or even a rhythm, while others have a rather complex story.

Laura Bydlowska’s object (left) and her etching, Red Habitat.

Laura Bydlowska’s etching Red Habitatdepicts a hilly landscape with a little red chine-collé house that represents hotels in Monopoly games. A few steps further and it’s recreated from some dirt (maybe from the landscape itself) and the monopoly piece – a playful gesture. Liz Menard layered the poem “Land of the Silver Birch” and the musical notes from the song based on it over her Collograph that resembles the bark of birch trees – while a paddle hangs on the opposite wall. These are memories of summer camps, the artist says.

Liz Menard, Collograph with Pauline Johnson poem and Land of the Silver Birch Sheet Music.

Irina Schestakowich’s narrative is really touching. Her object is a little ceramic boy figurine that, along with her mother, survived the bombing of Dresden. Schestakowitch’s work, Boy Print, inspired by the figurine, also has a survival story. When the artist’s studio on Toronto Island collapsed in a 2013 storm, that print was the only thing she wanted to save.

Irina Schestakowich’s object, Boy Doll (left) and Boy Prints

Libby Hague explained the making of her installation, saying that she followed a map or sketches of original ideas that came together in her studio as the material she was handling absorbed the happiness and anxiety of her life. Yael Brotman, inspired by her climb to the cupola of the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, created a construction of angled beams with recycled, etched, Japanese paper. Penelope Stewart transformed the geographical map of Canberra into a large piece called Apian Cartography, focusing on natural and architectural patterns.

Libby Hague, Studio slice (left) and Synchromesh, Gabrielle, woodcut print on wire-laminated paper, rope, cord, netting, papier maché, various upholstery tack, 36 x 35 x 3 inches.

Yael Brotman’s object, cookie tin of children’s blocks (left) and  Trestle, Etching on Kurotani paper, 2013

The exhibited objects and artwork are engaging by themselves, but what makes this exhibition outstanding is the way it has been installed, the way it juxtaposes its many elements.

Emese Krunák-Hajagos
Photo: Margaret Irving

*Exhibition information: February 21 – March 29, 2014, Open Studio, 401 Richmond Street West, Suite 104, Toronto. Gallery hours: Tues – Sat, 12 – 5 p.m.

Nahúm Flores, Two Faced, 2014, mixed media on canvas, 48” x 36”.

March 15 – April 26, 2014
Articsók Gallery

Nahúm Flores feels the need to communicate about his life experience through art. Many artists are content to develop a recognizable style and identity but he has the deft touch of authenticity. At once humble and humorous, he explores issues of life and death, colonization and displacement in a poetic manner, through his subconscious.

It is important to realize that he comes from Honduras, a region populated by the Mayan people and other aboriginal groups over time. These Pre-Hispanic cultures all left their mark but perhaps none with as much devastation as the Spanish Conquistadores who, in misguided religious zeal, burnt all the writings and attacked the cultural bedrock of the indigenous people. Only fragments survive of Popol Vuh, the ‘Book of Councel’, which outlines the rich animistic narrative that informed indigenous rituals and beliefs. Many Gods presided over continuous celestial and terrestrial cycles of birth, death and renewal. They tried three times to invent a ‘workable’ model man to inhabit a region conceptualized as ‘underworld’, ‘earth’ and ‘heaven’. Mother Earth was seen as a living conglomerate of alligator, turtle, and toad. In the final attempt, man was constructed out of corn and four animals were singled out, the coyote, crow, mountain cat and parrot. The crow was seen as the messenger of the God of lightning and thunder.

Nahúm Flores, These Eyes, 2014, mixed media on canvas, 41” x 54”.

This bird features in many of Flores’ paintings, along with many images of shifting identity. Although it is a character drawn from this rich mythology, Flores is not simply illustrating the past. He interacts with his subject matter intuitively, allowing the personalities to emerge. Forms are fluid and lines that delineate a human can also denote snake-like qualities, depending on visual clues. Feminine and masculine forms flow together, amorphously, generating a place for the viewer’s imagination.

Nahúm Flores, Encounter, 2014, mixed media on linen mounted on wood, 16” x 16”.

Mayan language combined phonetic symbols with logograms in a system of glyphs, written on bark paper. A close look at Flores’ art reveals an obsession with text and texture, particularly of walls, bark and earthly substances like sand, rock and dirt. All elements are recycled and given new life. He uses text both as a visual element and as a ‘dialogue’ within the painting. Scavenging worksites for discarded materials, Flores re-purposes aluminum, plexiglass and wooden offcuts, or with greater ingenuity, sardine cans and flattened soda cans. The process comments obliquely on our Western society that is so wasteful of resources.

Another aspect of Flores’ background is that he is part of a diaspora of displaced people. The border region he comes from was embroiled in the Sandinistas / Contras power struggle, sponsored in part by cold war ideologies. Individuals endured much suffering and this core of understanding is at the root of Flores’ work. He has empathy with the living struggle, which his work exudes as a gentle expression rather than polemic. In his teens and alone, he migrated to Mexico, the US and finally found a home in Canada. Life is extremely hard for migrants and the work undertaken can be backbreaking. Flores has endured this and completed a degree in art at OCAD. This is an achievement in itself.

Nahúm Flores, Site, 2013, mixed media on wood, 12” x 17”.

Flores employs a complex process of accretion in his work. He combines drawing with photography and found materials in mixed media paintings, seeking to draw out an image intuitively. Photographs of crumbling walls in Mexico and Honduras adorned with discontented graffiti from an ensuing social struggle are transferred to his canvases using a gel medium. The paper is scratched off to leave the emulsion embedded in the painting surface. Transparency is built up in areas to a glass-like consistency as he plays with a perception of depth within a flat surface. He writes short sentences on the paintings, drawing animals and birds like crows and vultures, significant to Mayan culture. The paintings seem to carry a narrative as if Flores is communicating something metaphysical in an ongoing drama about life and death.

Nahúm Flores, Homage to Non-Conformity, 2014, mixed media on recycled wood, 20”.

Los Errantes, or The Drifters, embodies Flores’ personal and historical journey. A work like Homage to Non-Conformity is a border crossing referencing the migrant experience, but it is also a counter-invasion by ‘aggressive tongues’. The outstretched tongue is symbolic in Toltec mythology and is a feature of serpent deities. There is a lot of humour in this visualization, as the US flag disintegrates in reverse, becoming part of the ground. In other works the small, drawn figures seem overwhelmed by the monochromatic ground. One senses an existential struggle to register as a person or thought within the overwhelming flood of history. Yet, the growth metaphor succeeds like a leaf sprouting from a corpse or a spiral line indicating a movement towards life.

Nahúm Flores, Wander, 2014, mixed media on doorskin, 32” x 24”.

Some works are more overtly optimistic as if the artist is willing elements into life, defying death and the anonymity of an impenetrable background wall or rock. Triumph of the Myth presents a crow perched on the nose of a severed head that is bandaged. The flat, textural structures within the picture plane are contrasted with the blue square, which indicates a movement towards the ‘beyond’. Mayan myth is referenced in the severed head, perhaps symbolizing the Maize God, Hun Hunahpú, whose head was cut off in the underworld yet he managed to impregnate a maiden by spitting into her hand. She later gave birth to the Hero Twins, thus becoming a source of renewal.

Nahúm Flores, Triumph of the Myth, 2011, mixed media on canvas, 30” x 30”.

Flores is one of the most interesting Latin American artists working in Toronto. He is also part of the collective called Z’otz*, which is Mayan for ‘bat’, another important mythological creature. He works alongside Ilyana Martinez and Erik Jerezano creating collaborative works that have received a great deal of attention in numerous exhibitions across Canada. They share an animistic sensibility, drawing content from indigenous cultures that are somewhat foreign to the Canadian sensibility. Our artistic culture is more comfortable within landscape and the US-dominated ‘modernist’ discourse. We have forgotten our own European animistic mythologies, replacing the gnarled and clawed tree-spirit of renewal with the ‘benign’, rosy-cheeked Santa Claus of commercial exploitation. Religious proselytization colonized pagan ways of mythologizing the environment in a way that has robbed us of an innate empathic relationship with nature. This seems due to the religious narrative that ‘man has been given dominion over all creatures’. Artists like Flores present an environment that lives and breathes free from these restrictions. His vision offers the possibility, through storytelling, of finding a new symbiosis with all life.

Ashley Johnson

*Exhibition information: March 15 – April 26, 2014, Articsók Gallery, 1697 St. Clair Avenue West, Toronto. Gallery hours: Wed – Sat 12 – 6 p.m.

March 1 – 23, 2014
Loop Gallery

Kim Stanford’s show Dirtier is an unabashed testimonial to socks. There are socks twined together perched on laundry boxes, phallic socks jutting out from the wall, drawings of socks, and a bronzed cast resting on a pedestal. Folded socks litter the floor below paying homage to the process work of Félix González-Torres. A lot of the work is close to the ground, mimicking the familiar act of picking up laundry.

Installation view with So uh Mike Kelly and Jeff Koons walk into a bar…, 25″x11″x10″, socks, acrylic, brass, marble, 2014 (foreground)

Yet, the work is more than just the donated laundry that Stanford to this day, still receives in the mail. The vertical installation, Yes I’m Trying to Pick You Up is a monochrome mapping of the ordinary. The socks protrude and turn their gaze back onto the viewer. The holes in the socks, suggest a darker infiltrated space of sexuality and childhood in comparison to the levity of the rest of the show.   

Installation view with Yes I’m Trying to Pick You Up (Vertical Installation); dimensions variable; socks, glue; 2013 (background) and  So uh Mike Kelly and Jeff Koons walk into a bar…, 25″x11″x10″, socks, acrylic, brass, marble, 2014 (foreground)

The artist’s work is sharpest and most clearly ironic in the Monument to the Mundane, a cheeky understanding that we are talking about socks here. The sock is transformed into an immortalized bronze artwork, while the give—away socks in Pick up your f-in sock! take me back to the clothing store. I look at the varying colors and realize my desire to pick a nice pair of socks to take home is playing into the gendered edge of the work. Of course, a very Canadian reaction rears its head as the frigid cold outside makes me bypass the attractive socks and opt for the thick hearty wool ones. I am simultaneously dismayed and impressed when my hand encloses over the glue sealed socks that function as mini sculptures. They wont keep me warm but they are precious. Very cleverly, the mundane and monument play with each other in a dance of absurdity.

Kim Stanford with Monument to the Mundane , 7” x 10” x 9”; bronze; 2014

Pick up your f-in sock!, 2014. Dimensions variable; socks, glue. Each visitor is encouraged to pick up one sock and take it home and in this way everyone does their share

Experiencing the show, like the artist herself confesses, I will not look at a sock the same way again – at least not for a little while.

Text: Gagan Sandhu
Photo: Duke Ringrose

*Exhition information: March 1 – 23, 2014, Loop Gallery, 1273 Dundas Street West, Toronto. Gallery hours: Wed – Sat 12 – 5, Sun 1 – 4 p.m.

Misled by Nature at the MOCCA, an exhibition organized by the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Alberta, presents a small selection of works overwhelming in detail and ornateness. The show is comprised of artworks from the National Gallery’s permanent collection featuring the artists David Altmejd, Mark Bradford, Lee Bul, Bharti Kher, Tricia Middleton, and Yinka Shonibare, MBE.

The exhibition explores the themes that have come to define the art of the Baroque in the seventeenth century such as of extravagance, theatricality, and opulence. It examines how contemporary artists have incorporated these themes into their work as well as cultural issues that surround the Baroque era within the contemporary context. The title of the exhibition, Misled by Nature, implies a world that has been misguided by sensual delights, appealing to both our visual and tactile senses. Like the art of the Baroque era, this exhibition is intended to stir the senses of the viewer.

The central space of the gallery is occupied by three large-scale, mixed media installations. All of them have reflecting surfaces on or around them, mirroring the space that each occupies so while looking at them the viewer is also observing the space around the work. Although they are clearly separated from one another, it is as if these installations are growing and absorbing the surrounding gallery space.

David Altmejd, The Holes, 2008, wood, mirror, glue, plaster, foam, metal wire, epoxy clay, epoxy resin, paint, horse hair, synthetic branches, synthetic flowers, pine cones, glass beads, quartz, quail eggs, glitter, and snail shells, 291.5 x 883.9 x 518.2 cm, detail, National Gallery of Canada

David Altmejd, The Holes, 2008, wood, mirror, glue, plaster, foam, metal wire, epoxy clay, epoxy resin, paint, horse hair, synthetic branches, synthetic flowers, pine cones, glass beads, quartz, quail eggs, glitter, and snail shells, 291.5 x 883.9 x 518.2 cm, detail, National Gallery of Canada

The first work that visitors encounter is David Altmejd’s The Holes, is an installation composed of a diverse range of materials including glass, fake flowers, pine cones, glass beads, quartz, quail eggs, glitter, and snail shells. It resembles an opulent, grotesque, and fantastical landscape. Although all of these objects appear to be growing out of the base it is clear that all these materials are artificial. Mirrors in the shape of prisms stick out like quartz in a dark cave. The glass surfaces reflect multiple views of the installation and the gallery space within the work.

Lee Bul, After Bruno Taut (Negative Capability), 2008, crystal, glass, and acrylic beads on stainless steel armature with aluminum and copper mesh, with chains made of PVC, steel, and aluminum, 274.3 x 296.4 x 213.4 cm, National Gallery of Canada

Lee Bul, After Bruno Taut (Negative Capability), 2008, crystal, glass, and acrylic beads on stainless steel armature with aluminum and copper mesh, with chains made of PVC, steel, and aluminum, 274.3 x 296.4 x 213.4 cm, detail, National Gallery of Canada

Lee Bul’s ornate installation, After Bruno Taut (Negative Capability) is constructed from industrial materials such as steel, glass, beads, aluminum, and copper. It is suspended from the ceiling and glitters like a chandelier. The dramatic effect of this work is intensified by the mirrored floor placed beneath it, inviting viewers to observe the details through the reflection of the floor as well. The themes and materials of this work were influenced by the ideas of the Utopian architect Bruno Taut who was a champion of Modernist industrial architecture. Bul has translated Taut’s ideas through her use of industrial materials and her construction of a Utopian model for an idealized built world, creating an imaginary world that is delicate, idealized and manufactured.

Tricia Middleton, Embracing ruin and oblivion is the only way to live now, 2012-2013

The lights in the gallery are dimly lit projecting a warm golden glow onto the installations. This warm lighting contrasts with the cool colours of Tricia Middleton’s installation Embracing Ruin and Oblivion is the Only way to Live Now, which is a dome structure painted in frosted pastel blues and pinks and dusted with sparkles.

Three works are displayed in the second room of the museum, no less intricate. They comment on the culture and society of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, and particularly issues surrounding colonialism that followed the age of exploration. Mark Bradford’s mixed media collage on canvas, Africa is intended to reflect historical Baroque maps. European maps of Africa during the seventeenth century would have been greatly linked to the slave trade. Bradford has created thick interconnected lines running in all directions throughout the canvas. These lines appear to map out a network trade routes that would have existed for the purpose of trafficking slaves.

Mark Bradford, Africa, 2013, Mixed media on canvas, papier mache and collage: 2 parts: 102 × 144 cm, 259.1 × 365.8 cm

Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews without their Heads, involve two headless mannequins fashioned in eighteenth century aristocratic dress and posed after Thomas Gainsborough’s painting of the same title from 1750. Shonibare has dressed these mannequins in eighteenth century style costumes made of batik fabric that would have been traded by European merchants. Shonibare is commenting on the material excess of society at the expense of others.

Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews without their Heads, 1998. Wax print cotton costumes on mannequins, dog mannequin, painted metal bench, rifle, 165 x 635 x 254 cm with plinth, National Gallery of Canada

Bharti Kher ‘s Nothing Marks the Perimeter, Just a Hollow Sound Echoes, is triptych mosaic composed of thousands of glittering bindis. The bindis in all three panels are meticulously arranged forming an organic yet nonrepresentational landscape. Kher compares the abstract forms of this triptych to both an unknown yet understandable language and an imagined landscape. 

This show has brought together elements of fantasy and artifice combined with issues of excess and exploitation. Rather than being misled by nature, one could say that this exhibition presents a world that has gone against nature.

Text and photo by Alice Tallman

*Exhibition information: Misled by Nature: Contemporary Art and the Baroque. February 8 – April 6, 2014, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, 952 Queen Street West. Gallery hours: Tue – Sun: 11 – 6 p.m.

 

Interview with Sarah Anne Johnson (S.J.) by Leanne Simaan (L.S.)

Wonderlust
March 1 – March 29, 2014  
Stephen Bulger Gallery

Sarah Anne Johnson, Golden Boy, 2013, Unique chromogenic image with gold leaf, 9.5 x 14 inch. © Sarah Anne Johnson / Courtesy of Julie Saul Gallery, New York and Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto

L.S.: What inspired you to depart from previous subject matter, such as ecological conflict in Arctic Wonderland, or family history in House on Fire, and venture into the realm of sexually explicit subject matter?

S.J.: When I have expressed all I know on a certain topic, I need a break from it. Otherwise I will keep repeating the same ideas. Then I can come back to it later when I am inspired again. Most of the topic’s I have covered over the years I will probably return too.

The idea to do this work came to me slowly. I’d been thinking about how important it is for artists to take risks in their work. I’d also been reading up on issues of intimacy for my own personal interests and whenever I read, I end up with pictures floating around in my head and I began to wonder what they would like if I made them. I wasn’t going to follow through with it, because it seemed like a crazy idea to make work that was pretty much the opposite of the last body of  work I created (about the Arctic). Once I started imagining what the pictures would look like, I had to follow through, also, sex and intimacy is the perfect topic to explore my photographic interests which is all about showing what something looks like and what it feels like.

L.S.: How did you come to the decision to exhibit your work at the Stephen Bulger Gallery? How did you and Stephen Bulger connect?

S.J.: About 10 years ago I wanted to meet Stephen, because I liked his gallery, and I heard he was a good person to work with. Meeka Walsh from Border Crossing Magazine introduced us and put in a good word for me. We had a meeting to look at my work and he offered to represent me in Toronto. The exhibit I have up right now is my fifth show with him.

Sarah Anne Johnson, Burnt, 2013, Unique burnt chromogenic print, 28 x 42 inch. © Sarah Anne Johnson / Courtesy of Julie Saul Gallery, New York and Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto

L.S.: The sexual acts and moments of passion, emotional and physical closeness that are captured offer a voyeuristic look into the private relationships of couples. I overheard some of the gallery guests discussing the controversy of the work, that it transgresses the boundaries between private and public realms. Do you consider these scenes as private and intimate, or have those boundaries been transgressed the moment you, as the voyeur, photographed them?

S.J.: They were very private moments, even with me in the room. And now, even though those images are hanging on a gallery wall and made public, they still keep a sense of that intimacy in part because of how I took the pictures, (the soft quality of light, the modest framing, etc.), and also because of the painting, drawing and collaging I added to the print.  

Sarah Anne Johnson, Monster, 2013, Unique chromogenic image with oil paint and gold leaf , 20 x 30 inch. © Sarah Anne Johnson / Courtesy of Julie Saul Gallery, New York and Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto

L.S.: How was your experience creating this body of work? Did you feel uncomfortable or increasingly reserved as you documented the couples engaged in sexual acts?

S.J.: I am still very nervous at the beginning of every shoot, but it has gotten easier the more I do it. I understand what I want from the project now more than I did in the beginning and also I’ve figured out ways of helping the models and myself to feel more comfortable. This was an incredible experience for me. Everyone is so different, but also the same all at once. 

Sarah Anne Johnson, Happy Face, 2013, Chromogenic Print, 6.5 x 10 inch. © Sarah Anne Johnson / Courtesy of Julie Saul Gallery, New York and Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto

L.S.: You alter, and enhance, the images by burning and scratching the surface, and applying glitter as well as gold foil. While the images may be interpreted as humorous, dream-like, or fantastical, were the manipulations/additions made to each photograph shaped by your experience witnessing your models? If so, do you consider these transformations to have created a more honest image? For instance, the deep scratches radiating around the couple in Scratches echoes the fresh scars on the man’s back and highlight the correlation between pain and pleasure during sex. On the other hand, Golden Boy pictures a woman lovingly gazing at her partner, who she idolizes. While Clowning features a couple that is being playful while they make love.

S.J.: My interest in photography is to show not just what something looks like but what it feels like as well. To do that I need to alter the photograph, adding in the sensations and emotions that lay just underneath the surface. Each photograph was a puzzle that had to be figured out on its own terms every time, so many considerations to deal with. I had to juggle my interests and intent with the form and feeling of the image.  sometimes I would have a photo up on the wall for a year before I could figure out what to  paint on it. So, yes, it is perhaps a more ‘honest’ image, but honest from my perspective.

Sarah Anne Johnson, Scratches, 2013, Unique incised chromogenic print, 20 x 30 inch. © Sarah Anne Johnson / Courtesy of Julie Saul Gallery, New York and Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto

L.S.: Your work doesn’t focus on any one issue, topic, or theory; however, a consistent theme is adventure, and exploration, which leads me to ask, what are you currently working on? What should we expect in the future?

S.J.: Don’t expect anything. Not even that I will change it up every time, because I might decide at some point that I want to stick with a certain subject for a while. That being said, I have started some new work on a different topic but I am still painting on prints.

Sarah Anne Johnson, Splatter Paint, 2013, Unique chromogenic print with oil paint flush, 2013 , 60 x 84 inch. © Sarah Anne Johnson / Courtesy of Julie Saul Gallery, New York and Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto

*Exhibition dates: March 1 – March 29, 2014 , Stephen Bulger Gallery, 1026 Queen Street West, Toronto. Gallery hours: Tue – Sat 11 – 6 p.m.

Jean-Paul Kelly chatting with Georgina Jackson (left), and guest (right).

February 27, 2014
Organized by Mercer Union

In affiliation with Mercer Union, artist and curator Jean-Paul Kelly welcomed guests into his home and studio for an intimate look at a handful of his past works, and his current practice. The guests enjoyed a glimpse into his process and thoughtful methodology which, usually, begins with Kelly selecting found images from search engines, like Google, according to his attraction to the image. His studio reflected the aftermath of his selection process; some are pinned on his bulletin board, indexed/categorized, and archived in boxes/folders labeled as, for example, “Things I Meant to do” and “Then & Possibly Soon”. Kelly then transforms photojournalism by isolating details, and intuitively manipulating the images via superimposition, compositing, and reconfiguration.

Detail of Jean-Paul Kelly’s bulletin board

Process work with Bridget Riley catalogue in the top left corner

Inspired by the likes of British op-art pioneer Bridget Riley, Jacques Lacan, and Frederick Wiseman’s documentary work, Kelly challenges his viewer to question the power of journalistic or documentary representation. For instance in his video piece Figure–ground (2013) restages a collection of images of sites of death/murder/suicide related (directly, or obliquely) with the global financial crisis of 2009 into a series of hand-painted cells filmed with a multi-plane camera, superimposed with colorful squares and shrill anxiety-inciting audio tones. Although Kelly’s use of movement and sound in the video promote the affect of anxiety and uneasiness, there is nothing explicitly informing the audience of death, or financial crisis. ‘The real’ is increasingly deformed and manipulated as he transforms images that embody Eros and Thanatos, that he is both attracted to (ex: a sexually explicit photo of Rick Donovan) and repulsed by (ex: the burial of traumatized Srebrenica massacre victims),  into beautiful op-art pieces. Although Kelly is admittedly concerned about offending his viewers with the pairing of images of pleasure/desire with the traumatic, it does not ultimately deter him. Moreover, it leaves us, the viewer, to question how these events/feelings/moments are documented and their implications as they are manipulated and imbued with new meaning.

Kelly showing his work while discussing his process

Photo of Rick Donovan

Guest, Alice Mao, photographing Kelly’s desk

Needless to say, Kelly was graciously in providing his guests with hospitality, and a mentally/visually engaging discussion that shed light on the gap between a material relation to the world and lived experience.

Text and photo by Leanne Simaan and Alice Mao

2014 marked the 7^th annual installment of The Artist Project, a four-day long art fair dedicated to the display of contemporary artists from Canada and abroad. Fellow streetcar travellers repeatedly asked “Is this the way to that art thing?” as we made the trek together to the Better Living Centre, braving the sloppy weather conditions to attend the Opening Night Party on the eve of February 20th.

What sets The Artist Project apart from more traditional gallery curated art fairs is simply; here you will find the artists themselves working in their own booths. The presence of the artist offers some obvious advantages to the consumer, whether seasoned art collector or first-time buyer. Guests are able to converse with the artist, ask them questions about their work, and get a better understanding of the person behind the artwork instead of speaking with a “middleman” art dealer. Yet, despite these seemingly advantageous results of having the artists present, I couldn’t help but notice its adverse effect. While physically there, many of the artists were not “present,” seeming generally disinterested and texting on their phones throughout the night rather than conversing with those interested in their work. By no means was this true of all the artists in attendance but it was a fairly noticeable percentage. This was not, however, solely the fault of the artists. With over 250 artists exhibited in the show, not everyone’s work received a positive response from the crowd. This unfortunate fact was predominantly caused by two factors: the location of the booth (artists bound to the periphery received little attention simply due to lack of foot traffic) and ultimately, the quality of the work. I couldn’t help but feel bad for those who received little attention; some responded by eagerly latching on to anyone that came within a foot of their booth while others turned to their phones.

Guests converse behind Gosia’s Into the Blue II.

Artist Mark Birksted exchanges information with a colourful guest in front of his sculpture ADVANCE, 2013, foam, fibre glass and flexible epoxy coating a one inch hand bent steel frame.

The most popular place, an endless line for wine.

But in speaking of quality, let us now turn aside the politics of the art fair and focus on the actual art exhibited in the show. While much of the art fell into conventional categories more likely to be found in a hotel than a museum (the affordability of much of the art may have come at a cost to the quality) the show still produced a few standouts.

Nicholas Crombach, Ambivalence, 2013, resin, paint.

Nicholas Crombach’s cast resin sculptures were a big hit. You may remember Crombachs’ work from a posting here last year, as his work Man with Child’s Bow and Arrow won the top prize at the Canadian Sculpture Centre’s Emerging Sculptors Exhibiton. A recent graduate of OCAD’s Sculpture and Installation program, Crombach is one to watch in Toronto’s burgeoning art scene.

Artist Kim Stanford with her installation yes I’m trying to pick you up, 2013, mixed media (used socks, glue).

Another work that seemed to constantly gather a crowd was Kim Stanford’s yes I’m trying to pick you up. The mixed media (used socks and glue) installation is what Stanford calls an “absurd investigation into the seemingly insignificant yet pivotal act of picking up other’s discarded socks.” Stanford was happy to speak about her work and enjoyed watching guests interact with her piece (the positive aspect of having the artist present.)

Labspace Studio, I’m Only Human, 2014 (entrance installation commissioned for The Artist Project)

While I fully support The Artist Project’s motives in providing a platform to speak directly with artists, the downsides remain evidently present. The onus falls primarily on the artists themselves but the format of the event begs to question whether the organizers are asking too much of the artists; who are required to represent themselves for four days, answer repeated questions and deal with a wide variety of characters. If The Artist Project teaches these artists anything it is this; get some representation.

Text and photo: Mitch Billinkoff

*Exhibition dates: February 20 – 23, 2014, Better Living Centre, 195 Princes’ Boulevard, Exhibition Place.

Our times are the times of greed, of self-indulgence.

Herod is dancing in Chambliss Giobbi’s Tanz für mich, Salome!, inspired by Richard Strauss’ opera based on the Oscar Wilde play Salome. Giobbi loved the music but has turned the story around and made Herod the one dancing. This photographic collage is filled with the image of an aging, overweight, almost naked man full of faults. He is incestuous, adulterous, and on his way to seduce his stepdaughter. For this image Giobbi used his own body as a model—a brave thing to do, since Herod is anything but handsome.

Chambliss Giobbi, TANZ FUR MICH, SALOME! Large, (Self-Portrait), 2010. Collage, Bees Wax on Aluminum Panel, 92” x 68”. Courtesy of the artist.

Herod is dancing. His expensive robe is open, showing most of his naked body. His head, arms and legs all have multiple images, as Giobbi uses this “cubistic” method to capture movement. The two heads betray Herod’s indulgence with food and wine. In Wilde’s play Herod invites Salome to “Dip into it thy little red lips, that I may drain the cup” and “bite but a little of this fruit, that I may eat what is left” but Salome refuses. Herod still drinks it and eats everything too. In Giobbi’s image we see the remains of red wine and food all over his face. He’s reached a point of drunkenness when reason is no longer bothering him. He touches his right head in a moment of recognition of his madness but he can’t stop dancing just now. Jewels cover his body. All of his fingers are richly ringed. One of his fingernails is badly bitten. He has worries. Metal necklaces surround his body like snakes.

Herod dances on, his many arms and legs madly moving. “Something terrible will happen” is like a refrain in the play and looking at Herod’s dance, that’s how we feel.  The music is there with its visible rhythm but it is not happy at all, more like the “beating of the wings of the angel of death.” Herod’s dance has an intensity similar to one of Giobbi’s musical compositions, Khe Sanh.

Chambliss Giobbi in his studio in New York. Courtesy of the artist.

Giobbi was a composer of classical music before he turned to visual arts.  As he said, in music “time contains every move we make, everything exists in time, develops over time. I love the idea behind cubism. I love the brutality of it, the honest kind of brutality of it. These are like getting multiple moments of time; doing the direct opposite of (music), like compressing multiple moments in one cathartic image.” In the way that music is composed of single notes, Giobbi’s collages are created from thousands of little pieces. He takes portraits of his models, sometimes as many as 300 photographs, from different perspectives, enlarges them on the computer (but doesn’t modify them) prints them and then cuts them into small pieces in order to create his compositions. He uses boards as a base and covers the finished work with a thin layer of beeswax to keep the pieces in place and so they will also “smell good.”

However fascinating his method is, Giobbi’s main focus is the character of his models: “I look for people with a free spirit and strong character; who stand for what they do with great conviction and passion.” This search often leads him to well-known personalities such as artists Joe Barnes and Alice O’Malley, filmmaker Fisher Stevens, performance-artist Penny Arcade or cult figures such as Indian Larry, the Chopper Shaman or the transgender Amanda Lepore. Modeling for Giobbi is a commitment, since it takes about a year until he reaches the point that he knows them really well and feels that he can get into their skin or more likely under their skin. That’s when he finally gets to the actual work. When there’s no secret left, he recreates the person in his work not as an idealized version but the “full truth.”

Cbambliss Giobbi,  HEAD OF JOE BARNES 3, 2003. Collage, Bees Wax on Aluminum Panel, 60” x 60”. Courtesy of the artist.

Joe Barnes’ blue eyes from a larger than life-size portrait look out at us from his distorted face. At first my impression of him was as a somewhat judgemental person because of his pouting second mouth, cold eyes and the fact that he seems to be talking. Not true at all. Barnes, a New York painter, creates opaque, monochromatic, meditative compositions with silent beauty in his white loft. He is soft-spoken and very gentle. In Giobbi’s portrait, Barnes’ eyes are watery because the paint and light he uses hurt them and cold because he is a very driven and disciplined artist.

Chambliss Giobbi, TINY PORTRAIT OF FISHER STEVENS 6, 2013. Collage, Bees Wax on Masonite, 7” x 5”. Courtesy of the artist.

At first sight, you can see that Fisher Stevens is a nice guy, someone you would love to have a drink with. He seems to be a big dreamer whose head is in the clouds, surrounded by the artistic haze of cigarette smoke, while he tells sophisticated and funny stories about the characters he brings into life in his films.  Stevens is an accomplished film persona with many movies to his credit including Short Circuit, Hackers, his documentary The Cove and his debut as the director of Stand Up Guys. When he talks about his work his favourite words are: “it was so much fun” or an “amazing experience.” Giobbi got him absolutely right: a nice, amazing, funny person.

Chambliss Giobbi, TINY PORTRAIT OF ALICE O’MALLEY 7, 2013. Collage, Bees Wax on Masonite, 7” x 5”. Courtesy of the artist.

Herod is not the only one who’s dancing in Giobbi’s compositions. One of this subjects is the photographer, Alice O’Malley. She chooses her models from New York’s club culture, and always strips them down in order to recreate them in blinding whiteness. Inspired by this method Giobbi stripped down O’Malley as she dances in the collages depicting her. There is a lot of stripping down and nakedness in Giobbi’s works. His images of the seven deadly sins (SE7N) are embodiments of unfortunate passions that are pregnant with many evils. They show the aesthetics of the morbid, its cruelty and its beauty. The Seven Deadly Sins are an old theme, depicted by many artists through the centuries, Hieronymus Bosch among them. When moral codes are established, sins come into existence as well. It seems that rules irritate people to the point when they break them and they can’t resist temptations either. It doesn’t really matter if those rules come from the bible or the civil code since, as Freud wrote, “We are so constituted that we can gain intense pleasure only from the contrast, and only very little from the condition itself” (Civilization and Its Discontents, 1929). Humans are rebellious spirits. In our times, it is very difficult to rebel since there’s hardly anything left to rebel against. We don’t have any strong ideology to follow, any worthy morality to oppose. As we mirror the world we live in, our souls are fragmented and contaminated.

Chambliss Giobbi, SE7N: PRIDE, 2011 – 12. Collage, Bees Wax on Tycore, 92” x 56”. Private Collection, Toronto.

Giobbi’s sinners, just like their predecessors in George Grosz’s Ecce Hommo series from the 1920s, are ugly. The obese body in Gluttony is surrounded by fast food containers while she is munching on a slice of pizza. But instead of satisfaction this abundance causes only sadness as we can see in the figure’s eyes. The man in Envy surrounds himself by walls for some privacy. He is trying to escape his public image by ripping his clothes off. He turns his back to the world, his hands held in praying position, his loneliness apparent. Faces fill all the small windows so he can’t escape the preying eyes of others. What do they envy in him? For sure, whatever position and richness he might have, it doesn’t make him happy. He is not the sinner, the onlookers are. In Pride, performer Penny Arkade is dancing in front of a mirror with transgender celebrity Amanda Lepore. Arkade, who is famous for her intriguing solo shows like Bad Reputation, Bitch!Dyke!Faghag!Whore! and always makes the “weird to win,” shows her aging body here without regret. Lepore, whose perfect female body is considered the “most expensive body on Earth” according to the money spent on plastic, happily sings and dances like there is no tomorrow. In their need for exposure Giobbi’s models become overexposed and sometimes too naked, making the viewers into voyeurs.

Chambliss Giobbi, SE7N: ENVY, 2011 – 12. Collage, Bees Wax on Tycore, 92” x 56”. Courtesy of the artist.

Herod is still dancing in his Dionysian haze. Does he really dance for Salome? I don’t think so. His dance is no longer filled with desire but becomes a bottomless pit of lust, a burning itch, more like a disease than a pleasure. It is greed that moves him, wanting more and more, never to be satisfied. This modern version of Herod is being consumed by his own needs. Giobbi’s characters are unmasked guests at the masquerade of our times, and his Herod, this overfed, oversexed antihero, leads this mad cavalcade.

Chambliss Giobbi, TANZ FUR MICH, SALOME! 3, 2009. Collage, Bees Wax on Aluminum Panel, 36” x 36”. Courtesy of the artist.

By Emese Krunák-Hajagos

*Chambliss Giobbi was part of  the exhibition Go Figure in De Luca Fine Art / Gallery, Toronto, November 8 – 30, 2013.  He currently has a solo exhibition, titled American Iron, in 101 / Exhibit in Los Angeles, February 15 – March 29, 2014.

Wassily Kandinsky, Improvisation 28 (second version) (Improvisation 28 [zweite Fassung]), 1912. Oil on canvas, 111.4 × 162.1 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection.

Have you ever imagined a visual experience where each of your senses is awakened; the smell of the vivid reds, the sound of the poignant blue, or even the taste of the lemony yellows? With his bold use of primary colours, Wassily Kandinsky implores the viewer to consult each sense while viewing his paintings. Kandinsky created some of my most beloved masterpieces of art. Each piece appeals to me in a synaesthetic manner. His distinct use of colour, line, and forms cultivates a full sensory experience.   

The Great Upheaval: Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Collection currently on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario, features six of Kandinsky’s paintings from 1910 to 1918. My personal favourite is a piece from his Der Blaue Reiter phase, Improvisation 28, 1912.

I love how this work refreshes, confronts, and excites me. The jarring lines various shapes and sizes; straight, jagged, flowing, squiggly, spiked, sweeping—entice the viewer’s eye up, in, and around the painting. The freely flowing forms allow the viewer to create his or her own abstract fantasies. Created on the heels of the First World War, Kandinsky offers his take on the social and technological changes of the time, and experiments with new ways of abstraction.

I encourage you, if you already haven’t, to hop on the subway immediately, and make your way down to the AGO to experience a divine full sensory performance.

Maddy Tripp

*The Great Upheaval is currently on display until March 2, 2014 at the Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas Street West, Toronto.

In a world where we prize technology, and all things digital, the analog is usually passed over or not given a second thought. The title alone, Peripheral Traces (Dark Heart), reflects repurposed analog material as well as the artist’s frustration with his lack of inspiration at the time. Peter Dykhuis transforms the banal into an intriguing personal reflection of daily life as a man, father, artist, and curator and director of Dalhousie Art Gallery. Separating his life into three realms: home, work, and his art practice, he uses paper-based ephemera—such as personal lists, envelopes, receipts, cards, and notes—to form collages that reflect the multifaceted nature of contemporary life. For instance, we get a peek into Dykhuis’ daily life with receipts from his veterinarian, Mr. Lube, as well as packages from MOCCA, and notes from other Red Head Gallery members such as Teri Donovan. He offers his viewer an opportunity to see the everyday/mundane/ordinary, as beautiful, whimsical, and compelling, on an intimate scale on a familiar object, a staples brand clipboard.  The result is a body of work that contain traces of the ordinary that references a broader environment including social, cultural and economic forces.

Leanne Simaan

*Exhibiton dates: February 5, 2014- March 1, 2014, The Red Head Gallery, 401 Richmond St. W, suite #115. Gallery hours: Wed – Sat 12 – 5 p.m.

What makes an artist Israeli? This is a question I found myself trying to answer after visiting the group exhibition currently on display at Julie M. Gallery, simply titled, Contemporary Israeli Art. Does the artist have to be born and/or reside in Israel? This exhibition would suggest not, as roughly half the artists presented in the show do not fulfill one (and in some cases both) of these prerequisites. Miriam Cabessa is a testament to this fact. Born in Casablanca, Morocco and currently residing in New York, her painting Homage for Turner is the cover image for the exhibition on the gallery’s website.

Miriam Cabessa, Homage for Turner, 2010, gold dust, oil and found image on linen,  20 x 50 inches. Courtesy of Julie M. Gallery

So then what else might help classify an artist as being Israeli? And what sort of exotic expectations might a viewer anticipate in an exhibition of “Israelness?” Certainly some may expect much of the art to address political and/or religious themes, an unfortunate reality due to the Western media’s portrayal of Israel as a State tangled in constant conflict. Julie M.’s exhibition undoubtedly features artworks addressing such themes, perhaps best exemplified by Eran Shakine’s Christian, Muslim and a Jew, And the Finger of God. The painting features three figures (purportedly a Christian, Muslim and Jew) standing at the base of a mountain beneath the pointed finger of God. Shakine’s motivations are clear; his artist statement begins with “Life is not easy, especially when you are living in a conflict zone like the Middle East” and ends with an anecdote about the endlessness of war.

Eran Shakine,  Christian, Muslim and a Jew, And the Finger of God, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 39 inches. Courtesy of Julie M. Gallery

Other artists presented in the exhibition deal with similar themes. Yehuda Porbuchrai’s Flag is a patriotic layering of dripped, thrown and smudged black and white paint and Alma Shneor’s War harkens back memories of recent katusha rocket attacks in Northern Israel.

Yehuda Porbuchrai, Flag, acrylic on canvas, 55 x 69 inches. Courtesy of Julie M. Gallery

Alma Shneor, War, 2007, C-print, 43 x 47 inches. Courtesy of Julie M. Gallery

Yet despite the prevalence of such themes in these works, the majority of artwork displayed in the exhibition addresses ideas and motifs of a completely different nature.  Deganit Berest is interested in liminality and the threshold between reality and the digital world. Part of the series entitled “Sea Level,” Boy Reclining aims to address this notion by causing the viewer to oscillate between perceiving seemingly meaningless geometric abstract shapes and a distinctly viewable image of a reclining figure.

Deganit Berest, Boy Reclining, 2006, archival inkjet print, 43 x 57 inches. Courtesy of Julie M. Gallery

Also exhibited in Contemporary Israeli Art is Itomar Jobani, whose topographical sculptures offer a distinct depiction of the human body. Jobani says the encounter between the human body and topographical model completes the circle and enables him to speak about man as earth and earth as man.

Itomar Jobani, Invalid Topography, 2007, corrugated cardboard. Courtesy of Julie M. Gallery

So in returning to the question “What makes an artist Israeli?” the answer remains uncertain. If one is to take Julie M.’s exhibition as any indicator, it is abundantly clear that contemporary “Israeli” artists are working all around the world and are addressing a vast array of themes and ideas. Julie M. Gallery succeeds in reflecting this wide variety and not restricting itself to presenting Israeli art that addresses more typical politico-religious notions.

Mitch Billinkoff

*Exhibition dates: January 30 – March 9, 2014, Julie M. Gallery, 15 Mill Street, Distillery District. Gallery hours: Tues – Sat  11 – 6,   Sun  12 – 5 p.m. Julie M. also has a gallery in Tel Aviv.