Monthly Archives: August 2011

What’s on this week: 29.08 – 04.09.2011 [Updated!]

Posted on August 29, 2011 by M-KOS| Leave a comment

This week’s pick ‘n’ mix from San Diego, Gwangju, Montréal, Vancouver, Winnipeg, New York, San Francisco, Washington DC, London, Zürich, Berlin, Copenhagen, Malmö, Stockholm, Tel Aviv, Mumbai and Bangalore. For Biennales&Triennales, see M-KOS’s previous post

Art Fair

Art San Diego 2011
1–4 September 2011
at San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, CA

art:gwangju:11
1-4 September 2011
at KDJ Convention Center, Gwangju, Korea

Montréal

Cao Fei: Whose Utopia
(Part of Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal 2011)
at Centre Clark, 1 September – 8 October 2011
(Opening on Saturday 10 September 2011, 7pm)

Cao Fei “Whose Utopia” (2006) still. Courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou. © Cao Fei

Massimo Guerrera: Introspections photosensibles
(Part of Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal 2011)
at Centre Clark, 1 September – 8 October 2011
(Opening on ~~Thursday 8 September 2011, 6pm~~ Saturday 10 September 2011, 7pm)

Massimo Guerrera “Moment de suspension (Porus)” (2001) C-print. Courtesy of the artist, Joyce Yahouda Gallery, Montreal, and Clint Roenisch Gallery, Toronto. © Massimo Guerrera

Luis Jacob: The Eye, The Hole, The Picture
(Part of Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal 2011)
at McCord Museum, 2 September – 20 November 2011
(Opening on Friday 9 September 2011, 4pm)

Luis Jacob “Cabinet (Montréal)” 2011. (detail) Courtesy of Birch Libralato, Toronto

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Posted in Visual Arts, What's On

Review: With the Void

Posted on August 26, 2011 by M-KOS| 1 Comment

With the Void
Stephen Andrews, Pierre Dorion, Dara Gellman
at Diaz Contemporary, Toronto
14 July – 27 August 2011

Dara Gellman “Reaching Out” Single channel video projection with stereo sound, 8mins loop, four MDF projection screens. Courtesy of the artist and Diaz Contemporary

“We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.” * This month Diaz Contemporary adorned its walls with works that, at first glance, echo ghostly epitaphs from the glorious manifestos of American abstract painters. On closer inspection the three-person show, made up of Stephen Andrews, Pierre Dorion and Dara Gellman, rises beyond the oppositions between figurative and non, into velvety sensory aesthetics. Similarly, when Color Field painters favored abstraction in the 1950’s, their focus, according to Clement Greenberg, was on illumination and openness: they elevated the potential of color to its apex via painterly techniques, large-scale formats, and thus rendered barren and featureless pictures to keep an open-ended subject matter. While clearly in continuation with this visual vocabulary, the works of With the Void journey to the limits of the representational tableau, and even reach out to confer with other media.
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Posted in Review, Visual Arts

Tagged Dara Gellman, Diaz Contemporary, Painting, Pierre Dorion, Stephen Andrews, Toronto, Video

What’s on this week: 22.08 – 28.08.2011

Posted on August 22, 2011 by M-KOS| Leave a comment

This week’s pick ‘n’ mix from Montréal, Toronto, New York, Houston, Dallas, London, Sunderland, Berlin, Madrid, Barcelona, Oslo, São Paulo, and Taipei. For Biennales&Triennales, see M-KOS’s previous post

Art fair

Art Taipei 2011
26 – 29 August 2011
at Taipei World Trade Center

Montréal

Déclic 70
at Galerie SAS, 25 August – 15 October 2011
(Opening on Thursday 25 August 2011, 5.30pm)

Artists: Claire Beaugrand-Champagne, Marik Boudreau, Michel Campeau, Alain Chagnon, Roger Charbonneau, Pierre Gaudard, Clara Gutsche, Jean Lauzon, David Miller, Normand Rajotte, Gabor Szilasi. Curated by Nicolas Mavrikakis

Photo credit © Pierre Gaudard

Martine Viale: The Imprint Series – House (Performance)
at Centre des arts actuels SKOL,
25 – 27 August 2011, 12pm – 5.30pm
(27 August until 5pm)

Martine Viale, performance view from “Soirée de Performance -Le Lieu” (Quebec, Nov. 2010) Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Patrick Altman

Toronto

Alex McLeod: Distant Secrets
at Angell Gallery (West Gallery),
25 August – 24 September 2011
(Opening on Thursday 25 August 2011, 6–9pm)

Alex McLeod “Frozen Boat” (2011) C-print. Courtesy of the artist and Angell Gallery

Performance
at Angell Gallery (East Gallery),
25 August – 24 September 2011
(Opening on Thursday 25 August 2011, 6–9pm)

Artists: Mitchell Chan, Luke Painter, Vessna Perunovich, Meera Margaret Singh, Camilla Singh

Image courtesy of Angell Gallery

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Posted in Visual Arts, What's On

Review: Pierrick Sorin “Une vie bien remplie”

Posted on August 18, 2011 by M-KOS| 1 Comment

Currently on view: Montréal
Pierrick Sorin: Une vie bien remplie
at Great Hall, Darling Foundry
16 June – 28 August 2011

Pierrick Sorin “C’est mignon tout ça” (1993) short film 4 mins. Courtesy of the artist and Darling Foundry

Une Vie Bien Remplie is a collection of works by French videographer Pierrick Sorin, currently at the Darling Foundry. The six pieces on show form a comprehensive twenty-year overview of the artist’s career, spanning most of his thematic realm. Sorin reaches high levels of self-contemplation with each of his films and videos in order to subvert his own artistic relevance and project the buoyancy of his humor, which fluctuates between subtlety and satire.

With “C’est mignon tout ça” (1993) for example, Sorin films himself on all fours in garter belt, high heels and stockings, fondling a monitor inches from his face which is broadcasting a live feed of his own behind. The mise en scène is overdubbed and inter-spliced with a closely-shot interview of our self-portraitist, confessing his difficulties at overcoming shyness and creating meaningful relationships with others. If nothing else, this first piece illustrates the extent to which Sorin uses the versatility of video to comment on this medium of tele-presence that separates as much as unites its protagonists with the rest of the world.
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Posted in Review, Visual Arts

Tagged Darling Foundry, Installation, Montréal, Pierrick Sorin, Video

What’s on this week: 15.08 – 21.08.2011

Posted on August 15, 2011 by M-KOS| Leave a comment

This week’s pick ‘n’ mix from Montréal, Hamilton, Saskatoon, Hiroshima, New York, Miami, Atlanta, London, Bristol, Vienna, Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Reykjavik, Prague and Moscow. For Biennales&Triennales, see M-KOS’s previous post (it’s been updated with a new entry of The 5th Biennale Internationale d’Art contemporain de Melle).

Montréal

Memory for the Future
at Pierre-François Ouellette Art Contemporain,
12 – 27 August 2011
(Opening on Thursday 18 August 2011, 5–7pm)

Artists: Shuvenai Ashoona, Alexandre Castonguay, Adad Hannah, Dil Hildebrand, Maskull Lasserre, John Latour, Ed Pien, Annie Pootoogook, Chih-Chien Wang

Chih-Chien Wang “Avellaneda” (2008) vidéo still. Courtesy of the artist and Pierre-François Ouellette Art Contemporain

It’s LIQUID: Next Identities
at Studio Belga, 16 – 21 August 2011

Donato Bruno Leo, Andrea Sterpa, Alexandre Prado, Viviane Vagh, Verica Kovacevska, Filip Ignatowicz, Charalampos Politakis, Alex Racine, Carl Jaycock, Edita Matan, Natalie Robison.

Natalie Robison “Inscape” (2011) film still. Courtesy of the artist and Studio Beluga

Hamilton

Out of Place / Non Lieu
at Art Gallery of Hamilton, through 25 September 2011

Artists: Lise Beaudry, Isabelle Hayeur, Marie-Josée Laframboise

Marie-Josée Laframboise “Structure horizontale (Horizontal Structure)” (2010), net installation, Photo: David Barbour. Courtesy of the artist

Saskatoon

Betty Goodwin: Darkness and Memory
at Mendel Art Gallery,
through 18 September 2011

Betty Goodwin “Distorted Events No. 2″ (1989–1990) Tar, pastel, steel rod and wire on ceramic tiles glued to aluminum panel. Gift of Martin Goodwin. Collection Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Photo: Richard-Max Tremblay

Posted in Visual Arts, What's On

Focus: Japan part III

Posted on August 11, 2011 by M-KOS| Leave a comment

Can contemporary art in Japan transcend its Galápagos Syndrome

M-KOS sends sincere commiserations to all the people affected by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.

Tabaimo “teleco-soup” (2011) Installation view at Japanese Pavillion, the 54th Venice Biennale. Courtesy of the artist, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo and James Cohan Gallery in New York

At the 54th Venice Biennale, the Japanese pavilion is presenting Tabaimo, a 36-years-old Japanese artist who’s work is renown for uncanny and hypnotic animations of manga and ‘anime’ inspired Ukiyo-esque imagery. Her installation entitled “teleco-soup” is a circular piece surrounding the viewer from floor to ceiling, with moving images of Japanese towns and flowing water. In its centre, the installation features a well-shaped circle also projected onto with similar animations. “teleco-soup” evokes an inside-out inversion between water and sky, fluid and container, self and the world, a term developed from the original concept of “Transcending Galápagos Syndrome” initiated by this year’s Japanese commissioner, Yuka Uematsu. Tabaimo refers further to the proverb “A frog in a well cannot conceive of the ocean”, attributed to Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, and adds this to the Japanese expression “But it knows the height of the sky”, as a lateral way to speak about her work. The latter articulates an outward manifestation of Tabaimo’s introspective gaze, and by extension, reflects on Japan’s island state of mind, isolationist in nature, and its multiple-century era of seclusion from all foreign contacts*.
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Posted in Focus, Visual Arts

Tagged Japan, Tabaimo

Review: Showing Stuff in a Big Room

Posted on August 9, 2011 by M-KOS| Leave a comment

Mathieu Lefevre: Showing Stuff in a Big Room
at Galerie Division, Montréal
25 June – 31 July 2011

Mathieu Lefevre “Face Plant” (2011) oil on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Division

Mathieu Lefevre at Galerie Division is effectively “Showing Stuff in a Big Room“. Whereas unpretentious exhibition titles often suggest modesty in the artist, Lefevre is putting some big cards on the table, playing against the plausibly inescapable boundaries of conceptual art. This show claims a much wider appeal than the usual art world’s initiated few, fighting conceptual dreariness with the weapon of humor.

Nearly all clustered on a single wall of Division’s main space, the works range form classic tableaux to three-dimensional painting-sculptures. By way of over-crowding Lefevre seemingly instills some sort of democracy amongst his works. Taken individually, each art object is as painfully entitled as a dated comedy club one-liner: a large black canvas, covered in feathers (“Tarred and Feathered”); a swath of white paint on a bare canvas, on which is penciled less is more (“More or Less”); an indistinct shape protruding into an unpainted, stretched canvas (“Trash Can Disguised as Contemporary Art”). The literal and figurative collide in many of his works to illustrate commonly known ideas in art, and thus reach a second level of understanding, which does question how many of a wider audience will ultimately “get it”.
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Posted in Review, Visual Arts

Tagged Galerie Division, Mathieu Lefevre, Montréal, Painting

What’s on this week: 08.08 – 14.08.2011

Posted on August 8, 2011 by M-KOS| Leave a comment

This week’s pick ‘n’ mix from Montréal, Toronto, Winnipeg, New York, San Francisco, Boulder, London, Paris, Copenhagen, Berlin, Warsaw, Bucharest, Seoul, Beijing and Buenos Aires. For Biennales&Triennales, see M-KOS’s previous post.

Montréal

Interiority Complex
at Studio Beluga, through 14 August 2011
Last chance to see!

Artists: Laura Herndandez, Unai Miquelajáuregui, Derek Sandbeck. Curated by Jessa Alston-O’Connor

Image courtesy of Studio Beluga

Toronto

Jp King: Free City Paper
at Whippersnapper, through 4 September 2011

Larissa Diakiw during the Nomadesk Writer’s Residency in Parc LaFontaine, Montréal. Image courtesy of JP King and Nomadesk

Go Figure
at MKG127, through 3 September 2011

Artists: Brenda Draney, Dean Drever, Sky Glabush, Sholem Krishtalka, Dominique Rey, Jeff Tutt

Image courtesy of MKG127

Winnipeg

(the heart that has no love/pain/generosity is not a heart) by Joyce Salloum
at Plug In ICA, 12 August – 2 October 2011
(Opening on Thursday 11 August 2011 7–10pm)

Curated by Haema Sivanesan and organized by SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Centre)

Posted in Visual Arts, What's On

Focus: Japan part II

Posted on August 2, 2011 by M-KOS| Leave a comment

An Uncertain Future- Art after the Great East Japan Earthquake

M-KOS sends sincere commiserations to all the people affected by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.

Art charity event organized by Artists’ Action for Japan in Ibaraki prefecture, May 2011. Courtesy of Artists’ Action For Japan

The art scene in Japan has been changing dramatically since the recent chain of catastrophic events – the Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant meltdown – which filled news networks around the world. These particularly devastated the Tohoku area, the seacoast areas of Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, five national heritage sites were affected, such as the Zuigan-ji Temple in the Miyagi Prefecture, as well as damaging 143 important cultural properties. The well-known Rokkakudō temple, a hexagonal wooden retreat constructed in 1905 was swept off in the gigantic tsunami that occurred in the Izura coast, in the Ibaraki prefecture. This small yet historical architecture was constructed by Tenshin Okakura (1863-1913), a key contributor to the development of the arts in Japan. Responsible for the conservation of this temple, Ibaraki University has set up funds for reconstructing a new Rokkakudō. They have already started collecting building materials left ashore by the sea. The university states: ‘we are convinced that Restoration of Rokkakudo would be a symbol of revival from the earthquake and tsunami’.
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Posted in Focus, Visual Arts

Tagged Japan

What’s on this week: 01.08–07.08.2011

Posted on August 1, 2011 by M-KOS| Leave a comment

This week’s pick ‘n’ mix from Matane, Sherbrooke, Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Mexico City, London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Athens and Cape Town. For Biennales&Triennales, see M-KOS’s previous post.