Monthly Archives: December 2011

Happy New Year 2012


People were queuing to make a wish for the year 2012 at our local shrine Misaki Jinja

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012 !

This year M-KOS is in Tokyo having a traditional new year instead of partying.
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The Memorable Exhibitions 2011

Having nearly reached the end of this long chain of events that constituted 2011, M-KOS took a moment to review the past 12 months with a few invited art professionals, to reveal some of their most memorable exhibitions. Do you agree with their choice or have more to suggest? Come share with us which exhibitions have captured your thoughts the year.

Happy Holidays!
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Review: “No News” is good news for Wanda Koop

Currently on view: Montreal
Wanda Koop: No News
at Galerie Division
19 November 2011 – 12 February 2012


Wanda Koop “Friendly Fire (No News Series)” 2011, Acrylic on canvas, 79.5″ x 119″. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Division

No news is good news as we say, to suggest we only hear of a particular place or situation when something bad is happening. This is symptomatic of the deeply-rooted western narrative traditions which center on dramatic tension, taking origin in Greek tragedy but very much actualized in contemporary mass media. In other words, happy feelings tend to signal the end of a story. In this line of thought, Winnipeg artist Wanda Koop’s new painting series entitled “No News”, feeds on contradicting these assumptions with her catchy pictures.

Koop’s current show at Montréal’s Galerie Division traces a continuation from previous series such as Green Zones (2003–09), manipulating images from daily TV news reports which she constantly scribbles down on post-it notes to later transfer onto canvas. The artist’s use of painting justly draws enough distance with broadcast technologies to establish a discourse of critical awareness that would seem uneasy via video art. But the electric colors, graphic overlays and fragmentation of the painted surface into multiple storylines nonetheless confirm a vocabulary pertaining to television.
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What’s On: 19.12.2011 – 22.01.2012 (Holiday edition)

M-KOS’ pick ‘n’ mix holiday edition from Montréal, Joliette, Toronto, Vancouver, Richmond, New York, Chicago, Ridgefield, St. Louis, Los Angeles, San Diego, Atlanta, Dallas, Puerto Rico, Mexico City, Santiago, Rio de Janeiro, London, Birmingham, Paris, Nîmes, Gent, Leuven, Amsterdam, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Barcelona, Lisbon, Rome, Copenhagen, Reykjavik, Warsaw, Maribor, Moscow, Istanbul, Beirut, Dubai, Cape Town, New Dehli, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Brisbane. For Biennales&Triennales, see M-KOS’s previous post.
! Check holiday opening times with the venues !

 

Montréal

Big Bang
at Musée des beaux-arts Montréal,
through 22 January 2012

Artists: Jennifer Alleyn, Nancy Huston, Melissa Auf Der Maur, Genevieve Cadieux, Wajdi Mouawad, En MASSE, Claude Cormier, Renata Morales, Gilles Saucier, Pierre Lapointe, Jean Verville, Marie Chouinard, Collectif Rita, Denys Arcand & Adad Hannah, Jean Derome, Jeannot Painchaud, Roland Poulin, Michel Rabagliati

Installation view. En Masse at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 2011, Mixed media. Photo: MMFA, Denis Farley

Scott Lyall: Sittlichkeit (roses/pinks)
at Silverflag,
through TBC January 2012
(Please contact the gallery for further info:
+1 514 839 8540)
 

Image courtesy of the artist and Silverflag
 

KIT & S E Barnet: Does God Live in the No-Fly Zone
at Occurence,
through 14 January 2011
 
 

Image courtesy of the artists

Pierre Fournier: Le Travail
at Occurence,
through 14 January 2011
 
 

Image courtesy of the artists
 

Joliette

Alfredo Jaar: The Ashes of Pasolini
at Musé d’art de Joliette,
through 8 January 2012
 

Alfredo Jaar “The Ashes of Pasolini” (2009) video still. 38 mins. Courtesy of the artist. © Alfredo Jaar
 
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Review: Maurizio Cattelan – Puppet master pulling “All” the strings

Currently on view: New York
Maurizio Cattelan: All
at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
4 November 2011 – 22 January 2012


Maurizio Cattelan “All” (2011) Installation view. Photo by M-KOS

On the pay-what-you-wish evening we visited Guggenheim Museum, a long queue of people coiled around the block before flocking in to see Maurizio Cattelan’s current retrospective “All”. Precisely 128 works were hung from a ring at the top of the central rotunda, ranging from veristic wax figures, taxidermy animals, witty photographs, paintings and sculptures, spanning the breadth of Cattelan’s productions over the last 20 years. Instead of a predictably chronological order, the works were randomly placed, in an untidy but well mastered balancing act. The Italian artist literally turned the notion of a museum exhibition on its head, bypassing the use of the institution’s cloistered display areas to transform his retrospective into an expansive site-specific installation.
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What’s On: 05.12 – 18.12.2011

M-KOS bi-weekly pick ‘n’ mix from Montréal, Quebec City, Saint-Jérôme, Saint-Hyacinthe, Toronto, Lethbridge, Vancouver, New York, Minneapolis, Portland, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Santa Fe, Mexico City, Bogota, São Paulo, London, Dublin, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Milan, Brescia, Madrid, Copenhagen, Malmö, Athens, Debrecen, Vilnius, Damascus, Mumbai, Seoul, Taipei, Melbourne, and Sydney. For Biennales&Triennales, see M-KOS’s previous post

Montréal

Sophie Jodoin: I felt a cleaving in my mind
at Battat Contemporary,
through 17 December 2011
 
 
 
 

Image (detail) courtesy of the artist and Battat Contemporary
 

Maha Mustafa & Ibrahim Rashid: A Moment before You Close Your Eyes
at MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels),
through 10 December 2011.

Ibrahim Rashid “Night Vision #4″ (2010) C-print. Courtesy of the artist
 

Quebec City

Pablo Rasgado: Fantômes
at La Chmbre Blanche,
through 18 December 2011
 

Image courtesy of the artist
 

Saint-Jérôme

Marc Séguin: La foi du collectionneur
at Musée d’Art Contemporain Des Laurentides,
through 12 February 2012
 

Marc Séguin “I love America and America loves me – part 4″ (2008) oil and coyote on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Mike Weiss Gallery, NY.
 
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