Monthly Archives: March 2012

Opalka’s film awarded top prize at FIFA

Posted on March 29, 2012 by M-KOS| Leave a comment


Film still from One Life, One Work, 2011. Directed by Sapija Andrzej. © Sapija Andrzej

FIFA’s 30th anniversary program packed in impressive audience numbers, with screenings of no less than 232 films from 27 countries. From 15 to 25 March 2012, art lovers and film buffs shared the projection rooms of the International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA), held in nine of Montreal’s most established cultural institutions. Between the Fine Art Museum, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Goethe Institute and more, here the filmic genre highlighted all artistic activities, from architecture to contemporary music, dance and of course visual arts.

The 11 day screening program was again enhanced with a series of meetings and performances, this year with pianist Marika Bournaki, film directors Alain Fleischer, Jennifer Alleyn, Anne-Marie Tougas, as well as choreographer Margie Gillis, to name just a few. The distribution of prizes awarded in the FIFA competition attested to this year’s rich mix of editing skills as much as to the program’s vivid portrayal of some of today most relevant artists.
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Biennales and Triennales 2012

Posted on March 27, 2012 by M-KOS| Leave a comment


Exhibition view from the Whiteny Biennale 2012. Dawn Kaspar, THIS COULD BE SOMETHING IF I LET IT, 2012. From the series “Nomadic Studio,” Practice Experiment, 2009- Three-month durational performance and multimedia installation. Dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Whitney Museum

Already three months have whizzed by since the new year, and in the process some early 2012 bi/triennials unfortunately missed out on the listing below, but there are still many more to come before the end of 2012. M-KOS offers its readers a compilation of Bi/Triennales held across the planet for the rest of this year.
 

2012 New Museum Triennial
New York, USA
Title: The Ungovernables
Date: 15 February – 22 April 2012
Curated by Eungie Joo

Abigail DeVille, What Happens to a Dream Deferred…Supernova, 2009. Photo: LaToya Ruby Frazier

Higher Atlas, visual arts exhibition,
a part of 4th Edition Marrakech Biennale (29 Feb – 3 Mar 2012)
Marrakech, Morocco
Date: 29 February – 3 June 2012
Curated by Nadim Samman, Carson Chan
 

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Posted in Biennale/Triennale, Visual Arts, What's On

Interview: Jean-François Bélisle – Feeding ammunition to Montréal’s art scene

Posted on March 22, 2012 by M-KOS| Leave a comment


Jean-François Bélisle

Arsenal officially opened its vast new exhibition space last weekend in Montréal’s Griffintown district, celebrating with three evenings of festivities. The brainchild of collector and entrepreneur Pierre Trahan, Arsenal was launched via the exhibition Travers – The Art of Collecting which includes more than a dozen collections from Québécois patrons, such as François Odermatt, Alain Tremblay and Paryse Taillefer. The show continues until 25 May to mix and match a wide variety of works on the walls, including those from Anselm Kiefer, Jannis Kounelis, Irene F. Whittome and Marc Séguin, to also offer a nod towards Collecting, another Montreal exhibition themed around the passion for collecting, presented by Access Culture. A few hours before Saturday’s third and final evening of celebration, director Jean-François Bélisle shares a few thoughts with M_KOS about his ambitions for Arsenal.

M-KOS [MKOS]: Could you tell us your relationship with Pierre Trahan and the initiators of Arsenal? Were you involved with this project from the very beginning?

Jean-François Bélisle [JFB]: I was there very early in the process, Pierre Trahan had this vision several years ago already, and I was working at the time as director for the Association of Contemporary Art Galleries (AGAC), for the past three years. I joined the Arsenal team in an informal way, to help the project move forward about a year and a half ago. Then I became full-time director of the Arsenal in May last year, right at the beginning of the construction works.
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Posted in Collecting art, Interview, Visual Arts

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Art Marathon: Art Souterrain 2012

Posted on March 20, 2012 by M-KOS| Leave a comment

Montreal is well known for its underground city. During the long Canadian winter, people get around the city’s downtown area, from one tunnel to another, without ever going out into the frosty air. Between 25 February through 11 March Montreal’s underground city was hosting the fourth edition of Art Souterrain (Subterranean Art, in French), a contemporary art event inaugurated in 2009 by Frédéric Loury, director of Galerie [SAS]. This year Art Souterrain showcased 140 art projects, including installations, photography, video, performance and permanent public art, all under the theme of “Passageways”. Art Souterrain has been expanding the number and volume of projects every year, to now in its fourth edition it covers over seven kilometers of underpass, with invited artists from as far as Paris and Calgary. Here are some works that caught our imagination.
 


Mathieu Grenier “Dans le Cube Blanc (O’Doherty) / Inside the White Cube”
 


Nathalie Quagliotto “Maturity Bend”
 
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Posted in Art Marathon, Festival, Visual Arts

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What’s On: 19 March – 1 April 2012

Posted on March 19, 2012 by M-KOS| Leave a comment

Biweekly global exhibitions Pick ‘N’ Mix from Montreal, Toronto, Halifax, Vancouver, New York, Pittsburgh, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Mexico City, São Paulo, London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Paris, Mulhouse, Tourrettes-sur-Loup, Brussels, Gent, Amsterdam, Berlin, Baden-Baden, Vienna, Zürich, Milan, Rome, Madrid, Girona, Lisbon, Høvikodden, Stockholm, Budapest, Warsaw, Kiev, Istanbul, Qatar, Dubai, Bangkok, Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Montréal

30th International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA)
15 – 25 March 2012

Films include Ai Weiwei: Without Fear or Favour (2010); Anselm Kiefer: L’artiste à œuvre (2010); Nam June Paik: Open Your Eyes (2010); Roman Opalka: One Life, One Oeuvre (2011) and many more
 

Abbas Akhavan: Beacon
at Darling Foundry, through 27 May 2012

Curated by Andria Hickey
 

Image courtesy of the artist
 

Scott Wallis: Solo /
Oli Sorenson: Antimap
at Optica, through 21 April 2012
 
 

Oli Sorenson from series “Antimap”. Courtesy of the artist
 

Toronto

Douglas Copeland: Welcome to the Twenty-First Century
at Daniel Faria Gallery, through 7 April 2012
 

Douglas Copeland, Sworn to Fun, Loyal to None, 2011. Courtesy the artist and Daniel Faria Gallery
 

Melanie Gilligan: Crisis in the Credit System & Popular Unrest
at Justina M. Barnicke Gallery,
through 8 April 2012

Image courtesy the artist
 

Michael Dumontier: the middle of the air
at MKG127, through 14 April 2012
 

Image courtesy the artist and MKG127
 

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Posted in Visual Arts, What's On

Art Marathon: The Armory Show 2012, part 2

Posted on March 15, 2012 by M-KOS| Leave a comment


Neon installation by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson over the bar wall is part of Focus: Nordic. Björk joined in Armory’s Nordic rendez-vous as a panel for Armory Show Open Forum with Kjartansson
 
 

Painting by Anna Bjerger at David Risley Gallery, Copenhagen.
 
 
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Posted in Art Fair, Art Marathon, Visual Arts

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Art Marathon: The Armory Show 2012, part 1

Posted on March 15, 2012 by M-KOS| Leave a comment

With the stars and stripes sailing in the wind against the cloudless sky, a proud and powerful symbol high atop the venue for one of the largest art fairs in the world, the 14th edition of Armory Show is showing no fear from its looming competitor, as the first New York showcase of British fair mongers Frieze are threatening to impose their dominance in May. This year the Armory fair revived its old image when totally redesigning their long time venues Pier 92 & 94 and decreased their number of exhibitors (228 instead of 274 in 2011) that include Focus: Nordic bringing in a touch of Scandinavia. Armory 2012 has reported a huge turn up of visitors (more than 60,000) and many galleries had impressive sales results. Same as usual then? NY contributor Sebastian Kaempf visited the fair to bring M-KOS readers a visual sampler of the action on site.


German artist Michael Reidel’s solo presentation at David Zwirner’s booth. All his work was sold out within 30 minutes of VIP preview.
 
 

Cindy Sherman’s 1978 Untitles film Still with the reflection of Jenny Holzer’s work at Sprüth Mager. Sherman’s work was sold for undisclosed price = a lot of money.
 
 

Jota Castro “Buscando Americas” at Gonzalez y Gonzalez, Santiago.
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