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Review: Builders, Canadian Biennial 2012 at National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa


Myfanwy MacLeod, Everything Seems Empty Without You, 2009 & Hex (I–VII), 2010. Exhibition view. Courtesy National Gallery of Canada. Photo by M-KOS

With a second edition entitled “Builders“, the Canadian Biennial staged in Ottawa’s National Gallery an exhibition that perhaps went against the grain of mega international extravaganzas, and the usually vast array of ensuing curatorial ideas and ideals. This Biennale voluntarily took a hermetic and back-to-basics approach to its program, to exclusively centre on contemporary Canadian artists selected from the Gallery’s recent acquisitions over the past two years.

Curator Jonathan Shaughnessy cites in his catalogue essay that “Artists are builders in a rudimentary sense. They combine creative ideas, materials and technology with the aim to shape an original way of seeing and interpreting the world”. In an attempt to further canonize Canadiana, Shaughnessy’s title took inspirations from Toronto’s Hockey Hall of Fame, where Builders herein point to former players that go on to become coaches, managers or executives. Just as the hockey Builders were this way inducted for their contribution to the development of the nation’s most popular sport, Shaughnessy concludes that “In art, builders and players often prove to be one and the same.”

Fresh from the vaults of the National Gallery of Canada, a string works from emerging artists such as Melanie Authier and David Ross Harper mingle with others like Marcel Dzama and Ron Terada as well as veteran figures like Lynne Cohen and Michael Snow. This cross-generational survey of the nation’s talents comprises over 100 individual pieces by 45 artists, to embrace a multitude of disciplinary practices from all geographical backgrounds. Builders constitutes such a wide-encompassing show, that it at times risks a flattening of issues and subject matters. On the other hand, the works are so respectably themed from personal narrative to urbanization, the environment, identity politics, utopia and so on, that these read as a thorough cross-examination of Canada’s cultural material.
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Builders: Canadian Biennial 2012 at National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa


Sarah Ann Johnson, Black Box, 2010. (from the Arctic Wonderland series) chromogenic print, photo retouching dyes, acrylic ink, gouache and india ink, incised lines. Collection: National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa © Sarah Anne Johnson / Courtesy Julie Saul Gallery & Stephen Bulger Gallery

Builders: Canadian Biennial 2012
2 November 2012 – 20 January 2013
at National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Artists: Vikky Alexander, David Altmejd, Benoît Aquin, Melanie Authier, Jim Breukelman, Michel De Broin, Edward Burtynsky, Lynne Cohen, Chris Cran, Max Dean, Susan Dobson, Marcel Dzama, Brendan Fernandes, Robert Fones, Will Gorlitz, Terence Gower, David Ross Harper, Faye HeavyShield, Dil Hildebrand, David Hoffos, Simon Hughes, Elisapee Ishulutaq, Sarah Anne Johnson, Brian Jungen, Myfawny Macleod, Qavavau Manumie, Lynne Marsh, Scott McFarland, Jason McLean, Michael Merrill, David Merritt, Evan Penny, Sandy Plotnikoff, Jon Pylypchuk, Leslie Reid, David K. Ross, Mark Ruwedel, Michael Snow, Mark Soo, Derek Sullivan, Ron Terada, Joanne Tod, Steven Waddell, Daniel Young & Christian Giroux. Curated by Jonathan Shaughnessy

Artists are “builders.” Making things is at the core of what they do. Visual artists are those individuals who combine ideas, materials and technologies with the view to modelling an original way of seeing and interpreting the world. Curators working with the art of today are tasked with discovering, following, understanding and processing a varied range of production.
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News: Montreal Biennale announces new curatorial team for the 8th edition in 2013

Claude Gosselin, general and artistic director of CIAC (Centre international d’art contemporarin de Mntreal) has recently announced Nicole Gingras to take charge of the Montreal Biennale (BNL MTL). In the same breath, BNL MTL has also officially introduced its new team of curators for the next edition in 2013, including, Peggy Gale, independent curator as well as Gregory Burke, formerly head of Power Plant in Toronto. Perhaps as a sign of enthusiasm, they have already confirmed the theme of 2013 as ‘L’Avenir‘ (Looking Forward).
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Interview: Alain Thibault, artistic director of the International Digital Arts Biennale


Alain Thibault (Right) with artist Robert Lepage at the opening of BIAN. Courtesy of BIAN 2012. Photo: Conception

Alain Thibault is the founder and artistic director of the International Digital Arts Biennale (BIAN), inaugurating its first edition in April 2012. Unlike his sister electronic music event Elektra, BIAN focuses on digital forms of contemporary art, hosted in numerous museums, art galleries, artist-run centres and other venues throughout the city of Montreal. BIAN invited artists from Germany, Japan, France, Switzerland, Austria, The Netherlands, Turkey, USA as well as Quebec and Canada, including renowned names such as Carsten Nicolai and Ryoji Ikeda. Thibault talked to M-KOS about his motivation to take digital arts to the next level, while he enjoys the taste of success of the first edition of his biennale.

M-KOS [MKOS]: As founder for the International Digital Arts Biennale (BIAN), how would you describe your motivation to do such a festival?

Alain Thibault [AT]: In fact I started out with Elektra in 1999, which is also an international festival of digital arts. The focus with Elektra was mainly about concerts and performances, but still with a mandate of blending experimental electronic music with visuals. This could be audiovisual performance, robotic performance, but there was always a central axis on experimental electronic music combined with a visual element. So that began in ’99, and gradually we evolved out of Usine C which is our main headquarters and quite an extraordinary venue for presenting this type of show. By 2005 we started adding more and more installations to the usual performance program, and these slowly spread to other venues such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal and the Cinémathèque. In 2009 the installation program exceeded the allocated duration of the whole [Elektra] festival and that was when I said to myself I should make another event out of this, entirely devoted to the installation component. This is more or less how BIAN was born. And also this was about highlighting the idea that we arrived at a point in time where major artists were doing major works [in a digital format] and for me it was important to mark that moment.
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Biennales and Triennales 2012


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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The 2nd edition of Québec Triennial kicks off


Rafael Lozano-Hemmer “Intersection articulée. Architecture relationnell #18” (2011)
site specific installation view at Place des Festivals. Photo © M-KOS

The Quebec Triennial kicks off its 2nd edition today and runs through 3 January 2012, after a watertight hush over their final line up of artists. Tantalising people’s curiosity until the last minute, the Triennial finally opened itself to public view, filling every show room of the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal with Québécois art. “The Work Ahead of Us” guides this edition with an underlying thread borrowed from Grier Edmundson’s exhibition, who himself borrowed from Russian Constructivist Vladimir Tatlin, in a 1920. Curators Marie Fraser, Lesley Johnstone, Francois LeTourneux, Mark Lancôt and Louise Simard joined forces to select over 50 artists living and working in the province of Quebec. Inaugurating the grand opening celebration tonight, media artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer illuminated the heavens above the MACM with a network of interactive blue skylights, manipulated from lever pods situated on Place des Festivals.
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Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal

The 12th edition of “Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal”
Lucidity – Inward Views
8 September – 9 October 2011
moisdelaphoto.com


Already at its 12th edition, “Le Mois de la Photo à Montreal” is opening its doors to the general public from 8 September until 9 October, and this time around a total of 14 different venues across the city will host the event. Over the last two decades, this international biennale has explored the issues of the photographic image in contemporary art as well as in wider contexts, and how these have transformed today’s socio-cultural climate. This year guest curator Anne-Marie Ninacs has invited 25 artists from all over the world, to contribute to the theme of Lucidity – Inward Views.

The theme underlines photography’s ability, in the hands of many artists, to address complex geopolitical situations and confront painful human drama squarely in its face. Nevertheless, Ninacs pushes forward in her curatorial statement, urge us more than ever to examine, as a society, the forces interacting at the root of these phenomena. In unfolding the many-layered vectors of conflict, the hope consist in attaining a measured inner clarity, a “transparence of mind,” which is the present-day psychological equivalent of lucidity. Continue reading “Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal”

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Biennales and Triennales 2011 [Updated 27.09.2011]

Maurizio Cattelan’s stuffed pigeons on the façade of the central pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale. Photo by Jerry Saltz

Biennales and Triennales have sprouted out of every decent sized city over the last few decades. Needless to say, the Venice Biennale is the eldest and, although its denomination as the “Art World Olympics” is slightly dated in these transnational times, it is still considered the greatest art show on earth. New Orleans’s Prospect, as well as the Pittsburgh and Brussels Biennales are the most recent new comers on this ever-growing list. There are now so many Bi- and Tri-ennales organised around in the world that it is possible to find one going on at any time throughout the year. With this in mind, M-KOS is offering its readers a calendar list of such events for the rest of 2011, to look all of them up from one single post instead of on our weekly What’s On feature.
 

Prague Biennale 5 / Prague Biennale Photo 2
19 May – 11 September 2011
Directors: Giancarlo Politi, Helena Kontova;
Curator: Nicola Trezzi
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The 54th Venice Biennale
Titile: ILLUMInations
4 June – 25 November 2011
Director: Bice Curiger
 
 
 
 
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La Biennale de Montréal 01–31 May 2011

BNL MTL 2011: The 7th Montréal Biennale
01 – 31 May 2011
at the former École de beaux-arts de Montréal /
La Fondation Guido Molinari /Le Cinéma du Parc
www.biennalemontreal.org
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(Clockwork from top left) Karilee Fuglem “There’s a place on my back that ins’t there” (2005) courtesy of the artist and Pierre-François Ouellette Art Contemporain; John Bock, “Nothingness under the jaw” (2011) courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects; Lois Andison “Heartbreaking 91” (2009) courtesy of the artist and Art Mür; David Armstong Six “The Law of the Excluded Middle” (2010) courtesy of the artist and Parisian Laundry; Rodney Graham “Good Hand Bad Hand” (2010) courtesy of the artist and Lisson gallery

BNL MTL 2011, the seventh edition of La Biennale de Montréal will open from Sunday 1st until Tuesday 31st May 2011. Curated by Claude Gosselin, executive and artistic Director of CIAC (Centre international d’art contemporain de Montréal) and David Liss, artistic director of MOCCA (Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto), the theme of the biennale is “La Tentation du hazard / Elements of Chance”. It is inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé’s 1897 poem “Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hazard / A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance” which pushed formal boundaries by allowing its readers to choose a starting point and reading order; each person’s experience of the poem is therefore unique—and a matter of happenstance. Since its publication, the poem inspired many works of art. According to Gosselin, “Chance touches on the very idea of freedom. To give yourself over to chance is to embrace freedom, the unknown, total openness.”

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