Newslinks
Toronto’s Power Plant is currently presenting Continuous Coverage, an exhibition by Berlin based Israeli artist Omer Fast showing three of his most significant projects spanning the last decade: CNN Concatenated (2002), 5,000 Feet is the Best (2011) and Continuity (2012). Canadian Art mag talked to the artist during his visit in Toronto.
David Roberts Art Foundation – one of London’s top private collection-based foundations – relocated from the increasingly buzzing area of Fitzrovia to more spacious accommodations in Mornington Crescent, Camden inaugurating with the exhibition The House of Leaves. Lorena Muõz-Alonso asks the curator Vincent Honoré (part 1 & 2) about DRAF’s new move and future vision.
Hugues Charbonneau, former front man of Galerie Division in Montreal has opened his own space in the Belgo gallery complex building (Espace 308, 372 Ste-Catherine, Montreal) with its inaugurating show by painter Jean-Paul Pouliot. huguescharbonneau.com
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Flirting with Death
Jacob Kassey, Xanax (Diptych). 2011. Courtesy the artist, art : concept, Paris and ICA, London. Photo by Marc Bowler
M-KOS editor Oli Sorenson’s text “Flirting with Death – Dispatching along 19th to 21st Century Painting†is featured in the latest issue of esse arts + opinions themed on The Idea of Painting.
Painting has suffered at least a half dozen major existential blows since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, starting with Hippolyte Delaroche declaring “from today, painting is dead†in 1839, when he first set eyes on daguerreotypes. From this precedent, debate still abounds today as to whether photography, with its more effective means of documenting events and immortalizing faces as well as democratizing the whole imaging process – and now allowing anyone to embrace the once elitist talents of painters when a point-and-click camera – has killed off painting.
There must be more to painting than the territories claimed by photography, since it certainly hasn’t lost any of its appeal to audiences, nor has it lost any market value. On the contrary, painting seems evermore the dominant commodity for commercial galleries, art fairs and auctions. Of the ten top-selling artists at auctions worldwide, nine are painters. Each time painting is declared dead, more kudos and columns are dedicated to the deceased. If violent scenarios make for good television, perhaps the same is true in the art world. Today so many paintings adorn the walls of art institutions that one is tempted to wonder if this art form was ever under serious threat, or if all this death talk was just an elaborate marketing campaign. […]
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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Newslinks
Art market
One of four versions of Edvard Munch’s masterpiece The Scream, (pastel, 1895) fetched $119,9M (Sale price $107M + the buyer’s premium) at Sotheby’s New York on 2 May, a record for auction history. The sale was dominated by two telephone bidders, over a tense ten minutes period. Sotherby’s auctioneer Tobias Meyer was caught exclaiming “I love you!†to one phone bidder when prices soared up to $106M. You can watch an excerpt here. We are all curious to know who won the bidding match for the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction. Petter Olsen, the seller of the painting personally hoped the bidding winner to be MoMA NY…
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Breaking News: Aude Moreau awarded the 2011 Powerhouse Prize
Aude Moreau installs “Tapis de sucre 3” (2008) at Darling Fondry in 2008 © Aude Moreau
Last night the multidisciplinary artist was made recipient of the first edition of a yearly prize given to women from Powerhouse Gallery.
Aude Moreau is a French-born artist living and working in Montreal since the early 90s, who just recently completed her MA in Visual and Media Arts at UQAM. Moreau is also one of the recipients for this year’s Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art. From 2000 she has accumulated an impressive body of work including the installations series “Tapis de sucre†(2006/2008) and “Tirer le ciel (Shooting the Sky)†(2005–2010). The diversity of Moreau’s work also incorporates media, performance and video, often employing everyday consumer materials of ephemeral qualities. Stemming from routine experiences, her work evokes contradictory notion of loss and attainment, in confrontation with the alienating forces of culture and consumerism. So far she has exhibited in Quebec, France, USA and Luxembourg.
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