M-KOS wishes you all a fantastic new year!
M-KOS vous souhaite une superbe année !
Image: Oli Sorenson, Google (Meaning), 2013 Courtesy the artist. © Oli Sorenson
Memorable Exhibitions 2015
See below for image credits.
As we reach the end of 2015, M-KOS again invited a selection of art professionals for our fifth annual survey to share their most memorable exhibitions, art works, performances, events and other moments of this past year. All these were memorable from the perspectives of our invited reviewers, yet surely some entries can be debated by our readers joining us in the comments section below. All are welcome to suggest any other must see art moment in this year’s art listings.
This year’s participants include: Jonathan Shaughnessy (Associate curator, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa); Cheryl Sim (Curator, DHC/ART, Montreal); Thomas Kneubühler (Artist, Montreal/Switzerland); Dominique Fontaine (Independent curator/Founding director of aPOSteRIORI, Montreal); Guy Sangster Adams (Editor, Plectrum – The Cultural Pick, London, UK); Maria Ezcurra (Artist/Art educator, Montreal/Mexico); Romeo Gongora (Artist, Montreal); Karen Tam (Artist, Montreal); Stephen Connolly (Film maker, London, UK); Oli Sorenson (Artist/Editor, M-KOS, Montreal); Miwa Kojima (Managing editor, M-KOS, Montreal)
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Prévisualisations at Galerie Trois Points, Montréal
“No More Heroes” by Oli Sorenson. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Trois Points.
16 May – 27 June 2015
Galerie Trois Points, Montréal
Artists: Jason Arsenault, John Boyle-Singfield, Oli Sorenson, Alex McLeod
Galerie Trois Points features guest artists Jason Arsenault, John Boyle-Singfield and Oli Sorenson along Alex McLeod’s works in Prévisualisations. The selected works reveal certain truths about how virtualization – through the appropriation and distorted use of software, applications, movies, files and digital technologies – may impact our daily life and perception of reality.
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Oli Sorenson: La Société de la Place des Spectacles at POPOP Gallery, Montréal
Image courtesy of Oli Sorenson
Oli Sorenson
La Société de la Place des Spectacles
4 – 13 December 2014
at POPOP Gallery, Montréal
Vernissage: Saturday 6 December 2014, 14h – 17h
Performance: Saturday 6 December 2014, 16h
“[…] the very means of damaging these monitors in a performative context, to leave these marks will give exclusive properties to each of them: products of mass consumption will be transformed into unique objects …” (O. Sorenson)
Lodged under the signs of paradox, Oli Sorenson’s performance entitled La Société de la Place des Spectacles is presented on December 6th at 4 pm in Montreal’s Belgo Building. This performance taps right at the heart of spectacular fervor, while investing in the denial his own representation by continuing his series of “revisited works.” This corpus, triggered by a will to comment on the existing work of other creators as much as mass-produced objects, is here explored under the logic of destruction. Strangely, Sorenson’s exercise in transfiguration aspires to restore a stamp of uniqueness onto already original creations. Continue reading “Oli Sorenson: La Société de la Place des Spectacles at POPOP Gallery, Montréal”
Hit and miss treasure hunt in the labyrinth – Art Souterrain 2013
Nathalie Quagliotto, Vous êtes ici / You are here, 2013. Photo by Nathalie Quagliotto.
The Labyrinth themed fifth edition of Art Souterrain indeed furnished a dazzle of art sceneries to mark seven kilometres underground pathways with over 120 artworks. Taking the topic to heart, many works denoted either a puzzling of the visual senses or forms of bewilderment within the self, between societies or geo-political conditions. Mélodie Prégent’s installation “Warren†(2013) combined adjacent mirrors and perspective photographs of empty corridors, stairways and tunnels to create illusions of endless passages. Loren Williams whimsically faked several tunnel entrances, not only to confuse or amuse the audience but also to suggest gateways to fantastic and imaginary worlds. Continue reading “Hit and miss treasure hunt in the labyrinth – Art Souterrain 2013”
Oli Sorenson “Mapping Buren” at Angell Gallery, Toronto
Oli Sorenson, Mapping Buren, 2012. Video Installation. Courtesy the artist and Angell Gallery. © Oli Sorenson 2012
Oli Sorenson
Mapping Buren
3 November – 11 December 2012
at Angell Gallery, Toronto
Opening reception on Saturday 3 November 2012, 13.00 – 16.00
Oli Sorenson has always refused to define his production in terms of artistic discipline, as his body of work continually fluctuates between painting, video installation, digital printing, performance, and interactive projects. His choice of topics often focuses on identity and distributed authorship, as he first shot to international acclaim under the moniker “VJ Anyoneâ€. Oli has collaborated with numerous bands such as Leftfield, MIA, Block Party and more, simultaneously to his studio production. Oli describes his approach as that of a remix artist: “I produce art as a DJ produces music.â€
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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. […]