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 Anyone”. 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.”
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Contemporary art all nighter – Nuit Blanche Toronto 2012


Rhonda Weppler & Trevor Mahovsky, All Night Convenience, 2012 Courtesy of the artists and Pari Nadimi Gallery

Originally conceived in Paris in 2002, Nuit Blanche celebrates contemporary art in the span of a single night, from sunset to sunrise. This weekend is Toronto’s turn with Scotibank Nuit Blanche keeping the city awake all night long. In its seventh edition, the event showcases over 150 contemporary art projects headlined by the exhibition Museum for the End of the World at the City Hall curated by Janine Marchessault and Michael Prokopow featuring 14 artist projects, including Douglas Coupland, Thomas Blanchardm, Iris Häussler, Dana Claxton, An Te Liu, Tania Mouraud and more. Another 29 commissioned projects feature Ceal Foyer, Catherine Yass, Oliver Husain, Kelly Mark, Trisha Brown Dance Company, Neil Campbell to name a few, in addition to 15 Open Call Projects, 4 Sponsor Projects and 96 Independent projects including Christian Marclay’s The Clock at The Power Plant, giving audiences a perfect opportunity for a sleepless night. Moreover, ‘Nuit Talks’ offers a series of free themed discussions for candid exchanges, for a overarching contemplation of the creative activities in Toronto as well as some behind-the-scenes peeks at the wealth of art and artists within one of North America’s largest contemporary art events.

Scotibank Nuit Blanche 2012
Saturday 29 September 2012
7.03 pm to sunrise
For more info: scotibanknuitblanche.ca
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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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The Grange Prize 2012


[from left] Emmanuelle Léonard, Citizens, protest, March 15, 2009, # 5137, 2009; Annie MacDonell, The present is the future of the past and the past of the future (The Fortune Teller) (detail), 2012; Jason Evans, Untitled from The Daily Nice, 2004-ongoing; Jo Longhurst, I Know What You’re Thinking (detail), 2003

The Grange Prize 2012 Shortlist
Jason Evans (Holyhead, Wales)
Emmanuelle Léonard (Montréal, QC)
Jo Longhurst (Essex, UK)
Annie MacDonell (Toronto, ON)

The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and Aeroplan announce the four finalists for The Grange Prize 2012, supporting the artistic development of four photographic artists whose work has shown extraordinary promise over the past three years. The finalists receive international artist residencies, exhibitions of their work at the AGO in Toronto, Canada and Canada House in London, UK, and a chance to win the prize. The shortlist was selected by a jury of leading Canadian and British photography experts, and the winner will be chosen by public vote. Public voting takes place inside the exhibitions and online at thegrangeprize.com.

Public voting
22 August – 30 October 2012 VOTE NOW !
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Art Marathon: Toronto’s vibrant art scene [Updated!]


Scott McFarland’s large-scale photographic mural “Corner of the Courageous, Repatriation Ceremony for Sergant Martin Goudreault, Grenville St., Toronto, Ontario, June 9th 2010” (2012) in the courtyard of MOCCA. Photo by M-KOS

Toronto’s vibrant art scene and exuberant artist community package many artist-run spaces, a number of notable commercial galleries as well as important public and private art institutions. The annual Scotibank Contact photography festival testifies as a case study to the city’s cultural dynamism, currently showcasing over 100 artists under the theme: Public. M-KOS journeyed to Toronto for this occasion and more, featuring the Canadian metropolis within our regular Art Marathon.
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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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Conversation on “Sediment”

Sediment
13 January – 26 February 2012
at G Gallery, Toronto


Sediment, Installation view, 2012. Courtesy G Gallery

From 13 January to 26 February 2012, Toronto’s G Gallery presents the group exhibition entitled Sediment. Affiliated with Guelph University, G Gallery’s reputation for supporting experimental shows was substantiated by this latest exhibition, with an arrangement of works that deviate from standard exhibition models. Sediment originated from a call out submission written by Shane Krepakevich, one of the show’s present curators. At the project level, its topic was generally assumed to be about artist books, their ‘support structures’ and the way these operate between the status of document and self-contained artwork. But when incarnated in its physical manifestation, the exhibition grew beyond its original concept and became something more. Sediment is now best described as a show connecting the gaps between art and its many peripherals, or even, as the artists mention, a composite work of art in its own right. The following conversation was conducted between participating artist Yam Lau as well as curators Shane Krepakevich and Michelle McGeean.
 

Conversation on Sediment – an exhibition of artist’s bookwork and book support or an exercise in exhibition arrangement?
 

Yam Lau [YL]: I would like to begin by giving some context for this interview on the exhibition at G Gallery, Toronto entitled, Sediment. I’m Yam Lau, one of the artists in the exhibition and I’m sitting in the gallery with Shane Krepakevich and Michelle McGeean, the two curators of the exhibition.

Because I spent a few days setting up my piece in the exhibition, I saw how the exhibition was put together, how the whole thing unfolds. For this reason I think I have a different perspective from the other artists who only discovered the show and in particular the way their work was treated at the opening. The first thing that struck me about this exhibition is that it’s very unusual. That’s the reason I like it. Rather than an exhibition of discreet art objects, the whole thing reads as one work, one gesture. All the elements, the work, the support of the work, partitions and gallery furniture are interconnected by a kind of flow, or energy.

Maybe you can speak a little bit about this peculiar character of the exhibition. I don’t think it was how the other artists envisioned it when they were invited to participate in an artist’s book and book support project.

Shane Krepakevich [SK]: You mean that people might not have had a sense of what it [exhibition] would be based on that call for submissions? Sure, at that point I didn’t have an intention of making the exhibition as a piece (of work). That was something that came out through developing the exhibition.
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Interview with David Liss: Putting Contemporary Canadian Art On The Map

David Liss is the artistic director and chief curator of MOCCA, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto. During Toronto’s International Art Fair, Liss talked to M-KOS about the current landscape of the Canadian art scene, in an insightful and refreshingly outspoken manner.

M-KOS [MK]: Could you introduce our readers to MOCCA and how you started getting involved in this art centre ?

David Liss [DS]: MOCCA started in 1999, it was reformed from the Art Gallery of North York, in the north part of Toronto. At the time it was a privately run gallery space, showcasing Canadian art. But for reasons that were well covered by the media back in those days, that enterprise went bankrupt. It was a big theatre complex, a performing arts centre with a small gallery inside it. That entity collapsed and the gallery was set to close but the art community of Toronto lobbied the city to keep the gallery open. So they did keep it open but the budget was greatly reduced, and the director and staff left. I started there at the end of 2000, coming from Montréal to figure out what to do next with this, the newly named, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. One of the first things in my discussions with the hiring committee was, given the name of the institution, that I didn’t think it was relevant in the 21st century to have a parochial or nationalistic view of contemporary art. So I restructured the mandate and the mission of MOCCA to include Canadian and non-Canadian artists.
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A Bourgeoning Affair in Toronto


Gregory Scott “Dialogue” (2011) archival digial print, oil on panel & HD video. at Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago.

Toronto International Art Fair‘s 12th edition took place between October 28-31 2011, in the city’s main Convention Centre, officially ranking as one of the biggest events on Canadian cultural calendars.

Within the context of Canada’s limited art market, TIAF proposed a commendable program of exhibiting galleries, ensuring an unhurried but confident progress from the figures of previous years. A total of 109 commercial galleries took part in 2011, 72 of which Canadian, perhaps enough to look into this event as a cross-section of the nation’s recent artistic activities. The remaining fair booths represented cities such as New York, London, Berlin and Dublin, adding a welcomed international flavour to the overall show. At the closing of the fair last weekend, it’s estimated the paid attendance has risen to above 18,000, with art sales at around CAN$20 million.
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