Home Is Where the Art Is
The Gardiner Museum’s first major exhibition of 2010 was unveiled to the media this morning in advance of its official launch tomorrow: From the Melting Pot into the Fire, Contemporary Ceramics in Israel is a complex show, much more conceptual art than pretty pots and vessels.
Ceramic artist Yael Novak, left, whose installation Between the Pots is featured, joined the museum’s Chief Curator Charles Mason in leading the tour. “The show is about identity and sense of place in a multicultural, immigrant society,” said Novak, whose work takes advantage of the negative space “between the pots” to depict the multifarious building forms prevalent throughout the nation. “You have the iconic architectural shapes of Israel,” says the artist, “the influence of the kibbutz but also the domed and minaret shapes of the Arabic villages. The installation combines my two loves, architecture and pottery but I created my landscape out of air; architecture is about volume, my architecture is air, it’s an illusion.’
New Network Supports Community Arts
As coordinator of the Neighbourhood Arts Network, my job brings me into daily contact with truly inspiring people and organizations across the city. This new Toronto-wide organization is the result of months of planning and a partnership between the Toronto Arts Foundation and Art Starts. The Neighbourhood Arts Network is dedicated to supporting and enhancing community-engaged arts in Toronto.
Last week, I dropped in to Sketch’s downtown studio where a team of screenprinters was creating custom aprons for the Neighbourhood Arts Network launch. Sketch’s King Street headquarters offers accessible studio space and training for street-involved and homeless youth. Sketch was the recipient of the Toronto Arts Foundation’s 2008 Arts for Youth Award.
Although I had never met them before, Ezekial (left, with myself), Ozzy and Julian were gracious enough to let me weasel in on their fun.
Snow in the Forecast All Winter Long
Michael Snow doesn’t much care for the cult of personality. When his current exhibition, Recent Snow, opened at the Power Plant last month, a newspaper profile focused more on his sense of humour than it did on his art — Snow was not amused. Yet, after touring the exhibition with the artist yesterday, I admit my sympathies lie with the journalist. Snow is a witty raconteur and that same humour spills from his work, in one case, rather literally. In Serve, Deserve, the image of a place setting is projected onto a small tabletop; food is dropped from above onto the plates, delivered, in a sense, in the beam of light; when the service is complete, the video loop reverses and the meal ascends back to where it came from. Light giveth and light taketh away; Snow chuckles as he relates the concept.
All of the pieces in Recent Snow are projected works: Snow has been a film and video pioneer since the 1950s. “I was lucky enough to get a job doing some animation work early on and that really sparked my interest in film,” he recalls.
Gladstone’s Glorious Free-For-All
The best thing about the Gladstone Hotel’s annual Come Up To My Room exhibition isn’t the art, it’s the artists. Each year the Gladdy unleashes architects, designers and artists, either alone or in teams, to create beguiling contemporary art installations across the hotel’s second floor. Rooms, hallways, even the bathroom are transformed. Some of the spaces are mysterious, some are challenging and others are just plain fun. In most cases, the artists are right there, ready to explain and expound upon their work. At yesterday’s media preview, I had the pleasure of exploring the show with Katherine Morley, left, one of four guest curators who divvied up the exhibit and teamed the collaborators, some of whom had never met before.
Morely is seen emerging from Room 207, one of the more transporting spaces in the show. Dubbed Bed Memory, visitors are required to step into a discombobulating mirrored hallway that narrows to a small entrance into a brilliant white, tented bedroom. Step carefully because the floor is a bed that provides uncertain footing; on the ceiling float lines of text culled from the Bed Memory blog of artists Richard Unterthiner and Paolo Ferrari (pictured below left).
Radiant Dark Lights Up Financial District
From a gloomy, Dufferin Street warehouse (last year) to a gleaming granite bank lobby, the high concept design exhibition Radiant Dark is always surprising. Organized by Canadian design retailer MADE, Radiant Dark touched down yesterday at Commerce Court West (199 Bay Street) in the heart of the financial district. The antithesis of a low-rent artist’s garret, the venue perfectly supported the title of this year’s show, Assets & Values.
This is the third annual installment of Radiant Dark (today thru Sunday, 11 am – 7 pm [6 pm Sunday], free), which was conceived to piggyback on the design buzz generated by IDS (now in its 10th year). I bumped into co-founder Julie Nicholson of MADE on my way into last night’s launch party and she was obviously excited about the venue, just then filling up with down-market hipsters. “We like to switch it up,” she said. “A bank seemed like the ultimate setting to explore the show’s themes of worth and value.” READ MORE
