Philosophy Moving and Still

Can philosophy influence photography? Pierre Poulain certainly thinks so. The Tel Aviv-based photographer will be at Toronto’s Centre for Social Innovation next week to open a photo exhibit (May 12) and lead a seminar focused on cultural diversity, philosophy and of course, photography (May 13).

Poulain is the founder of the New Acropolis School of Philosophy in Israel. New Acropolis was born in Argentina in 1957 and has blossomed around the world, including branches in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. Poulain visits all three Canadian outposts on his current tour.

The Toronto visit could hardly be better timed given that it occurs smack in the middle of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. In addition to the two CSI talks, Poulain leads a workshop at the University of Toronto Multi-Faith Centre May 14 from 10 am – 5 pm entitled Wisdom Through the Lens: Change the Way You See the World.

WHERE/WHEN: Official launch, The Geometry of Light, May 12, 6:30 pm at the Centre for Social Innovation (215 Spadina); also Cultural Diversity: How Can We Manage It and Appreciate Its Value?, May 13, 7:30 pm at CSI. Wisdom Through the Lens at UofT Multi-Faith Centre (569 Spadina Avenue), May 14, 10 am – 5 pm.

MOCCA Award For Edward Burtynsky

Toronto-based photographer Edward Burtynsky was honoured last night at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art where he receives the $20,000 MOCCA Award for Contemporary Art 2011. Presented biennially and sponsored by BMO Financial Group, the MOCCA Award was established in 2007 to honour a Canadian active in the field for innovation, accomplishment, contribution over time, or for a specific project, that has national or international significance.

In recognition of the prize, Burtynsky and his Toronto dealer, Nicholas Metivier, have mounted a lightning-strike show – open to the public this Saturday and Sunday only — featuring a small retrospective of the artist’s provocative “manufactured landscapes” and the first-ever showing of work shot last summer in Spain’s Monegros region.

The dryland farming images debuted in the New York Times Magazine this past Sunday where a striking, single image recalled the work of French abstract painter Jean Dubuffet. Burtynsky, who walked me through the show Wednesday morning (he’s seen above doing an interview with BravoTV), says he sees other artistic references in the aerial photos including suggestions of North American Aboriginal art. READ MORE

Sheree Rasmussen: In Living Colour

Avenue Road’s new Studio Vogue Gallery was jumping late Saturday afternoon for the opening of Fabrications, a solo exhibition by Toronto textile artist Sheree Rasmussen. The walls were practically vibrating with the artist’s vivid, abstract works.

“It’s very improvisational,” Rasmussen said of her practice. “I don’t plan before hand. I think it’s a lot like improvisational music, the same kind of process drives it. Colour is vibration just like sound is.” READ MORE

Nonworks Preserved for Posterity

Art Metropole was the scene of a sad celebration Saturday afternoon as friends and colleagues of Toronto artist Gordon Lebredt came out en masse to welcome the arrival of Nonworks 1975 – 2008 and to say goodbye to the artist who lost his valiant fight with cancer on February 26. Edited by Lebredt’s partner Lin Gibson, Nonworks is a monograph containing sketches of works that were conceived but never realized, hence the title.

In the book’s prologue David Court and Josh Thorpe note that the book “constitutes a major retrospective of a body of work that exists only as possibility . . . Our hope, in initiating and assisting in the publication of this book, is that some of these works will be “realized,” but also simply a wish to support Gordon’s position of art-making as a matter invested with intellectual and ethical urgency — a pursuit that is neither straightforward nor easy and which stubbornly follows its own skewed trajectory and proceeds with no expectation of reception or return.”

Nonworks 1975 – 2008 is available through Art Metropole (788 King Street West, 416.703-4400).

Travis Shilling: Flooded With Feeling

It would be easy to presume that the many animals in Travis Shilling’s powerful new show at the Gladstone Hotel are related to his Aboriginal heritage but they’re not, at least not directly. The majority of the 21 works sprawling over the hotel’s third and fourth floors depict a flooded world where humans and animals endure atop icebergs or in boats. At its core the work is about survival and adaptation says Shilling, who walked me through the show Friday afternoon.

“I’m not trying to convey a post-apocalyptic scenario,” he stresses, “this feels like right now to me. When people talk about the end of the world it’s like they think it’s going to happen in one day, but it’s going to happen over a long period of time and they’re going to get used to it, they’re going to adapt.” READ MORE