The Benefits of Seclusion

The Banff Centre and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design connection: both institutions rely on the perceived benefits of social and geographical seclusion to induce fits of artistic inspiration. With the wider arts community far on the outside of these institutions, they can only operate inwardly, forming strong mixed communities of participants, which may be reaching close to some sort of an understanding and practice of inter-disciplinarity (although I attended NSCAD, I have yet to confirm these activities in the Banff Centre). On another note, moving to Halifax to attend university was actually a large step towards cultural expansion and exposure for me personally – people who move to Halifax from larger cities and communities have a tendency to hang around in Halifax after they graduate NSCAD due to the intoxicating community of cubby hole galleries in people’s hallways and rogue restaurants in other people’s living rooms.

Recent research into the NSCAD conceptual art heydays in the late 1960s into the 1970s unearthed some explanations as to why it could have ever happened in the small city of Halifax. Garry Neill Kennedy offered his opinion upon arriving in Halifax as the first president of the College in 1967 when he decided that there wasn’t much of anything else going on in the city at the time: no distinctive art movements and no public institutions displaying historical or contemporary art from local or international artists. There were essentially no barriers to break down and the city was ripe for the introduction of anything creative and experimental. Being a Nova Scotian and an art historian who has researched the healthy development of abstract art in Halifax in the 1950s and 60s, I know that the region was not an artistic wasteland. All the same, I agree that it was deserving of and receptive to some cultural infusion. Upon his instatement Kennedy hired a new crop of teachers, mostly from the United States and began inviting artists from the great New York conceptual art scene including the likes of Lawrence Weiner, Dan Graham, Lucy Lippard, Douglas Huebler, and Joseph Beuys (on the more European scope) and many more. These artists gave lectures, hung about the hallways (according to Kennedy in his account in the book Conceptual Art: The NSCAD Connection 1967-1973, Beuys “became the unanticipated and personable star. His accessibility and friendly demeanour were made more surprising and engaging given the stern, removed, and shamanistic figure that he had projected in the art press. The students loved him. And he hugged everyone!”), contributed instructions for students to realize in David Askevold’s Projects Class, worked with master printers in the Lithography Workshop and with Seth Siegelaub on publications out of the NSCAD Press.

Colours are probably more brilliant in person. http://rangermikedesigns.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/postcard_banff.jpg

Banff has a similar history as far as a strong and steady movement of artists coming and going, contributing, networking and leaving work and legacies in their wakes. Although I am moving from the largest city in Canada this time, opposed to a small town, the art community is still strong, and most likely no more insular than the current Toronto scene that seems to get smaller by the week.

Blog Cross-Over

Taken from Gaping Void Blog; a cartoon drawn by Hugh McLeod in response to a blog post at Global Neighbourhoods Blog; with a subsequent response at All Things Distributed. Blog networking Power.

In line with my discussions about the state of art blog criticism, I would like to use my own differing experiences of writing for myself on Art in Practice and through my recent contributions to XBLOG.

Although I do not believe that either my own blog nor the XPACE Blog would be classified as criticism in the sense that I would hope art criticism to be within - it's certainly a different experience to write for one's self than for a gallery's blog. In my own circumstances, the public aspect of my writing seems all the more distant, while my contributions to XPACE must incorporate a consideration for the audience I am writing for; although potentially quite similar to my own, it's definitely a criteria. I also consider within this audience, the affiliation of the gallery and its artists within the larger community - with institutional partnership, they work directly with artists, their work and that subsequent exchange and promotion - if I am to talk about artists, their association in any part to XPACE must be considered - moving back to Terrance Dick's admittance of not wanting to bump into anyone who he may have spoken ill about in his Akimblog and otherwise - I am not only representing my own reputation, but that of an institution in addition to my own character when I'm writing for XPACE.

There are no parametres when writing content for XPACE, there is a consensus on what is considered criticism within the context of the institution as well as a concept of audience. Contributors are expected to somehow fit within that context. Individuality and content is preserved and encouraged - which is interesting, because I have the option of free reign and content on my own blog, why do I chose to contribute material through an institution - regardless of how free of editorial intervention it may be? For credentials of course; holding associations with an organization means that you and your work are set to qualifying standards. Other important considerations could include access to a broader audience, and the opportunity for furthered public discussion on your topics and ideas? Would it be the same comparison in the print publishing world either through the community of DIY zine culture or through a long-running magazine publication? Maybe it's better to pursue both options - a good example being Leah Sandals' blog Un-edit my Heart where she offers herself the opportunity to relax from the conditioning of print journalism.

Publishing in print seems like the Holy Grail in writing accomplishments, especially for someone like me who is just beginning to break into this territory - but honestly, there's a lot more work and certainly more compromises involved, if only in the beginning stages - a good writer does not require much editing, or the writers are already accomplished to a level where no one would care to intervene in the writing style or content (I'm sure this changes drastically from magazine to magazine and among editors, but all the same). It's easier and more reflexive to publish online and to assert free reign over content and opinions, accepting spelling and grammatical errors as facts of life. There's a rush at hopping on the bandwagon, but only when it runs along a parallel road that may suit as a compliment.

The State of Blog Criticism – In Encouragement of Chair-Throwing

Img.: http://www.badonka-donk.com/images/chair.jpg

I entered into the art blog realm essentially uninformed about what was at stake; approaching the project as a form of personal expression and as an archival tool for tracking my job search and meetings with individuals in the Toronto arts community. Although the focus of the blog’s content has mostly been a review and reflection of the structure of the Toronto gallery and contemporary art system, I have inevitably found some events and exhibitions interesting within this context and perhaps have occasionally ventured into the realm of ‘art criticism’.

So what does ‘art criticism’ mean within the ever-expanding and delirious arena of online self-publishing? Most likely not much beyond itself as blogs seem to stand as reflections of individuals’ personal opinions in an age when anyone who has access to a computer can have a public voice about anything and everything. Within the Toronto art community, being small and narrow as it is, I was never under the impression that I had free reign over what I would be ‘publishing’ as I understand that maybe whoever I wrote about would also read the text concerning them, under the assumption that an artist I mention may soon read my post, dealers, curators, other writers etc. In no way knowing how often this happens, or whether it happens at all, I have still always kept in mind that whoever I write about is also someone I could bump into in a bar or along the street and would be interested in talking about what was written. For me, the blog is an invitation for discussion.

With physical printed text – reviews and criticism – the opinions are perhaps more concrete, more serious and permanent, and critics maybe more concerned about the tone and the expression of opinions with a desire to remain within an understanding of respectability and inoffence. Blogs are different. They can accidentally offend because of a more relaxed level of concern on the part of the writer, or they can be inaccurately researched, without copy editing or peer reviews…..and have the possibility of being posted after the writer’s had a few drinks. These qualities are what make the blog-world absolutely unique and excitingly problematic; two great qualities that shouldn’t be exploited. One must always remember that the online world is a form of the public sphere of course.

Due to the responsive and slap-dash format of writing and posting that blogs offer, they can fall easy prey to improperly or incompletely developed thoughts, feelings and opinions. One must understand these possibilities and use them to one’s advantage, or else the content can easily just be passed off as bad-criticism. The content does not match the same expectations for print materials. Looking at a (kind of) recent Toronto Akimblog entry by Terrance Dick’ (14 October 2009), there was a response to Dick’s statement about the role of the critic. In Dick’s opinion, he considers art critics to be responsible for pointing only towards good art, as he expressed a sense of personal guilt upon publishing (online or in print) any ‘less than favourable’ comments. He also said that he found himself afraid of running into artists he had spoken ill of (to any degree) along the streets of Toronto. This one reader’s response to the presence of bad criticism (or lack of presence) was taken through an opinion expressed through Gary Michael Dault, that there is simply “not enough room for negative reviews.”

If you attend five exhibitions in the next week (which you should do if you haven’t already), relect upon them all together, and you can weed out all the bad stuff pretty quickly. Maybe one show was mildly interesting, but nothing to write home (or online) about. So, what’s the responsibility of art critics to discuss all exhibitions, both bad and good? Again, our opinionated Akimblog responder said “As an example you [Dick] write about 3 or 4 shows, and are forced to not write about the 200 hundred others happening in the city. I understand[:] promote the good forget the garbage.” So, as a writer and publisher, there’s no constructive use to pointing out the faults and failures of the art community perhaps. Really, who would it benefit? Maybe it would put some fire under the butts of artists to make better work? Maybe ‘any publicity is good publicity? What about artists who make work that is intentionally bad? It will all end up in a swirl or opinions – the opinion of everyone who has access to a computer and beyond.

Looking to another recent example on the Voice on Canadian Art blog by Andrea Carsen where, in the 6 November 2009 post, she posed the question whether her blog should be more critical. This ran in tandem with her review of the current Redbull 381 Project’s exhibition Sitting Pretty: The Enduring Role of Portraiture in Contemporary Art . She panned it, or at least expressed dislike for the works in the show. She got a pointed response by curators Nicolas Brown and Julia Lum, who indicated some further details about the works that they thought Carsen had incorrectly or hastily overlooked and misinterpreted. So this is either some good old art drama or it’s an indication of the problems of art-blog-criticism being called out for all the problems it so easily plays with : inattention to detail, hurried and subjectively responsive content (researched or not) and some sort of understanding that the blog lies somewhere between public and private (typed from the comfort of bed and a cup of tea – where I usually write, then posted for the whole internet world to see and judge and potentially respond).

I’m fully encouraging of screaming arguments over art, taking from the spirit of the Futurists and Abstract Expressionists – getting drunk and getting into fights about what’s at stake in the art world– there’s simply not enough of that nowadays. Although two recent events of note made attempts to reinvigorate this spirit: The Toronto Alliance of Art Critics event entitled BRING-IT, MAKE FACE MOTHAFUCKAS! (Double Double Land, Dec. 2) which was supposedly a raging debate about art criticism in Toronto which featured David Balzer, Otino Corsano, Rosemary Heather, Charlene K. Lau, Leah Sandals and Murray Whyte, and Lawrence Weschler: What’s the New Line? (Cinecycle, Dec. 3) event which included rousing audience and participant attempts at re-positioning and re-evaluating current Toronto artists’ practices.

So, in the spirit: If you don’t like what I’ve said, this is a public blog and I want people to talk about the issues it discusses and play within this tricky public-private divide...although I certainly don’t encourage people to hurl any chairs in my direction next time I see them.

All the places I've applied since July.....

Junction Arts Festival

Art Gallery of Ontario

Petroff Gallery (twice)

Powerplant (twice)

TPW Gallery

Media Experts

Gallery 1313 (Director and Board Member)

Canadian Art Residency

Royal Ontario Museum

Artscape – Wychwood Barns

Ontario College of Art and Design (administrative, three times)

Documentary Organization of Canada

New Photography Gallery (Bau Xi)

St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts

Blue Dot Gallery

Lord Cultural Resources (twice)

Jessica Bradley

Harbourfront Centre

ARCCO

Stephen Bulger Gallery (twice)

Birch Libralato

C Magazine

Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre

City of Toronto

CONTACT Festival

Lonsdale Gallery

Ontario Association of Art Galleries

Pride Toronto

Open Studio

1000 Acts of Art

City of Mississauga, Cultural Division

BookNet Canada

ReelWorld

Ontario Art Council

Sock that Doesn’t Suck

Superframe

Toronto Arts Council

Thrush Holmes Empire

Toronto International Film Festival

Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition (twice)

Canadian Art Gallery Hop (event volunteer)

The Banff Centre

Art Gallery of York University

Progressive Fine Art

Verno International Art Studios

Corkin Gallery

Museum Pros

Royal Conservatory of Music

Beverly Owens Project

Western Front Society

Susan Hobbs

Jessica Bradley

Oakville Galleries

Above Ground Art Supply

DeSerres

Curry’s

Resulting in three interviews; one contract employment; some still pending; two volunteer opportunities

Canadian Art Magazine/Business

Canadian Art magazine doesn’t always get a good review among members of the Canadian art community – with criticisms for being too commercial, for operating more as a business than a responsive art journal, and for bolstering its own ego. This is a distinct and purposeful strategy that places it on par with many other glossy art and culture publications and it shouldn’t necessarily incite negative reaction. In presenting itself as a commercial venture full of gallery, artist, and university studio programme advertisements, it's constructing an image of the large lucrative network of the Canadian art market (or reflecting it?). I think what's easy to criticize about Canadian Art’s strategy is that is seems somehow un-Canadian to submit to commercialization and skimming (if not informative) content. An attempting to place the Canadian art business on the same tier as the American art business should be a welcomed advance, although a successful comparison is still debatable.

When browsing through Artforum or Art in America, you can tell they are more like business platforms than critical journals (although Art Forum has its moments). This mixture, however, is a crucial and valuable component for these internationally circulating magazines. Canadian Art has been making a stand as a trend predictor, supporting the formation of a network of cultural-funders, art-makers and curators – it’s an obvious move by the magazine to establish itself as more important than previously assumed – no one asked for a top ten list of Canadian artists to watch or for a list of who’s who in the Toronto curatorial circuit, but Canadian Art took up the responsibility for making these decisions, establishing a hierarchy with high glossy fashion-esque spreads to boot. So why does it feel so awkward? Maybe because the self-congratulatory and self-aggrandizing message of these sorts of articles indeed appear as expressions of a palpably un-Canadian sentiment. Canadian cultural identity seems to have a lot to do with laying claims on any individual - dancer, artists, actor playwright etc. - who has ever spent any time living or working in Canada through which to build a significant cultural identity. Listening to CBC radio on any sort of regular basis, you notice that any one who's interviewed is readily identified by his/her Canadian connection (however small). Sometimes it seems like we're bashfully grasping at any degree of association through which to build up our country's cultural credentials.

Paul Butler’s work entitled Toronto Now Suite (2008), in Sitting Pretty: The Enduring Role of Portraiture in Contemporary Art (5 Nov – 5 Dec 2009) at Redbull 381 Projects, is not pointing to the potentially ‘un-Canadian’ aspects of Canadian Art magazine, but it surely comments on the awkward creation of the magazine's recent spreads such as “Ten to Watch’ (Fall 2009) and the ‘Spotlight: Toronto Now’ (Winter 2007). The 'Toronto Now' article was composed as a presentation of different categories of art and culture contributors that were subsequently gathered together for group photos in such categories as “Partners, Friends, Travellers,” “The Directors,” “Sources” and “To Watch” – which seems like a precursor to the larger section in Fall 2009 that lists another group of young artists to pay attention to, if you care to be savvy. Butler’s project includes the pages of the Canadian Art 'Toronto Now' photo shoot excised from its original binding with each figure blocked out by tiny mosaic pieces of black archival tape – precisely and completely. Also, the descriptive text listing the who’s-who were cut out, leaving empty rectangular spaces.

With the erasure of information and identity, essayist Julia Lum in the accompanying exhibition essay notes that Butler’s “work invites viewers to imaginatively insert other bodies into the scene, running parallel to Butler’s call to arms for more artist-run initiatives in the wake of the recent economic crisis: ‘We have an exciting opportunity as artists, to reclaim control and reinvent our art world.’” This is absolutely true, as I’m sure there were water cooler discussions here and there about who should have been included and who shouldn’t have been. What interests me about Butler’s work is the obvious identification of a constructed scene existing in the Toronto community. This is not only a ‘call to arms’ for artists to take charge of the scene, but also a call for support by anyone who perceives a need for the identification, definition and hierarchization of that scene within the structure of artist, dealer, critic that we see played out in places like Artforum. A gesture that bolsters the Toronto art scene as being comparable with other international cities is tantamount to what this work is addressing.

Through negating the hierarchy, Butler also points to its current construction through the format of an art magazine with aspirations for international clout - one that operates as a corporation to a certain extent through huge fundraisers (29 Sept blog post), a foundation, considerable donations and corporate sponsorships. As an artist who has contributed writing to this magazine and who is also exhibiting at Redbull (yes, a gallery and the brand name energy drink), for Butler to be criticizing the construction of a polished art scene adds another level to the work. I do not want to insinuate hypocriticracy, because that's useless. I'm instead pointing to the conscious participation by all of us: writers, artists, dealers, young professionals, non-profit administrators; we're all caught in a hierarchical art scene which Canadian Art magazine is perhaps only attempting to make shamelessly explicit.

In Defense of [Insert medium of choice]

First image to come up from a Google Image Search for "painting"
http://www.keithgarrow.com/

A panel talk about drawing and a panel talk about painting in the course of two days is a treat as it seems peculiar for artists to come together and discuss their media and what it means. These events were not positioned in a defensive way, but instead as a chance to take advantage of the public dialogue space where they can work through the changing conditions and considerations of their media. These talks seemed to be about defining a medium, drawing and painting, as both 'still important' and 'newly important.' Painting will always be painting and drawing will always be drawing, but the works in both the drawing show at XPACE and the painting show at the University of Toronto Art Centre (Art Lounge) allow for a lot of bending and reconsideration.

Accompanying XPACE's current exhibition, ORDER/CHAOS (16 Oct - 13 Nov) was a delightfully relaxed panel discussion moderated by XPACE Director Derek Liddington that included Sarah Kernohan (ORDER/CHAOS artist), Dan Rocca (the curator) and Luke Painter (OCAD Faculty). The panelists briefly discussed their own work, pointing to it along the gallery walls when applicable, and quickly moved into a discussion about the history of drawing practice, the material quality of a drawing, and about the economic value of their work (in the sense of how drawing is considered or not considered as a commodity object within the art market). My own opinion about drawing is that its history describes it as preliminary intercessory kind of work; drawing is a planning and layout tool and doesn't stand alone as a end, but only as a means. I always wanted drawing to be an end-all-be-all and although I explored other avenues in art school (painting, printmaking, photography, metal work and sculpture) all of those things just led back to drawing, as I always assumed that drawing was its own project, and not in support of others. These artists in the panel were also proponents of drawing as a stand-alone practice in that exhibitions can be composed of finished drawings not intended to be anything more than what they are.

The issue of marketability did come up, from a member of the audience who (although asserting to the rest of the audience that she did not necessarily believe in this opinion, voiced it anyway...making me think that she did believe it). She stated that drawing is not considered as an independent and valuable practice because we all did it as kids and so it is therefore considered as elemental and primitive. She said that every artist wants to make work that can sell, and associations with drawing's primitive and childish qualities prevent people from taking it seriously. I can innumerate the web of problems in statements like this (like people claiming that their kid could replicate a Paul Klee or Barnett Newman), but really, all that needs to be parsed from this kind of statement is that, yeah, art practice can be easily dismissed by objective and outsider positions when it cannot be reduced to commodity exchange and capital growth (or the 'Recession').

In a recent job interview I got a peculiar question from the gallery curator/interviewer as a sort of wrap up: "I'm interested in why people work within the art field, I mean, why did you go into Art when there's no money in it?" This was at a commercial gallery, which is maybe even more confusing than addressing this same issue in a panel discussion in an artist-run centre.

First image to come up from a Google Image Search of 'drawing'
http://www.mathacademy.com/pr/minitext/escher/big.asp?IMAGE=drawing_hands

The panel discussion at UTAC coincides with the exhibition Facing the Screen (4 Nov - 19 Dec) in the art lounge, curated by MVS student Bogdan Luca. Its panelists included the existing mid-career generation of Canadian painters in the GTA Monica Tap (Associate Professor, U of Guelph), Michel Daigneault (Associate Professor, York U) and Joanne Tod (Professor, U of T) with moderator Vladimir Spicanovic (Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts, OCAD). The panel addressed the role of digital imagery and the computer in the lives of artists and how they currently influence artistic practice. This relationship was addressed during the XPACE drawing talk as well. Both panels agreed that the influence of digital technologies on artistic practice has been heavy and is almost fully integrated into much of their creative processes, from the use of digital cameras, to internet research, to google image searches - and of course, the internet in turn is used as a medium through which to talk about art too (re: blog).

Talks that exist to figure out how the art world and artists' practices are changing are valuable investigations, if only because they can be revisited again and again. Within the city, there are many lectures by individual artists about their work, many talks from curators relating what they think is important in art today, and from theorists and writers talking about what is being talked about. There was high attendance at both the XPACE and UTAC events, more at UTAC, possibly because of the venue's general appeal for both young and old, maybe because painting is considered more important than drawing (stretching), or maybe because UTAC is directly attached to a university on site (with XPACE once removed from OCAD). Both the curator and the moderator at the UTAC event expressed surprise at the level of attendance to almost an embarrassing degree, surprised that anyone would care and thanking everyone numerous times for expressing that care.

However few, within a city of 2.5 million, there remain some people who give a damn about what is being done and what is being said about art, regardless of whether there's no money in it (and only some free snacks). Funny that it's a surprise, even within the community itself.

Reiteration:

Remain a cultural producer. Make stuff. Do stuff. Keep thinking.

John Baldessari, "I will not make any more boring Art", 1971. Can be found in the entrance foyer of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. The performance and subsequent lithographic print was made by students working from directions sent to the college by Baldessari.

Not that I don’t do this already, and it’s absolutely possible that people reading this blog do this too, but for anyone who starts to wane, convincing themselves that conceptual and theoretical exploration doesn’t play out in the real world, in the work-place, in your ideal job, then you should straighten up and re-realise that it’s as important as developing those basic database skills, those promotional skills, those budgeting skills.

Both the ‘practical’ and ‘theoretical’ operate in tandem with one another (they’re close enough to be making out when no one’s looking), if only because they exist as a perpetual dichotomy; throughout my time in art school, to my time in-between schools in the working world, to my time in my masters degree, and especially now, as a recent graduate, tempted to throw out all conceptual endeavours in order to learn HTML and earn certificates in fundraising.

What do you want to do? There’s a place for you, but as I’ve been recently advised: “You’ll have to pay your due in the mean time.” Exhaust yourself within the scene, go to events, talk to people – not necessarily about needing work, but about what work you already do as a method through which to collaborate with people, with ideas, with projects – it’s all there to be mined, but you certainly have to do some digging and make sure that people can see the dirt on your knees and the pick axe in your back pocket.

I see curation and writing as processes that make ideas live in the world through thoughtful development and an interest to provoke. Learning HTML and how to hang a painting can help you get into a comfortable position through which to pursue these processes. With aspirations to be a curator, I see administrative skills as a practical asset: the skills I chose to learn and develop are an act of curation (why not?); they are the result of clever considerations over the composition of elements with the goal of creating a larger message, or indication of a message. There was a recent article in the New York Times by Alex Williams (2 October 2009) about the co-option of the term ‘curating’ by bicycle assemblage shops and clothing boutiques. I don’t disagree with this new development, as the term never had a definitive life in the art world to begin with – I still don’t know what curating is as a single practice, so why can’t other people make sense of it while the art world fumbles? Figuring out how curation operates as a skill and a practice in my life is a way of determining my own distinct path towards it – that includes working through different paths, such as visual arts practice, administration, fine-art framing, database management with a spattering of barista service. It will all add up, as long as the deep thinking doesn't get thrown by the wayside.