Artist Steve Higgins' artist residency at MSVU Art Gallery tops my list of art events in 2013 as it offered the public a rare chance to witness the culmination of four decades of work. Gallery director Ingrid Jenkner invited Higgins, whose work explores post-industrial utopias, to create the work of his career in the gallery between March 6 and April 19. Higgins did just that, building a room-sized, three-dimensional structure based on his charcoal drawings. The public had the opportunity to pop in and watch the artist-as-labourer as he worked feverishly to suspend from the ceiling beams of lumber in twisting formations that appeared to defy gravity. The completed exhibition served as a thoughtful exploration into the way towering architectural structures can embody hegemonic ideologies of progress.
I was also particularly excited about this year's Atlantic competitor – Tamara Henderson, an artist who does much of her work while she's sound asleep – at the Sobey Art Award exhibition at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (which continues until January 5). Describing herself as a "night journalist," she dutifully transcribes her dreams, fleshing them out in the form of experimental video, sculpture, and art objects. Her installation at the AGNS features an unusual piece of furniture created using a design the artist came up with while under hypnosis, as well as a series of blown glass vessels molded from the insides of pineapples inspired by a dream. Henderson offers a refreshing spin on Surrealist traditions, mining diverse sources for inspiration, ranging from Mary Ann Caws to the latest scientific study on problem solving in dreams.
Becka Viau, The Queen, 2013, performance in No-Name Gallery (photo: Jeff Cooke)
Barrington Street's No-Name galleries – pop up exhibitions curated in an empty storefront by artist Scott Saunders – were the sites of an unforgettable series of happenings downtown this year. For her exhibition The Queen, artist Becka Viau, bedecked in a regal robe, crown, and icy stare, sat perfectly still in the window on Barrington Street, playfully critiquing our relationships with authoritarian figureheads. Artists Mitchell Wiebe and Aaron Weldon also used the space for an unforgettable musical collaboration, while artist Bonita Hatcher's Laid Bare invited public controversy as it used a shaved taxidermied beaver to explored feminine beauty rituals. The galleries provided artists with an organic, flexible location to exhibit their work, and successfully introduced community members from outside of the art scene circuit to a group of emerging and established local artists.
Lizzy Hill is an internationally published writer and the editor of Visual Arts News, Atlantic Canada's only magazine focusing on the work of visual artists. Lizzy loves her community in Halifax's artistic north end, a wonderful summer camp for grown ups full of underground restaurants and pop-up galleries. She is Akimblog's Halifax correspondent and can be followed @LizzyFHill on Twitter.
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2013 Critic's Picks
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