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"I think you're wonderful and so does everyone else" at G Gallery,...
Reviewing an exhibition is sometimes like solving a puzzle, and, despite what a guy like this might say about the value of art, dozens of Sudoku-obsessed subway riders and I think that puzzle solving...
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Rana Hamadeh at Western Front, Vancouver
Longer exhibition titles pique my curiosity more than the poised or monumental ones. The title of Rana Hamadeh’s exhibition at the Western Front, Can You Make A Pet of Him Like A Bird or Put Him on a...
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Artist Textiles at the Textile Museum, Toronto
If asked, most people would put Andy Warhol at the beginning of modern art’s fascination with repetition, the appropriation of tools of mass production, and a blurring of the border between fine art,...
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John Greer at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax
RetroActive is about time. The exhibition currently on view at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia features a cross-section of works from John Greer’s career in a wide range of forms and media. A number of...
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Polyphonies at Optica, Montreal
Polyphonies, a group exhibition currently on display at Optica, examines, as the title suggests, a plurality of voices and the negotiation between the informal individual subject and a more proscribed...
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VSVSVS at Mercer Union, Toronto
If I was the type of critic who identified generational shifts, I might call the present moment “New Materialism.” After perusing the cluster of galleries at Bloor and Lansdowne, I was sorely tempted...
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Scott Benesiinaabandan at Platform Centre, Winnipeg
In photographs, likenesses are “captured.” In 1974, as an infant, Scott Benesiinaabandan was “apprehended” and left in foster care. He only learned his mother’s name as an adult, eventually acquiring...
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Mia Feuer, Kevin Schmidt, & Guido van der Werve at The Esker Foundation,...
As you may have heard, the Alberta College of Art and Design’s well-regarded Illingworth Kerr Gallery will not be filling the director/curator position once Wayne Baerwaldt retires in June. I won’t go...
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Public Studio at O'Born Contemporary, Toronto
Last week I wrote about an exhibition that didn’t have any content. This week I’m writing about an exhibition that has too much. Both statements are as much description as they are criticism. The...
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Erica Stocking at Artspeak, Vancouver
I heard someone looking from the street exclaim “Woah!” but I couldn’t successfully beckon him inside. The striking objects in Erica Stocking’s solo-exhibition at Artspeak are shapes and silhouettes...
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Road to Ruin at Cooper Cole, Toronto
The decentralization of the Toronto art scene continues apace with the inaugural exhibition at Cooper Cole's new space on Dupont near Dufferin (a block down from Geary Avenue where the Toronto music...
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Zachari Logan at Paul Petro, Toronto
Milkweed was an ongoing topic of conversation in our household this spring. In addition to learning about its importance for the declining Monarch butterfly population and that it is still considered a...
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Yinka Shonibare at DHC/ART, Montreal
On St-Jean-Baptiste Day, Quebec’s national holiday, it seemed oddly fitting to battle my way through throngs of tourists in the Old Port to check out Yinka Shonibare’s exhibition Pièces de résistance...
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Dominique Petrin at Contemporary Calgary
A printmaker recently challenged me to think about where print practice fits within the discourse of contemporary art. I was kind of stumped. I have ingrained images left over from art school of...
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Rana Hamadeh at Gallery TPW, Toronto
It is perhaps an indication of how far they’ve come that the 35th anniversary of what would become Gallery TPW is distinguished by an exhibition centred on a piece that has no photography whatsoever....
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Mammo'wiiang to make change at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Brandon
Over time, certain artistic articles of faith, while still observed, have lost their once authoritative grip. “Authorship” itself was interrogated to death ages ago, and anything like “medium...
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James Linton Murphy at the Maillardville Cultural Appreciation Society,...
Operating out of a residence in the community of Maillardville, the Maillardville Cultural Appreciation Society has a clear view from the foot of its driveway of IKEA Coquitlam. If you need a reason to...
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The Agency of Acquaintances at Clint Roenisch Gallery, Toronto
I’d already decided to riff on the idea of the group exhibition as a dinner party (instead of a recipe or smorgasbord) when I finally got around to reading curator Catherine Dean’s statement that The...
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RBC Emerging Artist People's Choice Award at the Gardiner Museum
The absurdity of artist prize competitions is on full display until the end of August at the Gardiner Museum with five nominees up for judgment in the annual RBC Emerging Artist People’s Choice Awards–...
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Erika Dueck at the University of Manitoba School of Art Gallery
Erika Dueck’s The Ephemeral Mind stood out among a notably large and accomplished cohort at the University of Manitoba’s 2013 BFA Exhibition. Her imposing crumpled-paper pendant, which went on to win...
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