Clik here to view.
Cornelia Parker at Frith Street Gallery in London, UK
Cornelia Parker's practice provides aesthetically demanding, insightful interruptions of the familiar. Once described as a "waste product from conservation" (a pertinent compliment, to my mind), her...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Brian Jungen & Duane Linklater at Catriona Jeffries
Silent movies have never been truly silent, as most films back then were accompanied by the sound of the projector and a live score that helped carry the dramaturgy into crescendos and diminuendos. A...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Summer shows at Olga Korper, Christopher Cutts, and General Hardware
Given the torrential downpour that beflooded Toronto last week and kept me checking my basement every couple hours for encroaching dampness, I couldn't resist a trip to Olga Korper's summer duet...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kader Attias at KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Currently on display at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Kader Attias' Repair. 5 Acts extends his Documenta 13 project The Repair from Occident to Oriental Cultures in which he displayed multiple...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Summer exhibitions at Glenbow Museum
Maurits Cornelis may not be the most recognizable name in art, but the drawings, woodcuts and lithographs of M.C. Escher now on view at the Glenbow Museum remain some of the most distinctive images...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Perspectives Peinture at AXENEO7
In a brief conversation with painter and first-time curator Jennifer Lefort, I asked her about the process of curating Perspectives Peinture at Gatineau's artist-run centre, AXENÉO7. She spoke of how...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Screen and Decor at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery | The Thick of It at...
There are plenty of reasons, both historical and aesthetic, for the white cube of the modern art gallery, but given the otherwise always resisting ethos of much contemporary art, one would think that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lyndal Osborne at the University of Manitoba School of Art Gallery
Anyone who has lived near a river knows how a waterway can affect your daily routine, your sense of space, and your relationship with nature. Lyndal Osborne's exhibition Rivers at the University of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Douglas Coupland at Daniel Faria | Yahoo! Answers at Xpace
I had bookmarked Kenneth Goldsmith's essay Being Dumb (from last week in The Awl) but hadn't read it yet when I visited Douglas Coupland's new solo exhibition The 21st Century Continues... at Daniel...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Eve Sussman - Rufus Corporation at Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal
Curated by Lesley Johnston for the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, whiteonwhite brings together the work of Brooklyn-based artist Eve Sussman and her collaborative team Rufus Corporation. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
El Anatsui at the Royal Academy of Art
The Royal Academy of Arts' Summer Exhibition, now celebrating its 245th year, has presented – in recent years at least – an aesthete's endurance test of sorts. This time, however, I propose that we...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shine at the Textile Museum
There's a particular kind of emotional despair that arises amongst those of us stuck in the city over a holiday weekend. While it certainly isn't the case that everyone else has a cottage (or, at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
George Raab at the Art Gallery of Peterborough
Subtlety has its advantages. When faced with, say, several exhibitions aggressively clamouring for attention, the subtle can sneak right on past all the showy aesthetic sound and fury, and smack you...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kristiina Lahde at Anna Leonowens Gallery
There is a certain clinical beauty in order. In his 1919 essay "The Study of Mathematics," Bertrand Russell describes the "supreme beauty" present in mathematics: "a beauty cold and austere, like that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Jeremy Shaw at Schinkel Pavilion
Jeremy Shaw's Variation FQ, recently exhibited at Schinkel Pavilion, is a study in duality, ultimately seeking transcendence through material transformation. Using seminal Canadian filmmaker Norman...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Twenty + Change at Art Central
It's a given that art doesn't belong solely in galleries and equally accepted that our built environment (i.e. architecture and design) is at home in the everyday world around us. But what about when...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Vivian Maier at Stephen Bulger | Dorian FitzGerald at Clint Roenisch
Anyone who thinks contemporary art relentlessly masters technology (and, perhaps, no one thinks this), should consider how long it has taken us to figure out photography and the challenges that remain...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Andrea Slavik at the Workers Art & Heritage Centre
Andrea Slavik's strikingly sparse installation The Things We Cannot Live Without triggers a subconscious uneasiness even before its meaning is revealed. The Victorian gallery of the Workers Arts &...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Under New Management at Access Gallery
Taking the form of an independent video store, Under New Management intertwines our expectations of value and commerce into a forum of audience engagement. Part exhibition of video art titles, and part...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Soft Turns at O'Born Contemporary | Jen Stark at Cooper Cole
The last half of August is truly the dead zone of the local art scene – not in the Stephen King sense, just in the inescapable fact that the galleries who can't afford to take the whole month off,...
View Article