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Baleful at Pari Nadimi Gallery
In an age of relentless content updates, when one is rarely at a loss for something to occupy their attention (that is, unless the Wi-Fi goes down), concision is something to be celebrated as a gift,...
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Liz Magor at Catriona Jeffries
I is being This, Liz Magor’s last solo exhibition at Catriona Jeffries in 2012, employed a symbolic system of consumption – the romance of purchasing, the primping of the package, and the cigarette’s...
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Vulgar Era at Xpace
As an addendum to my recent video report on internet art, the current exhibition at Xpace (and also an early entry in the 2016 Images Festival Off Screen programming) picks up a couple of the threads I...
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Ryan Gander at Scrap Metal Gallery
Like a podiatrist named Foote or a physiotherapist named Hand (or an art critic named Dick), an artist named Gander is a happy accident. To take a gander at something is a colloquialism for checking it...
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+15 Galleries at Arts Commons
Arts Commons is a very large arts centre in the downtown core and, in typical Calgarian fashion, by “arts” we mean theatre. Calgary as a city is deeply committed to theatre; the infrastructure is...
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Motion. Montreal/Geneva at Galerie de l'UQAM
Before this week’s winter vortex hit Montreal, spring was in the air: bikes were being pulled out, thawed parks rediscovered, running shoes dusted off, paused friendships rekindled. And so, with a...
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20 Years at Lonsdale Gallery
The tenth anniversary of the first Akimblog review is coming up in a couple weeks and I'm feeling a tad reflective about the passage of time. Now that I refer to the past in terms of decades not years,...
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Patrick Cruz at Centre A
Patrick Cruz’s latest solo exhibition, Bulaklak ng Paraiso, currently on display at Centre A, is an exuberant mixed bag that has found occasion to burst at the seams. Hundreds of un-stretched paintings...
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Leya Evelyn at Saint Mary's University Art Gallery
Leya Evelyn’s large, multi-paneled paintings are laid out with more than ample room on the walls of Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery. Abstraction always seems to need the space. Layered almost...
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Dream Song 386 at Cooper Cole Gallery
How do you break the news to an artist who curates an exhibition that his talents lie in his eye for others not in his own hand? Keith J. Varadi, who also has a solo exhibition on display at Cooper...
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2016 Images Festival
Of all the film and video festivals in Toronto (and there are a lot), the Images Festival has always seemed to suffer (or benefit) from the most acute sense of an identity crisis. Combining screenings...
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Dan Hudson at Nickle Galleries
In an attempt to sap some of the frantic energy of exam season, I headed up to the University of Calgary’s Nickle Galleries. They are currently featuring an ambitious retrospective – primarily in...
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Papier 16
From its inaugural launch in the glass foyer of Mies’ Westmount Square, to the Black Watch Armoury, and on through the more traditional “art fair” years in tents around the city, Papier has always made...
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Heather Phillipson at Trinity Square Video
The desire to get back to nature sets up a false dichotomy between what we humans are and do and make, and what everything else on the planet is and does and makes. Not only that, it plants that divide...
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Karen Asher at aceartinc.
I remember seeing Karen Asher around Winnipeg over the years and always wondered who she was. I often noticed her working at various cool jobs: cashier at the University bookstore, clerk at the only...
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Outsiders at the Art Gallery of Ontario
The Canadian fascination with all things American is a bit of a problem. It’s not only present in the dominance of Hollywood film and popular music, but rears its ugly head in the realms of politics...
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Yorodeo at CBU Art Gallery
A tiny figure peers out of a craggy rock face. An explorer in an alien land. New Findings is the most recent achievement of collaborators Paul Hammond and Seth Smith. In it they lay out an archive of...
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Jochen Lempert at the Contemporary Art Gallery
Field Guide, Jochen Lempert’s exhibition of black and white photographs at the Contemporary Art Gallery, is audacious in its simplicity. Trained as a biologist, Lempert’s eye is driven to capture...
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Nadia Belerique at Daniel Faria Gallery
The most divisive aspect of contemporary art is the matter of getting it or not. The antagonism that arises in the general public when faced with work they don’t get drives them to derision (I know...
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Annette Kelm at Vox
To put it mildly, still life photography is having a bit of a moment. Among its more compelling recent proponents is the German photographer Annette Kelm, whose work is currently exhibiting at Vox. Her...
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