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A guide to the best exhibitions and events in the visual arts
Elements of myth and reality are digitally fused into a dreamlike interpretation of the complexities of modern First Nations existence in M: Stories of Women, Niro’s latest photo series. Oct. 14 to Nov. 12. Gallery 44, 120–401 Richmond St. W.
Renewed interest in the modes and materials of abstract painting has launched a fresh cast of artists and visual perspectives on to the Canadian art scene, including the coded “fields of knowledge” of the Calgary painter Bradley Harms. Sept. 29 to Oct. 22, 2011. Angell Gallery, 12 Ossington Ave.
Riddled with hints of geometric abstraction, modernist design and a bibliophile’s passion for the book as both idea and object, Sullivan’s work creates open-ended narrative possibilities that are at once conceptually precise and purposefully oblique. The Toronto artist gets double billing this fall with new drawings and sculptures at Jessica Bradley Art + Projects and “Albatross Omnibus,” a 52-book commission for The Power Plant. Opens Nov. 12/Sept. 23 to Nov. 20, 2011. 1450 Dundas St. W./231 Queens Quay W.
The New York–based photographer, whose series on the mountain cabin hideout of Ted Kaczynski (aka “the Unabomber”) was a standout at the 2006 Whitney Biennial, presents selected works from his decade-long project Animal Logic, which documents the uneasy and at times surreal divide between artifice and the natural world as seen in the stage-set displays at natural-history museums. From Sept. 10 through 24, 2011. Bau-Xi Photo, 324 Dundas St. W., Toronto, ON.
Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami are among today’s best-known, not to mention commercially successful, artists. The group exhibition “Pop Life: Art in a Material World” provides a historical framework for them, and others, by telling the story of a generation of artists influenced by the late career of Andy Warhol. These figures reject the avant-garde role historically associated with artists and instead choose to embrace the cultural mainstream, both in an entrepreneurial sense and in terms of viewing mass media as well as the marketplace as legitimate and appropriate platforms for getting a message out. The show allows for a nuanced consideration of artists’ “branding” and ultimately sheds light on some of the pervasive— but often unacknowledged—forces shaping today’s art world.
Jonathan Shaughnessy is Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art, at the National Gallery of Canada. He is the coordinating curator of the Ottawa showing of “Pop Life,” which is on view at the NGC from June 11 to September 19, 380 Sussex Drive.
The things that we build embody our highest aspirations and basest instincts of survival. They also express our will to establish dominion over territory. “Empire of Dreams” is inspired by what I’ve noticed as a trend among artists and in certain exhibitions recently: examining ways in which we exist within our built environment—our interaction and experience with the spatial, architectural, socioeconomic, technological and, of course, physical and imaginative conditions that shape relationships to our surroundings. You could say that it’s a 21st-century variation on the classical landscape themes. It also happens to be the second of our biennial exhibitions highlighting work by Toronto artists.
David Liss is Artistic Director and Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto. “Empire of Dreams: Phenomenology of the built environment” is on view at MOCCA from June 19 through August 15, 952 Queen St. W.
The Ontario-based artist duo unveils a new set of long-running installations that embody the ”commonplace magick” of their instantly recognizable witchy aesthetic. From June 26. Rodman Hall Art Centre, 109 St. Paul Cres., St. Catharines.
Vast watery expanses, indeterminate ports of call and an inherent sense of longing set the stage for “a visual meditation on the state of transit in a geographical no man’s land” in the French-Algerian artist’s video work MiddleSea. Until July 24. Prefix ICA, 124–401 Richmond St. W.
Tribal rhythms, masks, animal imagery and other tropes associated with Africa all play a role in Fernandes’s interrogation of the nature-culture continuum and intercultural dynamics. To Oct. 2. Art Gallery of Hamilton, 123 King St. W.
The hybrid play of imagined architectural space and found digital imagery informs a suite of new objectbased paintings by the Vancouver artist. June 24 to July 25. Clark & Faria, 55 Mill St.
Kissick balances funky exuberance with intelligent art-historical critique in “A Nervous Decade,” a ten-year survey of his explorations of the expressive conventions and languages of abstract and hybrid painting. June 18 to Sept. 5. Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, 101 Queen St. N.
A group exhibition of 22 Canadian and international artists explores the innate bond and uneasy balance of power between humans and the animal world. On view June 18 to Sept. 12. The Power Plant, 231 Queens Quay W.
Fact and fiction merge to activate new historical understandings in this group display organized by New York’s Independent Curators International. With works by an A-list cast of more than 15 international practitioners, including Cao Fei, Omer Fast, Jeremy Deller, Joachim Koester and the Montreal artist Emanuel Licha, the show posits that truth is a malleable social and political commodity best seen with a critical eye on both past and present. To Aug. 29. Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas St. W.
The stylized and spectacular sci-fi imaginings of the 1960s live again in darkly out-there sculptures and diorama pieces by Brandon Vickerd, Kevin Yates and Donovan Barrow. On view July 9 to August 21. Cambridge Galleries, 1 N. Sq.
The Canadian art icon marks her 100th birthday with the twovenue exhibition “Roughing It in the Bush,” featuring rarely seen hard-edge paintings from the 1960s set alongside her trademark large-scale landscapes. To July 24. University of Toronto Art Centre, 15 King’s College Circle/Doris McCarthy Gallery, 1265 Military Trail.
Full talks and tours schedule, Douglas Coupland conversation info, and magazine launch details posted for free day of activities
Applications due May 9 for $55,000 in prizes
Free art tours for high-school students to take place in April and May
New writers on contemporary art encouraged to apply by June 1
Dates already set for next year’s Toronto festival
Applications for this $7,000 student award are due April 6
Event to feature a conversation with Douglas Coupland, gallery tours, a magazine launch and more
Films on Shary Boyle, Elmgreen & Dragset, Michel de Broin and Jon Gnarr set to open the festival on March 22
Opening-night celebration and art-industry talks highlight fifth year of fair
Don’t miss the North American premieres of films on Candida Höfer and Thomas Struth, happening February 23
The 85-year-old artist Arnaud Maggs nudged out Fred Herzog and Alain Paiement as winner of the second annual Scotiabank Photography Award, announced last night in Toronto. This $50,000 win follows the opening of a major Maggs survey at the National Gallery of Canada.
As one of the primary exhibitions for Contact 2012, “Public: Collective Identity | Occupied Spaces” is ambitious. Charlene K. Lau observes that the two-venue show mirrors the fractures of contemporary life: public and private, visible and invisible, place and non-place.
In this review, writer and artist Joni Murphy considers Abbas Akhavan’s current solo show in Montreal, which activates a variety of themes—war and art, destruction and nation building, human and animal—with a distinctively light touch.
Melding William Morris-style ornamentation with more contemporary concerns, artist Luke Painter detours around dry academicism for something more vibrant and visceral. Mariam Nader reviews his current Toronto show at LE Gallery, finding depth in decoration.
Frieze opened its first New York edition last week with some surprising highlights: sculptures that were free for public viewing outside the big commercial tent. Canadian Art art director Barbara Solowan was there, and brought back this slideshow.
