Jerry Saltz's "An Open Letter to (starving, idle, hungry, ambitous, etc.) Art-Critics about Starting their own on-line Art Magazines"

New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz wrote a fantastically ranting letter to one of his readers and commentators on his Facebook page addressing blogs, online and anonymous criticism and the general lack of funds in the world of art magazines in a post titled "An Open Letter to (starving, idle, hungry, ambitous, etc.) Art-Critics about Starting their own on-line Art Magazines."

Jerry Saltz, from harrywalker.com

Along with advising that young art critics start their own edited online magazine, some of my favourite pieces of Saltz's advice is to write and critique with one's name attached rather than anonymously. As Saltz writes:

"Blogs are often (NOT ALWAYS!!!!!! for God's SAKE!) written anonymously. OR: The comments are ANONYMOUS. (To me this is where things sometimes turn dark.) I am NOT against people writing anonymously. I will say it again: I am not against people writing anonymously. Okay? Some things get said when they are said anonymously. Fine. For me, however, real credibility comes PARTLY from being vulnerable, using YOUR OWN NAME; I have called this Radical Vulnerability."

I like this notion of "radical vulnerability" even though it is, of course, often uncomfortable to carry out since it carries with it a measure of being vulnerable: feeling open to misinterpretation, misunderstandings or even attacks in response. But I also think the role of editing art criticism is an important one and that it might make sense for several writers/bloggers to band together and publish an edited, online magazine. Something like what nomorepotlucks is doing, but with art writing. The only problem is, how do you find the time?

via Amy Fung and the Toronto Alliance for Art Critics Facebook group page

Extra-curricular: Between Art and Pedagogy at the Justina M. Barnicke gallery

This event is still more than a month away, but I'm already excited about the upcoming symposia series "Extra-curricular: Between Art and Pedagogy." While the JMB closes for renovations until the end of March, their curator-in-residence, Maiko Tanaka, has organized an off-site series of events on curating, art and pedagogy that takes place in two parts: I. Between Institutions (February 15–19, 2010) and II. Beyond Institutions (March 8–11, 2010).

Xu Tan, Dictionary of Keywords (2008)
from frieze.com

The events for Part I: Between Institutions have already been announced and include an art installation by Xu Tan called "Keywords School," a keynote lecture by Carmen Mörsch, an artist and researcher who has worked on the Documenta 12 Education Programme, and several panel discussions on themes of art/curating and pedagogy and audience development/learning outcomes. Best of all, the event is free as long as you register by sending an email to info@extra-curricular.info with your full name, organization/position, phone number and sessions you plan to attend.

February 16, 7:00–8:30pm, (Debates Room)
Keynote Lecture: Carmen Mörsch
"extra-curatorial? documenta 12 education and its research between autonomy and assignment"
Carmen Mörsch is the Art Director of the Institute for Art Education (Zurich). She will give an overview of the Documenta12 Education Programme, its advisory board and research projects. Discussing the development of the Documenta 12 Education books, the talk will touch on the project’s achievements and challenges.

Wednesday, February 17, 10:00am–12:30pm (Debates Room)
"Between Classroom and Studio":
Artists who blur the lines between their teaching and art practice within the traditional and extended notions of the classroom.
Panelists: Amos Latteier, Stephanie Springgay (on the work of Diane Borsato), Daisuke Takeya
Moderator: Carmen Mörsch

2:00pm–4:30pm
"Between Art and Knowledge":
Art as knowledge production addressing questions of what, why, and for whom.
Panelists: Rodrigo Hernandez-Gomez, Srimoyee Mitra, Darren O'Donnell
Moderator: Rubén A. Gaztambide-Fernández

Thursday, February 18, 10:00am–12:30pm (East Common Room)
"Between Curating and Curriculum":
Curators working with artists to create "educational curriculum" as exhibition, or curators on creative ways of working through institutional structures to support/produce pedagogically-oriented exhibitions.
Panelists: Andrew Hunter, Christine Shaw, Milena Placentile/The Pinky Show
Moderator: Maiko Tanaka

1:30pm–4:00pm
"Between the Gallery and Imagined Audience":
A variety of perspective on "learning outcomes" - how they differ in the educational and art contexts and the ways of negotiating the contradictions, difficulties, and challenges of reaching "desired audiences/students" and outcomes expected from both instituting and individual bodies.
Panelists: Carmen Mörsch, Srimoyee Mitra, Kim Simon
Moderator: Michelle Jacques

In my PhD seminar at York, we've been doing readings focused around the role of the spectator and the pedagogical possibilities for art practice and art research - mostly as a counterpoint to some of the problems I have with projects that get folded under the rubric of "relational aesthetics". I've been a little reluctant to jump on board the "art as pedagogy" bandwagon until now, especially after hearing several people (ironically?) recount that "relational aesthetics is over, it's all about pedagogy now." Here's hoping the JMB series will lay the theoretical groundwork for some focused, pragmatic discussion of how to implement pedagogical approaches in artistic practice.

Interview with Lex Vaughn

This week at my day job at Canadian Art, I got the opportunity to interview artist and performer Lex Vaughn about her residency and installation at Saskatoon's AKA Gallery as the "geriatric dandy" character Peanut Brittle.

Lex Vaughn PB writes to a sweetheart in Huntsville.
He swings his feet when he’s in love. 2006
From canadianart.ca

Vaughn has performed with The Second City improv company and several Toronto bands (like Hank and The Hidden Cameras) and also worked in a two-person craft collective with artist Allyson Mitchell. For her "Peanut Brittle" exhibition, Vaughn has re-created the elderly gent's apartment in the gallery, complete with ham radio, vinyl record collection and hot plate, and will perform as Peanut this weekend for the first few days of the show.

Most importantly, though, Vaughn has an earnest appreciation for the anachronistic, outmoded and forgotten and was willing to share her enthusiasm with me by email. The whole interview is available on Canadian Art online, but here is one of my favourite exchanges:

Gabby Moser: Your WEZY installation and performance incorporates several anachronistic cultural forms (such as copies of LIFE magazine, or your dandy-inspired wardrobe) and technologies (like vinyl LPs, ham radios or a hot plate) and you mention in your artist statement that nostalgia plays a key role in the viewer's experience of the project. Why do you think we respond so strongly to these older forms?

Lex Vaughn: While installing today, I was tacking up about 400 of these QSL cards (handmade postcards that confirm contact between radio operators) that make up Peanut’s station, and every single one of them is so beautiful! These cards are such a lost art form. I cannot think of anything like this that is made today, by hand, that gives out such personalized information. The operators sent these things by mail, religiously! And why? To make contact with people in other places that they had no idea even existed and could only dream about, or had to go to the library to look up in books. These cards symbolized the freedom of a world outside of their own. How liberating! I miss the mail system because of that sense of freedom. I don’t think it is necessarily “progress” to stop making things with your hands, or to forget how it feels to run to the mailbox. I think I was born an old man.

Thanks especially to Lex for being willing to answer my questions in the midst of an ambitious installation schedule. "Peanut Brittle" continues at AKA Gallery until February 19.

Top Tens of 2009

I should be doing the last of this term's schoolwork, but instead I'm doing this: compiling my list of top ten, favourite art-related exhibitions and events from 2009. Both Canadian Art and akimblog published theirs last week, and Sally and LM have just started their annual lists. Plus, I always try to get mine up before Jon Davies to try and prevent overlap (he always remembers 2 or 3 amazing things that I forget, however). Unlike last year, where hotly anticipated events like the Quebec Triennial and Nuit Blanche lived up to their hype, this year, for me, was characterized by unexpected discoveries and subtle interventions into the status quo.

We joked at work about compiling a "worst of 2009" list, which did not happen, but I'm considering taking it on as a holiday task (after some wine, perhaps?). But here for now are my favourites, in no particular order:

1. Discovering Owen Kydd at Clark & Faria

Owen Kydd, Mission (still), 2009

I wandered into Clark & Faria's Distillery District location last spring on a trip with my parents who were in town visiting during their group exhibition of gallery artists, elusively titled "Clark & Faria Presents." While much of the work was strong, Owen Kydd's nearly silent, long-take, documentary-style videos of figures and scenes from small towns haunted me for the rest of the year. Turning Vancouver School photoconceptualism on its head by making photographic films (rather than filmic photographs), Kydd's video triptychs create unusual compositions that are less about their figurative subjects than the subtle movements of light, air and facial expressions that intervene in the otherwise perfectly staged sets. I haven't seen his solo show at the Vancouver Art Gallery yet, but am hoping to catch it before it closes over the holiday break.

2. Artur Zmijewski's Sculpture Plein-air. Swiecie 2009 at the Museum of Modern Art

Artur Zmijewski, Sculpture Plein-air. Swiecie 2009., 2009 (film still),
Courtesy the artist, Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw,
and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich. © Artur Zmijewski

Forget Tim Burton.* The best thing on at the MoMA right now is the premiere of Artur Zmijeski's newest film, Sculpture Plein-air. Swiecie 2009. Set in a small Polish town where the artist paired up seven visual artists and a company of steel workers and set them the task of collaboratively creating public sculptures that represented the steel plant, the film documents the group's cordial negotiations and collaborative physical labour, with heavy emphasis on the steel workers' perspectives on the changing economy and cultural value of their work. Considerably subtler than his past work, the documentary's most memorable parts are the workers' spot-on critiques of the artists' designs ("The one with the three figures holding the pole is fine, but I think it is a bit too simple and obvious") and the incredibly awkward unveiling of some of the pieces to the townspeople.

*And when I say "forget," I mean, of course, go see it, especially after you've dropped $20 on MoMA admission. The black light entrance with a crazy miniature carousel is pretty cool.

3. "feelers" at Susan Hobbs gallery, with Sarah Massecar, Sandra Meigs, and Arlene Shechet

Installation view of “feelers” at Susan Hobbs Gallery, 2009

For me, Susan Hobbs gallery is one of Toronto's most persistently reliable commercial galleries for interesting, well-executed exhibitions. But artist Jen Hutton's foray into curating with this past summer's "feelers" exhibition was a subtle surprise in the gallery's usual solo show format, offering a nuanced linking of Massecar's intricate pen and ink drawings, Meigs's colourful, incised paintings and Shechet's gorgeously messy ceramics. It was the perfect amount of work for the space and hung in a way that let each piece breathe and speak for itself (and to the other pieces around the room).

4. "Gakona" at Palais de Tokyo

Roman Signer, Parapluies, 2009
Courtesy Galerie Art:Concept, Paris Photo André Morin

When I went on a mini-break to Paris last spring, I didn't set out to see much contemporary art and, aside from a requisite stop at the Louvre, didn't spend much time in galleries or museums. So when Cait and I wandered into the Palais de Tokyo on a whim on our last day in town, it seemed serendipitous to discover "Gakona," a group show (oddly but successfully) themed around a small town in Alaska where, purportedly, the US government is doing secretive experiments with electricity. Laurent Grasso's beautiful field of slightly miniature transformers was a highlight, as was Roman Signer's electrical umbrellas and automatic lawnmower gone haywire in a field of folding chairs.

5. Cedric Bomford's TOWER BLOCK at Red Bull 381 Projects

Cedric Bomford, TOWER BLOCK, 2009 (installation view),
Courtesy Red Bull 381 Projects / photo David Lang

I'd heard lots of good things about Bomford's work from he and his brother and father's contribution to the Vancouver Art Gallery's "How Soon Is Now?" group show, but I was still unprepared for what a total transformation he wrought on the 381 space, as well as the eerie-cool feeling that climbing the tower and peering into the company's main meeting room produced. Lots of kudos has already gone to gallery curator Nicholas Brown, who has consistently brought surprising work into the space, but it deserves reiteration here for his chutzpa in mounting this work.

6. "We Interrupt This Program" at Mercer Union

Stan Douglas, Monodramas (still), 1991

Curator Sarah Robayo Sheridan (with Steven Leiber and Ted Purves)'s long overdue survey of artists' interventions into print and television advertising at Mercer Union provided a thorough but well-edited overview of mass media strategies. It had all the heavy hitters one would expect–Dan Graham's magazine pieces and ads, Lynda Benglis's infamous Artforum ad, Chris Burden's landmark series of commercials broadcast in LA–alongside some lesser-known and delightful examples by Joseph Kosuth, Yoko Ono, Valie Export and Keith Arnatt. Sheridan's strength is in her ability to make convincing curatorial choices, such as excerpting longer video works and ending the survey at 1993, when internet self-publishing negated the potency of many of these interventions. Her accompanying film screening of related works, called "Identifications" and co-presented with Pleasure Dome, was similarly short and pithy and the clip of Joseph Beuys sitting in front of a TV set, pummeling his head with boxing gloves, was in many ways a meta-narrative for the entire show.

7. Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Phantoms of Nabua at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Phantoms of Nabua, 2009, Video still

While wandering through the opening of a not-so-impressive restaging of the traveling show "Arena: The Art of Hockey" (which looks like it had more teeth in its original incarnations), a friend and I ended up seated and transfixed in front of Weerasethakul's gorgeous video, shown as part of TIFF's Future Projection series. You can watch almost all of it online, so I won't spoil it with what will be an inadequate textual description, but it is worth every second of its 11 minute length. Kim Tomczak and Lisa Steele tell me everything Weerasethakul has made is equally captivating and I'm looking forward to keeping an eye out for him in future.

8. Reece Terris' Ought Apartment at the Vancouver At Gallery

Reece Terris, Ought Apartment, 2009 (installation detail), Photo: Rachel Topham

A lot has already been said about the brilliance of Reece Terris' audacious architectural installation, Ought Apartment, which was housed at the VAG this summer, but it bears repeating. It was a complex, compelling piece that not only allowed visitors to wander through the multi-decade domestic interiors and touch all the incredible props and furniture (Nordic Tracks! Arborite tables!), but also drove home subtle themes of consumerism, waste and the tyranny of home improvement shows.

9. Jon Rafman's "The Nine Eyes of Google Street View" project on Art Fag City

Rue du Faubourg du Temple, Paris, France

As part of Art Fag City's IMG MGMT series of image-based artist essays, Jon Rafman put together a terrific survey of the images that have resulted from the creepy-cool Google Street View tool. The text is sharp and provocative and the images are, of course, weirdly voyeuristic and often unexpectedly aesthetically impressive.

10. ArtStars*

ArtStars* on the cover of Eye Weekly

Just them, period. Though I am sad that Artfag is gone (and was unmasked by none other than Nadja Sayej, the ArtStars* host), his absence is a little less painful knowing I can count on Nadja, Jeremy Bailey and Ryan Edwards to point out the ridiculous at events like Nuit Blanche, the Power Ball and even a project I was involved in. You know that if they can make you laugh at yourself, they must be doing something right.

Highly Recommended: Jen Hutton's article, "Lady Gaga and 'the Gaze'" in C magazine

I didn't think I liked or "got" Gaga until I read this article by Jen Hutton on Lady Gaga and the gaze/gays. It's not available online (except through a digital version of the mag on Zinio), but is well worth the newsstand price. Extra kudos should go to newish editor Amish Morrell for putting together an issue on contemporary feminisms. Karin Bubas's illustrations are also amazing.