Dive into the archives.
- Enacting Emancipation at A Space
I’m finding it harder and harder to come across art in Toronto that is actually moving, thought-provoking and evocative on both a political and social level. That isn’t to say conceptual- or aesthetic-based works or exhibitions aren’t interesting or fulfilling, because they can be. But goosebumps-inducing projects seem fewer and farther between as artists’ media [...]
- Interview: Poster Boy, NYC (Part Two)
A few weeks ago I interviewed NYC’s Poster Boy, a mash-up artist who uses the subway system as his medium and gallery space. After admitting to functioning as several different personas in the art world and citing Cindy Sherman as one of his influences, I was interested in learning more about how his economic/political experiences [...]
- Interview: Poster Boy, NYC (Part One)
In a reinvented, neo-Dada sort of way, Poster Boy’s on-site mash-ups appropriate advertising imagery to create subversive posters in very public spaces — the NYC subway system. I first came across Poster Boy on Gawker, where they noted how good vandals were becoming. After FFFFOUNDing one of his images, the artist emailed me, acknowledging [...]
- Artist-Run Culture
Apologies for not writing sooner. My brain had been functioning on a sub-intellectual level as I searched for a job, but now that I’ve started working as a programming assistant for YYZ Artists Outlet in Toronto, not only can I resume thinking about art in a meaningful way, but I am gaining new insights into [...]
- The Novice Voice
There is, at least in my mind, a huge distinction between museums and galleries. What separates the two institutions primarily is their responsibility to education. The display of history and the display of visual art are simply not the same, where errors made in the former have much graver consequences. Offending an artist by improperly [...]
- Making Conceptual Art Accessible
The more conceptual an artwork becomes, the more impossible it is to understand it, or derive meaning from it, just by looking at the piece. Conceptual art is driven by idea, and these ideas are often manifested in ways wherein aesthetic considerations take a back seat. This is not to say that conceptual work isn’t [...]
- Books and Movies: The Bias of Lists
So in the last couple of days, kottke.org has unearthed two lists that have been a lot of fun to go through: 1001 Books and 1001 Movies that presumably you must read or see before you die. Of course lists such as these are always bittersweet. I’ve read 45 books on the list but have [...]
- Power in Numbers: Why Spaces Should Work Together
I am enormously grateful for and supportive of all of the entrepreneurship that occurs within the art world. Entrepreneurial ventures allow the market to maintain a sense of diversity. Different artists, styles, themes, mandates, practices–the variety present in Toronto’s selection of galleries ensures that there is something for everybody.
The problem with entrepreneurial ventures, however, is [...]
- How New Media Figures in a Gallery
The evolution of new media has reached a point where it is now being sought out by photography-based galleries to fill their spaces. Why this shift? There is definitely a lack of art spaces to represent new media works, and I am in no way dissenting this shift. But to me it is curious that [...]
- CONTACT 2008: Public Installations
I’m a big fan of art in public spaces. I like the site-specificity of it, the ingenuity of the design of it, and the fact that people can not only make the spaces destinations, but many people can view the work incidentally as well. Since I’m talking about CONTACT 2008 so much, I thought I’d [...]
