art + space + audience
- 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 [...]
- Add-Art: Achieving Their Mandate?
I’ve recently installed the Add-Art plugin to Firefox and I’ve got to say: this tool has a lot of potential.
What Add-Art does is use an ad-blocking plugin to first block advertising on most websites, and then uses the ad space to display curated art shows that change every two weeks. While the concept is obviously [...]
- 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 [...]
- Oh! Nan Goldin’s Heartbeat.
Nan Goldin’s Heartbeat. At MOCCA. Soundtrack by Björk based on a Greek Orthodox mass. Haunting, passionate. Go immediately.
- 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 [...]
