Things of Desire Issue #10
October 23, 2008
Greetings Bloglings! The temperature may be dropping outdoors but here at ToD we bring the hottest shows to keep you toastier than your toes inside one of grandma’s extra-itchy wool socks. Also I have to give mad props to Halifax for holding, by all accounts, a killer Nocturne last week. Don’t forget to subscribe, if you haven’t already, by shooting an email to thingsofdesire@gmail.com. Snuggle in and enjoy!
-Mike Landry
Disco Sec
October 23, 2008
By Mike Landry
A shot of Christof Migone's laser-cut work, "Rimmed Record."
Invite Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist and writer Christof Migone to a party, and it’s a safe bet he’ll spend his time scoping out your books and record collections. It’s something he says is “a lot less daunting than talking to somebody,” and can tell you just as much about the person.
The phenomena is the subject of his latest exhibition Disco Sec. The show features six different works which draw from the artist’s record collection for material, and tying them together is one disco ball with its mirrors stripped off in a pile below the black orb.
“It bypasses those iconic images and associations we have with the word portraiture and reinvigorates the word,” says Migone. “Bypassing the psychology of a person ultimately gets you back to that. It becomes just as personal and intimate to know how many records a person has and what those records are than if they were to sing you a song.”
Bee Kingdom
October 23, 2008
By Mike Landry
Ryan, Tim and Phillip (L to R) working in their "hive."
Ryan Marsh Fairweather, Phillip Bandura and Tim Belliveau haven’t yet come to blows or fallen apart like many communal households. For the past four years, like good worker bees, the three young men have relied on good communication and dedication to make things work in their Calgary studio/home. And from Berlin to Tacoma, Washington people are talking notice.
Living and working communally, the trio of young glass artists started Bee Kingdom two years ago. Their studio was their kingdom, and the molten glass in their garage was their flowing honey.
“What’s worked is we all have a common understanding and a similar goal to where we want our glasswork to go. We all want this to work so we work together to make it happen,” says Fairweather.
Orientalism and Ephemera
October 23, 2008
By Stacey Ho
Julie Sando photograph "Oriental Rose." photo: Krista Buecking
Jamelie Hassan has been in conversation with Edward Said for quite sometime. Said’s pivotal 1979 publication, Orientalism, examined and challenged inscribed Western notions of the exotic Far East. Thirty years later, though the standard is to claim an acceptance of all cultures, this East/West binary remains. One particularly relevant example in North America is how the Middle East still figures as a foreboding singular body, full of religious fanatics, terrorists.
“A lot of the stereotypes are operating in the present tense,” says Hassan. “They allow us to invade their countries and destroy every aspect of their culture. If we look at the history of Afghanistan, one needs to revisit [Orientalism], actually read the book and become familiar with the text from different vantage points and different bodies of knowledge. This has filtered in so many ways into our social context.”
However, despite Orientalism‘s wide social scope, Hassan’s relationship to the text is personal, having read the book early on. The exhibition Orientalism and Ephemera is an idiosyncratic acknowledgment of Said’s influence on Hassan’s thinking, one that expands and contracts according to the exhibition space and the developing dialog between artists, viewers and Hassan herself.
Body Break with Francis Arguin
October 23, 2008
By Mike Landry
Arguin's body at work for "Proposition pour quitter le sol," 2007.
This week Quebec City-based multidisciplinary artist Francis Arguin is opening two shows in two different cities, Rouyn-Noranda and Toronto, and in two different mediums, performance and sculpture. And whether he’s pouring sand over himself in his skivvies or installing large cardboard structures covered in crumpled paper his motivation is always the same: exploring the world of objects we surround ourselves with everyday.
It’s not uncommon for Arguin to work simultaneously with performance and in sculpture. He started performing during an installation while he was an art student. He wanted to do something special for the opening, so he made objects that were tools to be manipulated to transform the gallery space.
“My body becomes the territory of the action,” says Arguin. “Everything around us is disappearing. The only thing that exists for me is my body.”
Making Of
October 23, 2008
By Mike Landry
Mathieu Lefevre wears his art on his sleeve, and on his hat.
A series of ass paintings, a large mound of papier-mâché, and a homage to Jackson Pollack in the form of a studying desk littered with gum on it’s underside—just three of Mathieu Lefevre‘s small sculpture works from his latest exhibition Making Of.
Each piece is made from a new process Lefevre has been toying with—making art by not trying to make art. Grouping his creations together the show becomes a statement about finding more meaningful and productive ways to waste time.
“Just sitting around thinking about stuff, twiddling thumbs, waiting for inspiration to hit—you’re not really making anything but you are at the same time,” says Lefevre. “So all the pieces are made through just sitting around thinking about other stuff besides what you’re doing, which in this case was making pieces for this show.”
COM POSE
October 23, 2008
By Mike Landry
A close up view of Ellen Moffat's "vBox."
During the last five years of his life, Saskatoon-based artist Ellen Moffat‘s dad suffered from dementia. His language deteriorated beyond the point of common understanding. However, Moffat found she was able to communicate on a different level. It struck a chord, and she realized how restricted we are using words to communicate.
Moffat’s idea of what she assumed to be language changed. She began to notice how the amount of media we’re inundated with daily removes meaning from the information. The cacophony blurs notions of left and right, and point of views become more like data than language.
Her coming exhibition, COM POSE, takes this shift in language as its subject. In one piece language is broken down to its vocal sound components (called phonemes), and in another text becomes a toy.
Surfacing
October 23, 2008
By Mike Landry
A detail view of one of Zipp's scale-model gallery sculptures.
After making a name for himself with his video work, Collin Zipp is taking breaking a break. He had been editing something on his computer a few months ago and was getting a nasty headache. So he went out to his garage, picked some old wood and started building
The result ended up being his first non-video exhibition, Surfacing. For the exhibition, Zipp has compiled the products of the all ideas that had been popping into his head recently. Surfacing will include sculpture, painting and collage.
“I’m kind of making a leap away from my comfortable area, and jumping into some new work,” says Zipp. “I’m pretty pumped about it.”
Hollow cores, other findings and one last chance
October 23, 2008
By Stacey Ho
One of Jerry Ropson's many lists from his new exhibition.
A brief list of some of the items in Jerry Ropson’s upcoming exhibition, Hollow cores, other findings and one last chance: drawings, framed and unframed; drawings done on glass with vinyl; “There” prints depicting wooden shacks, smoke, piles, and other personal symbols of his native Newfoundland; black on black “Here” prints, featuring lists, himself and another character in the process of various tasks; axes that double as metre sticks; bottles; ice with messages frozen inside, molded into bottles; flags with scraps of love letters left in sidewalk cracks; tubes with secret messages written inside them; ladders; a worktable covered with pseudo-scientific notes and experiments.
“It’s funny,” says Ropson. “I had all these notions of what it’s about. There’s so much going on, anyone coming in and responding to the work will take away different things.”
This open-ended practice appeals to Ropson, as it draws others into his personal process, with an emphasis on chance encounters and happenings. Within the gallery, viewers are meant to tamper and interact with the space. Within the city of Montreal, flags, ice bottles and other tokens will be left around personal sites of significance. Ropson’s list-writing gives another glimpse of the small, fleeting things that make up his thoughts and life.
Proverbs for Paranoids
October 23, 2008
By Mike Landry
Pete Pete Smith's "Owtzdowe."
Rather than spending his lunch hours Tupperware dining, Pete Smith would go exploring with his digital camera. He was living in Toronto at the time and was documenting the physical geography around his home and his work—graffiti, billboards, paint spills and what he calls “visual interferences in our visual landscape.”
“Our landscape is pretty much filled with junk—graphic junk that we don’t really notice or pay attention to because there’s just so much or it and it’s all competing,” says Smith.
His latest series of abstract paintings take these visual interferences, and reworks them in an act of escapism from this busy world. The works are part of a new exhibition called Proverbs for Paranoids. Sometimes he takes recognizable forms like the city of Toronto, or the recycling, logo, but mostly he takes images hidden in the background of advertisements and logos.
House of Voltage
October 23, 2008
By Mike Landry
Caution! Halifax's Eyelevel Gallery becomes a House of Voltage this week.
Beginning just four years ago short term electronic workshops at Halifax’s Centre For Art Tapes begot long-term master’s classes. Those in turn got the wheels turning and director Ilan Sandler cobbled funding together to establish a pilot electronics program at the media centre. Now, set to begin its second Electronics Residency Program, the pilot program has become part of the centre’s core operations. Such was the demand for electronic arts in Halifax.
“CFAT has been around for 30 years and has looked on the horizon for the development of artwork. And as a media centre it’s not a huge stretch of the imagination to set up an electronics lab.”
The fruits of the first electronic residency will be on display at Halifax’s Eyelevel Gallery for the exhibition House of Voltage. Featuring the work of five primarily visual artists, the pieces combine programmable microprocessors, electronic circuits, and sensors applied to audio, video, and new media applications with their own artistic practices.
Madonnas
October 23, 2008
By Mike Landry
Get animated with Diane Landry's washing machine cinema.
Looking at her secondhand washing machine fills Quebec City-based artist Diane Landry with appreciation for the convenience. Not only because for 12 years she schlepped her clothes to her local Laundromat, but because she can remember hovering around the machines all the time during her childhood.
The washing machine in her piece Stolen Waters isn’t all that different from her mother’s or the one quietly sitting in her home. The only difference is the mirrored cylinder sitting on the machines spinner reflecting an image of a woman. Landry has a few of the machines now, each with a different image of a woman.
“I try to keep [my objects] mostly the same without transforming them. By not modifying them you recognize the object but it doesn’t work the way you used to see it. But it’s still a washing machine. It’s possible after the exhibition for the washing machine to be a washing machine again.”
Surface Dwellers
October 23, 2008
By Mike Landry
One of faux finishing veteran Rod Mireau's sculptures.
Eight years ago Ross Bonfanti, fresh out of art college, stepped into the world with a fine arts diploma in hand and only pennies in his pockets. He wanted to find a job that could pay the bills and related to art so he could continue to grow as an artist. That’s when he landed a job in the faux finishing industry.
“It was kind of exciting to work with faux finishing, because they were doing a lot of commercial gigs. You’d be going into places building scaffolding and learning different finishes,” says Bonfanti. “I did it to gain experience, experiment with new material and also make a little bit of money.”
Bonfanti’s story isn’t uncommon in the art community. And for his coming exhibition at Toronto’s AWOL Gallery he’s brought together some artists he met during his tenure as a faux finisher. The show will highlight each artist using a larger work along with a couple of small “samples,” which are used in the faux business by designers and clients to show their ideas.
