My colleagues at the Star's city desk beat me to it, but I still wanted to make a little mention of Kelly McRay's Bank on Art project, which has recruited a few dozen local artists to provide images for an ATM at 952 Queen West.
The project was launched alongside the Foreign Legionnaires show I wrote about at Edward Day, where McRay is co-director (I failed to notice the Bank on Art part of the puzzle, embedded, as it was, in a different announcement, alas).
In any case, I'm not terribly tempted to comment on the enormous carrot dangling from the stick, which is the simplified art/commerce discussion this seems to be trying to prompt. I will, though, say that McRay has proven to be willingly experimental is his efforts to expand audiences -- particularly when it comes to the shameless promotion of his own roster, which comprises much of the ATM project -- by unconventional (and, some would say, baldly hucksterish) means.
I'm thinking specifically of the show McRay curated Edward Day held a few years ago on behalf of Volvo Canada, that I wrote about in the Star; the conceit was that Volvo would commission a handful of artists from the Edward Day roster (some of them, including Andrew Morrow, at right, and Jesse Boles, above, also appear on the ATM) to do "Volvo-themed work."
It was, to my mind, unprecendented art-world product placement (Volvo parked its new model, a C30 coupe, in the gallery for the exhibition); and somewhat predictably, cries of "sellout!" echoed from the rooftops of Queen West.
I was a little more ambivalent; while I didn't care for the hucksterish aspects of putting young artists in the position of having their practices infiltrated by corporate marketing, I could see McRay's point at the time about expanding the audience. Whatever the case, McRay's not shy about breaking some of the sacrosanct (and often imaginary) boundaries between art and commerce. I'd be interested to hear what you think.
For the record: Bank on Art, in my view, may put art in a public place, though I don't think the tiny, fuzzy screen is the best showcase for, say, Morrow's epic, fantastical mash-up battle scenes of popular culture crossed with Delacroix-esque history paintings, or Boles' large-scale, cooly observant photographs of industrial incursions. But something, as they say, is better than nothing, and McRay is trying to expand the project to the Gladstone Hotel and possibly Yorkville.
A final note: The roster is impressive, from Governor General's Award winner Tom Dean through mash-up granddaddy John Oswald, Camilla Singh, Cheryl Sourkes, and Alex McLeod.
EDIT: This just in (March 3/10): As Kelly McRay notes below, the project has indeed expanded, to 150 artists, some represented by the gallery and plenty not. See the web site for further details.
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