Speaking of TIFF ...

The two programmes I'm most interested in, Wavelengths and Future Projections, annouced their programs this week. As always, good stuff: I'm looking forward to Tacita Dean's piece Edwin Parker, about the recently deceased Cy Twombly (one of my all-time favourites), 349 (For Sol Lewitt), produced in conjunction with Mercer Union's display of their very own wall drawing last summer, Joyce Wieland's long-since seen seminal work Sailboat, and the return from local limbo of Toronto's Nick and Sheila Pye, who last showed here in 2009 at now-defunct ArtCore. They'll be showing their new work Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board at Birch Libralato.  

(Image: "Amend," 2010, Nick and Sheila Pye)

It had to happen: Mr. Brainwash and James Franco at TIFF

In what seems like a mild sign of the apocalypse, both James Franco and Mr. Brainwash will be, um, an art-world presence at our annual hometown Hollywood love-in, the Toronto International Film Festival. Franco, whose genre-defying cultural dexterity is poised to extend from actor and artist and into the realm of pornography director, will show his intallation/performance piece "Memories of Idaho," a collaboration with Gus Van Sant.  Mr. Brainwash's plans are nothing so official, with the festival saying he'll be doing "a number of projects" (one of them is a show at Gallery One), and that we can expect him to be "towering over the red carpet" to provide "additonal glamour and pomp." Say what? 

In any case, they're twin poles of the same machine: One is an artist celebrity, the other a celebrity artist -- or so Brainwash became after beign featured in the Banksy film "Exit Through the Gift Shop." What they seem to share in common is an unquenchable thirst for attention, and what better place to slake it than TIFF? None, I say -- that's what it's all about.  

(image courtesy ArtInfo)

Step off, Howard Stern

The new king of all media appears to be Banksy, the art-world sensation and general prankster whose been laughing his anonymous ass off all the way to the bank in recent years. Nevermind multi-million dollar sales of his cheeky street art -- now there's an argument waiting to happen -- to an A-list of celebrities; following up on the success of "Exit Through the Gift Shop," a wink-wink parodic diatribe against the sanctioned culture corporations that pass themsleves off as museums, Banksy is producing a TV show about art, activism and political prank called "The Antics Roadshow," which aired on Channel 4 in the UK on the weekend, and is destined for a Vimeo screen near you. Such burning questions as "Who gave Winston Churchill a Mohawk?" are destined to be satisfied. Stay tuned. 

Do not adjust your interweb: What you're about to read may disturb you.

Ahem. 

Is it me, or is the old AGO looking pretty damn good these days? I've made a personal side project over the past few years of incessantly carping on about ye olde public institution's many and various shortcomings -- and in truth, they've provided me with material aplenty to work with -- but I have very little to complain about at the moment. 

This is bolstered significantly by the massive General Idea show that arrived from Paris a couple of weeks back, and buttressed by smart exhibition decisions that permit some critique -- however mild -- of the musuem's own history and priorities. I'm thinking specifically of the Brian Jungen's neo-primitive/post-modern sculptural fusion set loose in Henry Moore's canonized Modernist temple, and the play given to the experimental sideliner Kathleen Munn, whose interest in and devotion to Modern upheavals of the 20th century -- Fauvism and Cubism in particular in her case -- relegated her to the margins in her hometown as the greater art world fawned over and eventual canonized a gang of men stuck fast to the practice of Post-Impressionistic landscape painting well past its sell-by date. 

Bigger than that, at the moment, the mix, between contemporary, historical, local and international contexts is just right: Factor in AbEx New York -- an import blockbuster, true, but far from standard fare; it's mesmerizing -- the intimate and intoxicating show of Robert Motherwell drawings from the AGO's collection that helps deepen it, and the pending shows of Picasso and Chagall and the Russian Avant Garde (Kandinsky in particular, who never fails to thrill, or thrill me, anyway), and you're starting to see a (cough, cough) world class museum. Now, if we could only do something about Galleria Italia ... but let's count our blessings, shall we?

You can grouse about how some of these things happened -- we know the AGO mostly provided materials and a landing pad for Haute Culture, curated as it was by a Parisian, where it opened first -- but offering up two floors of the tower to house it is no mean feat, and not one without risk, and the gallery should be commended for taking such a significant part of history and allowing it to be done right.  

I still have a moderate quibble about the museum's lack of attentions to emerging and mid-career artists right here at home -- Toronto Now, for all its good intentions, remains a mild insult to that community, in my opinion, divorced from the gallery's proper collections and exhibitions as it is, annexed out in back of the restaurant -- but we're getting there. A few short years ago, we were being stared down at the entrance by a towering, plasticized Anubis. We've travelled miles from there. Here's hoping the journey continues. 

 

Junction Design Crawl and Carnival x 2

It's been a while since I've played the role of opening-night herald, so forgive me as a chip the rust off the gears, but I did want to mention that the Junction Design Crawl starts tonight at 7 pm, and really, there are few better ways to get acquainted with this stretch of Dundas Street in terms of its growing significane to the art community.

The Junction has been the "next" place for creative types for what feel like a long time now -- I wrote about it some years ago -- but it's clearly now fulfilling that potential. Outwardly, it comes across mostly as a haven for rustic industrial decor -- Smash, once a companion outpost to Post and Beam, which it spun off from, has been joined by a good many others -- but reasonable rents and more-than-reasonably sized spaces have also made it a refuge for artists priced out of more central zones.

So while the Crawl is design-based, per se, dont' be surprised to see a good amount of art on your meanders as well. One of the most obvious will be at Narwhal Art Projects' new space at 2988 Dundas West (above). A refugee from Queen West near Trinity Bellwoods, Narwhat is offering a Carnival, a cluster of fun happenings that includes  psychics, a tarot reader, and marshmallows over an open fire. Officially, a window installation by Joele Walinga and Alicia Nauta serves notice that Narwhal 2.0 is officially open to the public. Nice move, folks. 

Anyway, in the languid days of summer -- for the art world, hot weather means group shows of as-yet unsold works from previous shows, or outright closures -- Carnival seems to be a popular theme, as Nicholas Metivier opened a show of the same name just last night. Featuring a long roster of gallery artists -- well-known quantities like Michael Awad, Shelly Adler, Ed Burtynsky and James Lahey -- this summer cluster will be better than most. Enjoy.