Everything's opening: MOCCA winter exhibtions this Saturday

MOCCA comes out of hibernation this weekend (it's been closed since the end of December) with a pair of shows: Tasman Richardson's Necropolis, an epic videodrome on the culture of death and, in maybe a necessary restoration of equilibrium, a show of landscape works in the National Gallery of Canada's pocket gallery on MOCCA premises.

I don't know much about the former just yet, but the latter, called Spectral Landscape, offers an intriguing slate of counter-intuitive groupings of such artists as photographer Sarah Anne Johnson and painters Tim Gardiner and Peter Doig. One thing they have in common, of course, are their unique, personal and thoroughly contemporary takes on the classical notion of representational landscapes, which capture a world quietly but insidiously transformed by human presence.

Such subtleties aside, there's also the marquee draw in Doig, whose paintings have blown through the roof at auction in recent years, offering both the chance to quietly contemplate earthly transformation, and an opportunity to gawk at an A-level multi-million dollar international superstar. Necropolis and Spectral Landscape open Saturday, Feb. 4 at 2 pm at MOCCA

Image: Big Sur, Peter Doig, 2001

Comments

[Daisuke Takeya]

May I ask why my installation, GOD Loves Japan is not included in the article?

[Murray Whyte]

Sure. It's because I'm out of the city and haven't seen it yet. Further, as I often have to explain, mere existence is not sufficient condition for inclusion in reviews, mentions or anything else, particular in the gallery's retail space. Main exhibitions are my duty to first mention, then review, good, bad or indifferent; anything else is at my discretion, which I haven't had the opportunity to apply, being on vacation when the opening occurred. I hope this satisfies.