explorations in toronto art.

My visit to Roadside Attractions, earlier this week, was really pleasant. I can’t remember how long the place had been on my radar, but it’d been awhile since I’d been by, even though it’s not far from where I live. I met with the friendly artists Roy and Kate, who program the space under the collective name “WeSee Inc.”

The profile I wrote on the gallery is on BlogTO today. Check it out here.

As a sidenote.. I don’t know how I got so far into January without posting anything. I have a few more pieces in the pipeline right now, but for the most part January has been occupied with changing routines, catching up, reassessing, and organizing things for later. I promise to keep you posted!

I don’t often post about my own image-making practices, but I have to admit to a bit of gallery exhaustion these days. Also, this post will go up while I am away in Ottawa taking a much-needed short holiday, visiting with loved ones, and being away from the computer.

With that out of the way, I want to mention that I’ve begun a gargantuan (and somewhat Sisyphean) task of sorting and organizing my negatives into a usable system, and work to keep my digital image files in similarly good shape. A welcome benefit of doing this is that I get to revisit all kinds of older images, things that never quite made it into any given project I was working on at the time, but my distance from that project allows me to look at it for what it is. I’ve often said that can’t write a good statement about a project until it is long over and I’m able to see it without so much sentimentality, and I think the same is true for these photographic B-sides.

Perfect example: my photographs from a two-week trip to Paris in spring of 2008. I scanned and worked on these almost immediately after I returned, but was shy about showing them to friends; my reluctance came from embarrassment about my fondness for that city, compounded by its cliché nature when photographed, and the fact that I used the Holga camera, which can be an art-student cliché— but my love of it, combined with my reservations about it, are another topic for another day.

But fast forward two years, and I am no longer ashamed about the things that please me:

Pearson airport, 2008

Saint-Sulpice, 2008

Pont D’Austerlitz, 2008

Gare D’Austerlitz, 2008

Chez Georges, Rue des Canettes, 2008

Marcadet, 2008

Cimetière du Pére Lachaise, 2008

Versailles, 2008

Trianon, 2008

These are all images that don’t form a cohesive body; they simply act as a record of where I was, what I was doing, and what I felt like photographing. It’s a welcome shift from the way I’ve been thinking lately. Revisiting these images personally, and sharing what hasn’t been shared before, is valuable to re-evaluate and readjust my perspective and aesthetics. I’ve always enjoyed the famous quotation from Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and while it may be a little extreme, it certainly applies to art practices— pausing for reflection and criticism is always useful.

My most anticipated activity for my visit to Ottawa during the holidays, other than eating Christmas cookies with my friends and decorating the tree with my family, was visiting the National Gallery of Canada.

After a few unsuccessful attempts, I went early on a quiet Wednesday and walked through from top to bottom. That is to say, I actually looked at the permanent collection, which I haven’t done in years. Growing up in the capital, the National Gallery of Canada was always just “the gallery” in my house and in my head. In fact, I didn’t really know there were such things as artist-run centres, until I moved to Toronto.

I spent most of my visit looking at the early 20th-century Canadian art. I was surprised at how much it excited me, in part because I often forget how spectacular  the Group of Seven paintings can be, in person. The Group of Seven area is rounded out with nice little sidenotes: a wall of 8×10 sketch paintings, and panel paintings that once adorned the walls of a cabin in the Georgian Bay area. This pseudo-installation led me nicely into the Rideau Chapel.

I remembered this area from childhood visits to the gallery, having routinely dismissed it as a boring religious thing that I could lump in with the Quebecois sacred art displayed in the surrounding halls. But I actually spent some time in here this visit, and read about its origin, demolition, and how the chapel was saved and reconstructed inside the gallery. Although it seems to tread the line of what actually belongs in an art gallery, I’ve seen it integrated into more contemporary applications, such as when it housed Janet Cardiff’s Forty-Part Motet sound installation.

The temporary exhibitions can be on the fusty side: last year’s Bernini show, endless repetitive Impressionism shows, American Modernist photography– but when they choose to focus on Canadian art (!) the exhibitions shine. The current ones are all good examples of this. David Hoffos takes the cake, with a breathtaking diorama/video installation that inspired simultaneous uneasiness and wonder. Gabor Szilasi‘s aptly-titled Eloquence of the Everyday was nice too; I’d seen it before in Joliette but the breadth and cohesiveness of the exhibition were what  incited me to look again. Even the Cape Dorset Inuit printmaking show, made up of things that usually bore me, was interesting and quietly elegant.

All this to say, the National Gallery of Canada is a place I wish I could go more often. It treads carefully, sometimes too plodding for my taste (I too often demand the cutting edge); but it reminds me of the traditions that existed in earlier Canadian art, which I see more lovingly lampooned than in their original form. This visit was refreshing.

There is nothing like having an out-of-town guest to help you appreciate the city in which you live.

In addition to having a good excuse to do fun touristy stuff like going to museums and shopping, you get to see the city through fresh eyes. How many times have I walked down my neighbourhood’s main drag? So many that I don’t even really see it anymore. So all the neat things that I’ve overlooked get called to my attention by my visitor, from hilarious signage, to neat little bookshops,  cafés and bars I meant to try shortly after I moved to the neighbourhood and never got around to.. all good things like these.

When we were deliberating where to go for dinner, a dear visiting pal from Ottawa asked me which of the many nearby Korean restaurants was my favourite. On my revelation that I hadn’t been to a single one, she chided me— “you’ve lived here for six months already, how have you not been to a single one?” Needless to say, she (being a big kimchee lover) picked the restaurant. Another visiting BFF from Ottawa reminded me of the pleasures of vegan eats, thrift shopping, and Queen West walks. Her perceptions of the neighbourhood, not having visited Toronto for five years, were really interesting. That street has gone through so many changes and I liked hearing her talk about what it was like before.

A friend visiting from Montreal last winter took a different approach to acquainting me with my neighbourhood. A few hours before the Christmas party that was taking place at my apartment that night, she headed out to get a few things.. and came back with peanut cookies and seaweed cookies (!) from a nearby bakery. It was eye-opening, to say the least. Her whims also gave me a good reason to explore parts of the city I had never been before (this led to somewhat of a wild goose chase in search of little Malta, but I think that’s another story.)

I’m thinking this probably has something to do with why I look forward to visiting Ottawa: in addition longing for visits with friends, as well as the rosy nostalgia that one can only feel about a hometown left in the past, I get to become a visitor, to pick and choose the best parts, as well as enjoying the local knowledge of, well, a local.

Yet another “How have I lived in Toronto for four years and never been here!?” moment happened this weekend: I ventured eastward to the Leslie Street Spit.

On the beyond-unseasonably-warm afternoon that we were blessed with on Sunday, I met up with a good friend of mine (an explorer and wanderer extraordinaire) and together we biked  into the hazy sun at the lake. The light was incredible, in the way it can only be at changing seasons, when the sun is close to the earth but there are barely any leaves to block out all the light. Between this, the bizarrely warm weather, the quiet and breeze, and the long path stretching ahead of us with no visible end, there was a definitely otherworldly feeling to the whole place. My companion remarked that it felt like we were walking toward the afterlife, and it was a pretty apt description.

We came upon a place that looked like, for lack of better description, a prehistoric swamp. I half expected to see some dinosaurs come stomping by, like no big deal. These formations of logs and little rounds of wooden fence were so bizarre-looking, and it wasn’t until I began to edit these pictures that I realized that combined with the skyline in the background, they really throw off the sense of scale. Check out my tiny friend, who is definitely not tiny in real life.

In case you didn’t know, the spit is a man-made extension of land that extends out into Lake Ontario. It goes out even farther than the islands, and it’s made of clean fill and construction materials. Much of it is covered by grass and soil and growing things, but at the water’s edge, its humble and odd origins are made visible. The shores are scattered with weathered, rounded bricks, rebar, and a wide selection of excellent skipping stones.

It was such a magical place— I can’t wait to make more visits in all seasons.

On Saturday, I trekked out to the wilds of North York for the last day of the Leona Drive Project, a group of six postwar bungalows that housed site-specific installations during the limbo of their existence: after they had been abandoned, but before they will be demolished.

The group of works was unlike anything I’d seen before. Approaching from Sheppard Ave, the houses were seen in order from #17 down— all exterior works using the houses and backyards—culminating with #9 Leona Drive, which housed ten different works in its various rooms. Themes range from the absurd (An Te Liu‘s “Monopoly house” intervention, Christine Davis’s coating the bathroom entirely in “Victory Red” lipstick), to the spooky (Thomas Blanchard‘s basement installation de-surfacing), to the playful (the house-dismantling and backyard constructions by the Arbour Lake Sghool), to the touching (Angela Joosse + Shana McDonald’s kitchen display of collected letters, photos, and other remnants found in 9 Leona Drive.) Common to almost all the works is an underpinning idea of excavation. So I wasn’t surprised when I found out that some of the houses sat abandoned for 7 years before they were given this new life shortly before their death.

backyard constructions by the Arbour Lake Sghool

This entire project interested me because of its use of the house, such a loaded symbol with significances that can be explored inside and outside. I was filled with an overall sense of nostalgia and longing for my own suburban childhood, and a kind of camaraderie through those shared experiences. At the same time, I was aware of my general distaste for neighbourhoods like these, because of their clash with my preferred mode of living.

window projection by Michael Taglieri

I particularly enjoyed seeing things that I wouldn’t have thought of in my wildest dreams, like the living room window lightbox seen above. In my mind, “site-specific” had previously been one of those lame, cop-out art words— if the work is so good, why does it have to stay at that site?— but no more. Consider me a convert.

bedroom projection by Patricio Davila

One of the biggest strengths of the Leona Drive Project was the fact that it was situated right in the middle of the culture it comments on. Functioning identical homes sat across the street, looking at their art-ified neighbours, their residents meandering over to see what all the fuss was about. Over the past few years I have seen a number of artworks depicting urbanites’ frustration with suburban sprawl, but these have often been one-sided and misguided because of their lack of engagement with the community. Leona Drive succeeds in making that suburban “other” more visible and complex to an urban art-viewing  public, by having us consider the reality and the humanity of the former bungalow-dwellers.

The Leona Drive project has ended, but you can see some good documentation here on flickr, and Spacing Toronto wrote an article about it, as did Lisa Rochon of the Globe and Mail. This is a piece that, despite its short duration, will likely generate a lengthy ongoing conversation.

First let me express how ridiculous I feel having never been to Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation. Though I’ve known about it for almost two years, I never got around to going until last weekend. At the same time, mentioning my trip there has garnered more than a few blank stares— at least among my circle of friends, this place is not getting the exposure it deserves.

Anyway, I loved visiting this place. I hesitate to call it a gallery; it’s one person’s collection. It’s certainly not a museum, it doesn’t hold you by the hand and tell you exactly what you’re looking at. It’s a strange mix of all these kinds of institutions, and this is where is succeeds. Ms. Hendeles purchases work for her collection, fully revealing her own biases and interests, and pieces together the most thoughtful kinds of group exhibitions out of the works she chooses. The viewer is treated as neither a buyer nor a dummy, just a human with thoughts and opinions.

What initially drew me to the gallery was the current exhibition, titled “Straitjacket,” and the knowledge that it included a piece by Christian Boltanski. When I arrived, I was excited to see his work, characteristically about haunting, death, and memorials, displayed alongside photographs by Barbara Kruger (which I should mention I never liked until seeing them in person, with their thin red frames, and thankfully not accompanied by a text on their historical significance), a hilarious-bizarre dual-channel video installation by Pippilotti Rist, and a large collection of creepy Punch and Judy/ Commedia Dell’Arte puppets. The connections did not reveal themselves until the days following my visit, as they simmered and percolated in my mind.

“Ydessa trusts you to trust her: You are expected to assume she has something to say. It involves effort. Your reward (aside from the splendid art she assembles) is the realization that there is one place in the world that wants to show you some of the most vital recent art without telling you precisely what you should think about it.” — Robert Fulford’s column about Ydessa Hendeles (reproduced with permission)

On top of this, the space was of the special variety that makes you forget where you are, and you have trouble situating each room in relation to the others. It was cool and dark and quiet, with almost nobody there. Needless to say, I will be going back.

My brief visit to Ottawa over Thanksgiving weekend happily included one of the greatest pleasures of my neighbourhood: walking to the bagel shop on a crisp day, and bringing home a steaming warm bag of delicious baked goodness; cradling it sideways like a baby so the ones at the bottom don’t get squished, and taking a peek and a whiff every so often.

bagels.

Bagels have a special place in my heart for a few reasons (not the least of which is that they are delicious!), and a bite of a fresh bagel brings me back to a few fond experiences. The first time I recall going to the bagel shop with my dad on a weekend morning, it was when I must have been seven, around the time we moved to the neighbourhood where my parents still live (and which I firmly believe is the best neighbourhood in Ottawa, but that’s another story.)

When I was a kid, my dad took my brother and I out somewhere every Saturday morning without fail, to get us out of the house so my mom could have some peace and quiet in which to sleep late. I recall many of those times involving walks to the bagel shop, and the best part was getting to eat a hot bagel on the walk home.

I could hardly write about bagels without mentioning Montréal. I’m not going to get into the Fairmount vs St-Viateur debate, because obviously both are delicious, wood-fired worlds away from what I’ve found in Toronto so far. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places, but after four years here, I have yet to eat a satisfactory bagel. Which makes my trips to Montréal that much more satisfying.

A year or so ago, I visited my friend who lived in Mile-End at the time, and after a fun night at the pub, we tromped our way home through the snow at 3am. Our walk wouldn’t be complete without stopping at St-Viateur, conveniently on the way home, to pick up hot bagels. Back at the house, we toasted them and dipped them in cream cheese, not even bothering to slice or spread. Between us we devoured half the bag, giggling drunkenly and chatting about everything. It was a huge contrast to my childhood bagel memories, but no less heavenly.

I recently returned from a whirlwind two-day visit to Montréal for Le Mois de la Photo, a month-long photography festival, not unlike Toronto’s CONTACT. Or so I thought…

On the itinerary was a pre-launch cocktail with remarks, guided visit to the feature exhibition with the curator, opening reception, afterparty…. followed by a day of gallery-hopping and more openings, trying to see all the exhibitions in two days.

Despite this packed agenda, we managed to take in some thoughtful, very contemporary, and tightly curated photo-based art. There was quite a healthy dose of installations and video works— the theme being “Spaces of the Image,” the festival was largely devoted to emerging photo-based forms that exist in spaces other than the frame on the wall.

Another reading of this theme was the presentation of works that explored the idea of one’s sense of space, or relationship with a certain locale (and in many cases, the politics of those locales: there were several works that dealt with themes of unrest and displacement in the Middle East.)

Still another reading of the theme, was scrutiny of how the audience reads an image— these were two different works that investigated the circumstances around two very famous photojournalistic images (works by Alfredo Jaar and Pascal Convert). These two pieces involved photography very minimally in the piece itself— one is more a text-based narrative experience, the other mainly a sculpture— but photography, and the making, dissemination, and reading of it, was at the centre of its meaning.

From Hand to Mouth, Jeff Guess

All in all, I was beyond impressed with the calibre of work. The interactive pieces were presented in highly professional ways, which is rare (notably Joana Hadjithomas &Khalil Joreige’s Circle of Confusion, a wall-sized image of Beirut, broken into 3000 fragments that visitors can remove and scatter), and there were some works that investigated perception in astounding ways: Luc Courchesne, Pavel Pavlov, Jim Campbell, and Pierre Tremblay. All this, and remarkable video works by Cheryl Pagurek and David Rokeby.

In addition to the great work we saw, there were a few little things that made the festival really sing. There were 24 exhibitions, at only 11 different venues, and this manageable scale made it easy to see everything in a short time, and not feel so overwhelmed. All but three of the exhibition venues were right on the metro line, and the opening start times were staggered, so one could easily work one’s way from west to east. It also gave the feeling that the openings were not in competition with each other, but right next door and down the block from each other, so it was easy to visit five one evening.

Despite all my admiration for the tight theme, modest scope, and excellent organization of the festival (not to mention the amazing works), there were a few little things I found strange, or just very different from my experience of the photo scene in Toronto. The politics of the festival had a distinctly strange taste, from the surfeit of remerciements, pat-on-the-back remarks given at the pre-launch by every possible arts council chair; to the afterthought list of other, unrelated photographic exhibitions in the Mois de la Photo program guide; to the over-the-top pleasantries in the exhibition descriptions, citing everything as a “collaboration” and noting “co-curators”— maybe I’m just being cynical, but there seemed to be a strained relation between artists and festival directors, curators and venues, etc etc. Or maybe it was a just a different art scene, a different system of galleries and dissemination.. I felt as though I was discovering the completely different spirits that power Contact and le Mois de la Photo; microcosms of the artistic climates of their respective cities.