Akimblog
Toronto
Nuit Blanche Preview | Jonathan Meese at The Power Plant | Pleasure Dome's Fall Season | Parkdale International Art Fair | Hunting at Stephen Bulger Gallery
posted by Terence Dick - October 2nd, 2008.
As a service to all those daunted by the prospect of wading into the crowds this Saturday night/Sunday morning for the third annual Nuit Blanche extravaganza, I’ve spent a good couple of hours picking over the website’s many curated exhibitions, independent projects, and open galleries to come up with a short list of what’s worth a detour. Before I begin though, let it be known that I’m not big on sound installations, participatory nonsense, and painters painting to live jazz. Anyone who programs something that causes a line-up clearly hasn’t learned the lessons of previous NBs. And, to be honest, big, bright, to-the-point tends to win over intricate subtlety when you’re moving through a crowd of a couple hundred thousand.
Daniel Olson, Fifteen Seconds
I’m disappointed that the Bloor-Lansdowne axis isn’t throwing its hat into the right this year. That leaves only the three official zones and the Distillery District to peruse. Zone A, the north end of the downtown centred on Yonge Street, features an exhibition called The New World curated by Gordon Hatt. The big draw here is Germany’s Project Blinkenlights’ intervention at City Hall, turning it into a giant pixel board. Fujiware Takahiro’s big blue balloon at the Eaton Centre might also entice me into entering that cursed temple of consumerism. And nearby, BGL will roof an alley beside Massey Hall with fluorescents and particle board. Daniel Olson will be spotlighting random people from a watchtower in Dundas Square for fifteen seconds of fame; that sounds just about right. Jillian MacDonald’s Zombies in Condoland (a riff on Toronto’s annual Zombiewalk) is happening at College Park and will get lots of press but the inherent critique seems ham-fisted to me. And I’ll probably pay a visit to Maple Leaf Gardens for the first time in years, despite my misgivings about Luis Jacobs’ installation there, which just sounds dour.
Katharine Harvey’s recycled waterfall on the Ontario Power Generation building and Katherine L. Lannin’s papered passage at the Ryerson University Student Centre both sound promising. Melinda Barnadas and Tae Hwang are presenting the “world’s largest paint-by-numbers painting of feet” at the Bata Shoe Museum. Parental guidance is, strangely, advised. On top of all that, Cabbagetown is doing its own thing, Casa Loma has dancers in its stables (a big hit last year), and Hart House, the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, and the U of T Art Centre contain a dense cluster of art along with much needed refreshments and food.
Kelly Mark, Horroridor
The big show in Zone B (roughly the business district) is Honest, curated by Wayne Baerwaldt. I’m dying to see Kelly Mark’s Horroridor at Union Station but predict extremely long line-ups, so I won’t go until later in the morning. Noam Gonick’s film installation at Commerce Court might be worth a few laughs, but Rita McKeough’s performance at the St. Lawrence parking garage and Marisela La Grave’s performance/multimedia thingy at the Temperance and Sheppard parking lot sound too complicated. And Larry McDowell’s performance at 35 Wellington Street East sounds like warmed-over Vito Acconci. There’s also a ton of stuff at 401 Richmond, but only Charles Katz’s Bar Mitzvah Machine and an all night drawing marathon make me want to drop by.
Two curators take over Zone C (Queen West and Liberty Village). Haema Sivanesan’s Multiple Selves – Strange Destinations features Brendan Fernandes’ “towering installation of shipping containers” and five hundred and fifty oil drums arranged by Ruark Lewis, both of which sound impressive. Dave Dyment’s Beginning to See the Light presents a waterfall (this year’s answer to 2006’s swimming pools?) care of Michel de Broin streaming out of a window at the corner of East Liberty and Lynn Williams. And Jon Sasaki throws a bunch of team mascots and some rock’n’roll into Lamport Stadium. I’m bringing my kids here.
Independent projects of note include David Rokeby’s multiscreen installation at the Drake, fake ID available in Trinity Bellwoods Park care of Swizzle Studio, and God taking meetings at InterAccess. Everyone will wind up at the Gladstone where there’s a ton more stuff happening plus alcohol and eventually, coffee.
Jonathan Meese in performance
Not on the official schedule, but a definite must-see is Jonathan Meese’s performance at The Power Plant at six on Saturday. Only in Toronto would such a major player on the international art scene end up as a footnote to the biggest art weekend of the year. He’s presented by Greener PasturesGallery on Queen West, a space which has seemed dormant of late, but proprietor Kineko Ivic has pulled off a coup here.
Speaking of coups, Pleasure Dome’s fall schedule blows me (and all the major galleries in this town) away. Ryan Tercartin’s I-Be Area plays next weekend, Mike Kelley’s monumental Day is Done is coming soon, as is a program of John Bock performance films. And that’s just a small selection! A tip of my hat to the PD collective.
There’s also the Toronto International Art Fair happening this weekend, which means there will be plenty of tired gallerists roaming around. I’m satisfied with the Parkdale International Art Fair in the window of convenience gallery on Lansdowne. Now if only there were some labels to identify the artists.
And finally, I suggest you go see Hunting at Stephen Bulger Gallery sometime soon. There’s a throwaway Terence Koh work, some nice vintage prints of hunters both European and indigenous, and some intriguing Vid Ingelevics photos of deer hunter platforms (though they might have been more intriguing in a context that didn’t immediately indicate their purpose), but the real draw is a series from the seventies by Les Krim of hunters, deer carcasses, and cars. These portraits are simply frightening. And best of all, each print includes a text at the bottom that reads, “Printed by Les Krims, in a Basement in Buffalo, New York – a Failed Border Town Where the Stank of Government Cheese Meets the E-Coli Scented Lake Erie Breeze.” It would be funny, if it weren’t so true.
Terence Dick is a freelance writer living in Toronto. His art criticism has appeared in Canadian Art, BorderCrossings, Prefix Photo, Camera Austria, Fuse, Mix, C Magazine, and The Globe and Mail. He is the editor of Akimblog.
Nuit Blanche: http://www.scotiabanknuitblanche.ca/home.shtml
Nuit Blanche takes place of October 4 from 6:52 until sunrise.
The Power Plant: http://www.thepowerplant.org/current.html
Jonathan Meese: The Humpty Dumpty Revolution of Dictatorship of Art takes place at 6 pm on October 4 at The Power Plant.
Greener Pastures Contemporary Art: http://www.greenerpasturesgallery.com/index.php
Pleasure Dome: http://pdome.org/wordpress/?cat=86
Toronto International Art Fair: http://www.tiafair.com/
Parkdale International Art Fair: http://www.conveniencegallery.com/
Stephen Bulger Gallery: http://www.bulgergallery.com/
Hunting continues until October 25.