Toronto
posted by Terence Dick - December 7th, 2006.
Now that autumn is over, I was hoping to catch up with the post-summer overload that afflicts the Toronto art scene every year, but the invitation cards keep piling up. So much to see, so little time. The Toronto Alternative Art Fair International seems like a dream to me now, but it was only last month. The whole was somewhat disappointing, but the curated parts – particularly co-organizer John McLachlin’s little group show in tribute to his recently deceased father and Allyson Mitchell’s awe-inspiring giant vag – were thrilling. The latter only fully revealed itself once you passed through it and sat facing it on a throne. So much work for only a weekend. If you blinked, you probably missed it.
Allyson Mitchell, Hungry Purse installation at the Gladstone Hotel, TAAFI 2006
I blinked (and then fell asleep) and missed this past weekend’s massive warehouse art show at 224 Wallace, organized by one Heather Nicol and featuring over fifty artists. A friend who’s been around the block a couple times (if you know what I mean) said it was the kind of one-off art happening that hasn’t happened for a while in Toronto, at least not since the days of the Money House, Art System or West Wing (and it’s been a while). But maybe there’s a seismic shift going on; over by Queen and Dovercourt (behind the Great Hall), ex-Haligonian art duo 2nd Place have been hosting a temporary garage gallery for the past couple weeks. Having recently OD’d on white boxes, I felt great joy wandering past its wood-panelled walls while a propane space heater roared in the background. It was just like camping!
Hometown Blues exhibition organized by 2nd Place
Six artists from around Canada are on display; two are 2nd Place masterminds Sarah Bennett and Evan Quigley. Kevin Rodgers and Claire Greenshaw contribute some very nice drawings, the former of renowned (and reviled) Republicans, the latter identical monochromatic bouquets. Mark Clintberg’s posters are calls to a variety of creative collective action; here’s hoping they catch on. Gregory Reynolds mixes wood-burned drawings with some subtle doodles and paint splotches, while Bennett and Quigley stick to paper, she working on abstracted landscapes, he restrained mixed media scenarios. They plan to do more but this gallery shuts down on Saturday so check it out while you can.
Gary Hill, Wall Piece, 2000, video still
The big name group show (including heavy hitters like Gary Hill and Stan Douglas) at the Blackwood Gallery is currently tempting downtowners to make the trek out to U of T’s Mississauga campus. The exhibition, 18:Beckett, marks Samuel B’s 100th birthday and is as intriguing and problematic as these sorts of thematic mash-ups go. My knowledge of the Irish writer’s oeuvre is limited to a couple plays, a novel and the pop cultural trivia his name inspires, so I didn’t try too hard to connect each work to SB (though I’m sure curator Séamus Kealey attempts it in his catalogue essay and, if you’re interested, the whole text is available as a pdf on the gallery’s website). The highlight for me was finally seeing Bruce Nauman’s Clown Torture, though I always imagined it to be significantly more torturous. Actually, the most fun was tracking down half the exhibit (spread as it is over five sites) to a discreetly marked door that housed offices for a now abandoned library. Hooray for alternative spaces!
Serge Murphy, Sculpter les jours (Sculpting the Days), 2002, 66 elements, mixed media
It’s not too much of a stretch to think of the Oakville Galleries as alternative spaces as well. One’s in a community centre, the other is in a lakeside cottage. As for the current exhibition, only Serge Murphy’s towering assemblage of hand-crafted junk sculptures tickled my fancy. There’s lots of stuff there (I like stuff), it’s playful and messy, and there’s a hint of an underlying logic or semiotic system that might just push it into the stratosphere for me (but I think I’m hoping for too much). Still, if he was teaching a children’s art class, I’d sign my kid up right away. And if you’re planning a trip out this way, you might want to hold off until late January when our man in Venice, David Altmejd, exhibits his wares. Kudos to the prescient curators of OG for once again scooping the city folk with this exhibition; there’s a reason the nearest Janet Cardiff walk is at their cottage.
Guerrilla art on Lansdowne south of Dundas
Finally, one car accident per month is enough for me, but if another were to happen, it’s bound to be on Lansdowne south of Dundas just before you dip under the railway bridge. Some inspired vandal has pasted up this bizarre incursion into the urban blandscape and it stops me in my tracks every time I pass it. I’ve seen similar photocopied photographs around town and they are all equally inexplicable. As a passerby asked while I was taking this picture, “Who the hell is that guy?” My answer: I don’t know, but he looks as confused and panicked as I feel, so I no longer feel all alone.
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 media columnist for This Magazine, music editor at Broken Pencil and editor of Akimblog
TAAFI: http://www.taafi.org/
2nd Place: place2nd@gmail.com
Hometown Blues continues until December 9.
Blackwood Gallery: http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/services/gallery/index.htm
18:Beckett continues until December 21.
Oakville Galleries: http://www.oakvillegalleries.com/
Exhibitions continue until January 14.
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