Archive for February, 2015

I’m one too

Posted: February 18, 2015 in graffiti and street art, locations
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As you walk east on Wellesley towards Church St., you can’t miss the large mural on the side of Ho’s Team Barber and Hairstylist.  The red circle with it’s white words “I’m One Too” catch your attention.   The mural, by Will Craddock, is part of the Church Street Mural Project.

  street scene in winter, looking along the sidewalk with a couple of people on it. On the left is a three storey red brick building in the background. In the foreground is a shorter building (seen from the side) covered with a mural depicting buttons with slogans and sayings on them.

The circles in the mural are paintings of buttons from the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives.

 Close up of part of a mural that is circular buttons from the gay and lesbian community with slogans and sayings on them.

There is actually a small lane that runs beside the button mural.  If you walk a little but down that lane and then look at the wall on the other side, you will see another artwork from the Church Street Mural Project.  ‘Kiss and Tell’ by Natalie Wood is a series of silhouette couples with their heads close together, either talking or kissing.

Two men talking to each other on a wall. The men are shown from the waist up. They are made of paper and pasted on the wall. The paper is actually a collection of prints of book covers.

silhouettes of four couples either kissing or close together talking. The silhouettes are collages of prints of book covers.

 

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Memory Unearthed

Posted: February 17, 2015 in galleries
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Photographs of the Lodz Ghetto (Poland 1940-1945)
by Henryk Ross,
at the Art Gallery of Ontario until 14 June 2015

Ross was a Polish Jewish photographer and one of the official Lodz ghetto photographers under the Nazi regime.

A girl is standing in front a photography exhibit where many black and white photos are grouped together to form one big picture.

In the autumn of 1944 as the Lodz ghetto was being shut down, Ross buried his 6000 negatives in jars.  The Red Army liberated Lodz in January of 1945 after which Ross unearthed his negatives.  Water damaged about half of them.  Of the surviving 3000 negatives, about 200 form the ‘Memory Unearthed’ exhibit.

Close up of photo display showing black and white photos of people in portrait like photos.

Some of the photos are ordinary pictures – portraits of people, children playing.  Other photos look ordinary until you learn the context, what is really happening in the picture.  Many photos document suffering and despair.  They elicit a lot of uncomfortable emotions but as an historical record the collection is excellent as well as much needed.

Last Folio

Posted: February 17, 2015 in galleries, history
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Last Folio, A Living Monument to the Holocaust
An exhibit of photographs by Yuri Dojc,
at the Art Gallery of Ontario

Yuri Dojc was born in Slovakia but is now based in Toronto.
Starting in the 1990’s he has returned to Slovakia a number of times in search of traces of Jewish life from prior to WW2.

a close up of a photograph of an old book, open, with the pages on one side all curled up. The photo is taken from the top of the book.

Details of one of the photographs in the exhibit.

There are only eight photographs in this exhibit but each one tells a story.   Narratives of loss and of life interrupted.
But also stories of memory and remembrance.

 More information about the Last Folio project.

 

anti graffiti

Posted: February 12, 2015 in graffiti and street art
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There will probably always be some controversy surrounding graffiti and and street art.  Some people like it and some don’t.  There is street art with a lot of artistic merit.  There are a number of drab grey places in the city that are improved by adding street art.

Graffiti is temporary by nature.    Time and weather affect it.  Sometimes it evolves over time as others add stickers or comments.   This is a strength and a weakness.  All it takes is a marker or a can of spray paint to make your mark on a wall, a doorway, or any surface you want for that matter.  Unfortunately, there are people who destroy rather than create.

There are many examples of the juvenile nature of some taggers so these are just a few.

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Stupid and clueless. The mural on Croft street commemorating the Fire of 1904 has also been tagged over.


 
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a black tag over a grey and white painting on the side of a set of stairs

The word 'lame' is written on blue letters on a large black and white tag.

Great comment. Written on a black and white tag that was painted on top of a street art picture

 

The City of Toronto has a Graffiti Management Plan.
They try to encourage Graffiti Art while getting rid of Graffiti Vandalism.

Where the West Toronto Railpath meets Dundas West.

Where the West Toronto Railpath meets Dundas West.  The graffiti and street art that were here were painted over with grey paint, probably by the city.

 

Bathhouse raids mural

Posted: February 12, 2015 in graffiti and street art, history, locations
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The Bathhouse Raids by Christiano De Araujo is a mural on Church Street just south of Carlton.
Completed in the fall of 2013, it was the largest of the Church St. Mural Project pieces commissioned for WorldPride 2014.

The following photos were taken with a very wide angle lens
because of the size of the mural and because there are always cars parked in front of it.

large mural on the side of a building. A number of cars are parked in front of it. The mural depicts the bathhouse raids, an event in Toronto's history where police raided gay bath house and arrested those they found inside. A yellow Toronto police car, a fire truck with its lights on are both in the picture. An oversized person is in the center, hands held over her/his head.

On the 5th of February, 1981, Toronto police raided four bathhouses in what was known as ‘Operation Soap’.
Around 300 men were arrested.  Most charges connected to the incident were eventually dropped or discharged, although some bathhouse owners were fined.

part of a large mural showing a yellow Toronto police car from the 1980's, a couple of policemen and a crowd of men standing just back of the police car

part of a large mural showing a yellow Toronto police car from the 1980's, a couple of policemen and a crowd of men standing just back of the police car

The event marked a major turning point in the history of the LGBT community in Canada.
The raids led to protests – the night after the raids, 3,000 people marched on 52 Division police headquarters and on Queen’s Park, smashing car windows and setting fires.  That spring the city held its first Pride Parade.

right hand side of the bathhouse raid mural on Church St. showing a firetruck with its red flashing lights on

eyes on fingernails

Posted: February 11, 2015 in graffiti and street art, locations
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Graffiti on a wall on Queen St. West
at the west side of Trinity Bellwoods park.

A graffiti face high on a grey wall, with a pine tree branch partially obscuring it

Close up of graffiti painted fingers in many bright colours. They are very large. Each fingernail has an eye.

Close up a piece of street art featuring brightly coloured fingers, with eyes on the fingernails. Partially hidden behind pine trees. Snow on the ground.

Close up a piece of street art featuring brightly coloured fingers, with eyes on the fingernails. Partially hidden behind pine trees. Snow on the ground.

Unfortunately, there is now an ugly black tag on the lower left corner.

Graffiti painting of a man high up on a grey wall, partially hidden behind two trees. Unfortunately someone has painted a black tag over the lower left corner of the painting

In the corner of a piece of graffiti with a blue background is a signature of the artists, in blovk letters, LEXR & EVOKE

a few guys hanging out

Posted: February 11, 2015 in general Toronto
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A few guys that I encountered the other day.

black and white paper graffiti of a man in grey pants, white shirt, and tie. He has two black and white faces instead of hands. Someone has scrawled words on the hands.
A deflated inflatable Santa Claus is hanging from a hydro pole in an alley beside a garage door with a graffiti man on it.

A large pinkish man's face, with big blue eys, and large hands

close up of man's face painted on a garage door. You can see one ear, the nose and the mouth.

Street art painting of two men's heads. Both have beards. One is wearing a black crown and the other has a red hat and a red & black plaid shirt on

 

around the corner

Posted: February 9, 2015 in graffiti and street art, locations
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I walked around the corner and down a small dead end lane and this is what I saw.

near St. Clair West

garages and gates in fences in a snow covered lane. Two of the doors have been painted in geometric designs.

On a brownish grey wall, some white paint has been applied to provide a backgound for some black line drawings of faces. There are four faces.

A mural on a wall of two polar bears - an adult and a young cub. It looks like they are walking on the snow.

Close up of the mural of two polar bears. in this picture, the whole cub is visible but only the nose of the adult bear is seen. The picture is signed J. Mora 2010

 

beep beep

Posted: February 9, 2015 in graffiti and street art
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Wile E. Coyote is still chasing the roadrunner…..
right out of Looney Tunes and onto a wall in a Toronto lane.

street art painting of Wile E. Coyote from the looney tunes cartoon. He has a smug look on his face and he is holding a lit stick of dynamite.

street art painting of the Looney Tunes cartoon character the roadrunner. He is running past a window on a brick building.

 

the walk

Posted: February 6, 2015 in galleries
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Seen in the ‘Genizot: Repositories of Memory’ exhibit

 by Bonnie Eisenstein,

at the Royal Ontario Museum until 8 February 2015

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“Concentrate all your strength, and compel yourself to do the loftiest deed, to endure the most difficult trial, and to survive the most arduous struggle.”

from The Walk by Robert Walser, translated from the German, Der Spaziergang written in 1917.

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