Archive for the ‘galleries’ Category

Stephen Andrews POV

Posted: August 13, 2015 in galleries
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Stephen Andrews POV
an exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario

Stephen Andrews is a Toronto artist whose career began in photography and the exhibit now on at the AGO does include a few excellent 8×10 photographs.  The main part of the exhibit though are approximately 20 (mostly large) paintings of his.

A room in an art gallery with white walls and three large paintings on it. A woman is taking a picture of one of them with a camera. The paintings consist of large rectangles
  below: ‘X-men at Union’, 2013, oil on canvas
Construction workers at Union Station, Toronto

rtwork picture of two construction workers wearing orange and yellow safety vests as they walk into a building that is being renovated

below: ‘After Before/After After’ oil on wood panels
The two paintings on the wall were based on landscapes by J.M.W. Turner that depicted scenes before and after the flood described in the bible (or before and after chaos).  Andrews has painted his with dots in only four colours, yellow, magenta, cyan and black

An open book on a pedestal, a large picture of a painting on each page. Two paintings on a wall directly behind the book. The paintings on the wall are replicas of the ones in the book .

below: detail from ‘Crossing’, 2011, oil on canvas

close up of a painting of a large number of railway crossing signs.

below: close up of part of ‘Entrance/Exit’, 2014, oil on canvas

close up of a slightly abstract painting of a person about to go through a revolving door in a glass wall

of trees and queens

Posted: August 9, 2015 in galleries
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 Planet IndigenUS is a ten day festival co-produced by the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto and the Woodland Cultural Centre in Brantford. It features 300 artists with dance and music performances as well as visual art exhibits at a number of venues.  One of the venues is the gallery at Harbourfront Centre where a number of artists of Anishnabe heritage are showing their work.  Two of the artists are Christian Chapman and Scott Benesiinaabandan, and a sample of their work is presented here.

 

 Screenprints by Christian Chapman

print of an evergreen forest, a text in Ashishnabe language on top of the trees, hanging on a gallery wall gaawiin wiikaa ji gwerina-ka-nawich
miskwadessi opixwanak misa oi kitimagia
miskwadessi wag dash awessiwag
ji manaadji-a-ka-ni-watch

 never turn a turtle on its back so that it is helpless
turtles and all other animals are to be accorded respect

 

print of asky with clouds in red and orange tones, a text in Ashishnabe language on top of the trees, hanging on a gallery wall gaawiin wiikaa zaagi-dandaweken
wassetchiganatikong wayti-endaian
ai anike dibadjimowin eta ga nibodwach
sa gitinacasowug

never climb out a window in your house,
traditionally, only dead people are brought out like that

***

below: ‘God Save the Queen’ by Scott Benesiinaabandan
a series of photos in which the queen is partially covered by the artist’s Solidarity Flag

In an art gallery, a series of three large photographs of a statue of Queen Victoria. THe first picture is just the statue, the middle picture is a man starting to put a flag over the bottom part of the statue and the third picture is the flag on the statue. Flag is solidarity flag created by Scott Benesiinaabandan, black and blue background, red circle in the middle, yellow sun in the red circle

 

Rubiks cubes and crayons

Posted: August 6, 2015 in galleries
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The art of CubeWorks
now showing at Art/Exp gallery in the Distillery District

 CubeWorks is a group of artists that use unconventional materials to create images.  They are known for the art that they create using Rubik’s cubes but they also use crayons, lego blocks, records, dice, guitar picks, spools of thread, and other mixed media. The pictures below are just a sample.

below: A copy of ‘The Creation of Adam’ that Michaelangelo painted on the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel ceiling in the early 1500’s.  This image is made with 12,090 hand twisted Rubik’s cubes.

A copy of Michaelangelo's painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, The Creation of Adam where God is giving life to man with the meeting of finger tips.

below: On a smaller scale, Space Invaders made with 20 cubes.

Little green space invaders from the old video game made of Rubiks cubes, green space invaders on blue background.

below: Artworks made of crayons, LOVE and a smoking gun.
Each square is 12″ x 12″ and contains just over 1000 crayons.

An image of the famous LOVE red letters in a black and blue square, this one is made of red, black and blue crayons on end.

An image of a smoking revolver that is pointed at the viewer. It is made from 9 squares and each square is filled with crayons on their ends. The background is red crayons, the smoke is yellow crayons.

An image of a smoking revolver that is pointed at the viewer. It is made from 9 squares and each square is filled with crayons on their ends. The background is red crayons, the smoke is yellow crayons. A close up of some of the squares to show the crayons more clearly.

below:  The Joker’s face, made with spools of thread, hangs from the ceiling.

An image of the Joker's face made with spools of thread hangs from the ceiling.

below: Images made with old broken record albums, Amy Winehouse and Jim Morrison

image of Amy Winehouse made from broken records on a background that is a collage of newpaper pieces.

image of Jim Morrison, the guitar player from Doors, his head with facial features painted in black but his hair is made with broken records.

Gallery sign on the exterior of a brick building, square sign with purplish background. Art Exp is the name of the gallery

More information on CubeWorks

 

Picturing the Americas

Posted: July 30, 2015 in galleries
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Landscape paintings depicting scenes from the top of North America to the tip of South America
are on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario until Sept 2015.   The collection centers on just over 100 works that were painted between the early 1800s and the eary 1900s.

7 or 8 people in an art gallery looking at paintings that are hanging on the walls

below:  part of a painting, ‘Montmorency Falls’ by Guido Carmignani (Parma Italy 1838-1909)
oil on canvas,  1869

close up of part of a painting - Montmorency Falls by Guido Carmignani 1869, Italian hunters at the base of the falls (even though they are in Quebec) in summer time.

below: Fall Plowing, by Grant Wood (b. and d. Iowa USA),  1931, oil on canvas

painting on a wall in an art gallery of fields being harvested by Grant Wood

 

A man is looking at a wall of paintings. The wall is painted red. It is in an art gallery

close up of part of a painting including part of the intricately carved frame. THree men getting into a boat at the edge of a river

 below: part of “The Sidewheeler, the ‘City of St. Paul’ on the Mississippi River, Dubuque Iowa”
by Alfred Thompson Bricher (American), oil on canvas,  1872

close up of part of an oil painting showing an old paddle wheel steam boat on a river

Water’s Edge

Posted: July 25, 2015 in galleries, locations
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Water’s Edge
A Pan-American photography exhibit
produced by No.9: Contemporary Art & the Environment.

Two venues are involved, Union Station and Pearson Airport.  The photos below represent a sample of the photos on show at Union Station.

 

below: Bridge Glacier, British Columbia 2012, by James Balog, part of his study of vanishing glaciers.

large photographs, part of an exhibit at Union Station in Toronto -

below: Two black and white photographs by Sebastiao Salgado,
part of a photographic project titled ‘Genesis’.
One aim of ‘Genesis’ was to examine “the fragile beauty and grandeur of nature”.

large photographs, part of an exhibit at Union Station in Toronto -

below:  ‘The Anavilhanas’ taken in Amazonas Brazil, 2009 by Sebastiao Salgado.
Located on the Rio Negro, the Anivilhanas Archipelago is the world’s largest fresh water archipelago.  It is an unique ecosystem with over 400 river islands spread over 90 km.  The Rio Negro is 27 km at its widest point. During the rainy season (November to April) many of these islands are underwater.

large black and white photograph, part of an exhibit at Union Station in Toronto -

below: ‘Sarnia’ by Gustavo Jononovich, taken in Sarnia, from his “Free Shipping” series.

large photographs, part of an exhibit at Union Station in Toronto -

below: ‘Georgian Bay #1, Four Winds’, Point-au-Baril, Ontario  2009, by Edward Burtynsky.
This picture is part of his Water Series, a series that looks at changing water systems around the world as well as the relationship that we have with these water systems.

large photographs, part of an exhibit at Union Station in Toronto -

The exhibit ends on the 15th of August.

#myhomewaters

Warhol on Bloor Street

Posted: July 3, 2015 in galleries
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Andy Warhol Revisited
presented by Revolver Gallery,
on display at 77 Bloor St. West

below:  Three Andy Warhol’s watch the passersby on Bloor Street.

statues of Andy Warhol, one pink, one yellow and one blue, in a window of an art gallery, He's dressed in black, with black rimmed glasses and his hands are folded over his chest in all three statues. Life sized.

below:  Three prints from Warhol’s Mohammad Ali series

Two women are sitting ona silver couch in an art gallery. On the wall in front of them are 3 silkscreen Andy Warhol prints of Mohammad Ali.

 below:  Iconic Campbells soup cans on black and white stripes.  To the left, a young Lucille Ball and a young Ronald Regan amongst other cultural references.

prints of three Campbells soup cans on a black and white striped wall, cheddar cheese, old fashioned vegetable, and hot dog bean. To the left a woman is looking at other Andy Warhol prints on a wall including a print of Mickey Mouse, Lucille Ball and a young Ronald Regan.

below:  Prints from Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians series.

Some of Warhol's Cowboys and Indians series prints hang on a gallery wall as two young Asian men walk past. There is also a couple sitting on a silver coloured couch in the right side of the photo.

The exhibition continues until the end of December 2015 although apparently a new set of pictures will be shown starting sometime in October.

A collage of photos of Andy Warhol, many photos, about 100 or more

part picture, part ?

Posted: May 28, 2015 in galleries
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Part Picture,
an exhibit at MOCCA,
part of CONTACT Photography Festival

Like the introduction of film photography once usurped the role of painters and engravers, the introduction of digital photography has supplanted the photographer of old.  We are all photographers now.  A smartphone.  A little bit of software.  And presto, you have a picture.   Many, many bazillions of pictures.  Photography excels at visually telling stories, documenting events or capturing a moment in time either with a single image or in a series of photos.  The expression ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ comes to mind.  Even a blurry selfie says something.

Photography has always had an uneasy relationship with art (with the fine art, visual artsy stuff in particular).  This art, while also visual, often has a slightly different focus.  It too aims to elicit emotions and reactions but no one expects an artwork to document or to tell a story albeit some do.  But art too is in flux (and probably has been for a while).   What hasn’t already been done?  What rules are left to break?

So what’s a photographer to do?

 

pictures on a gallery wall. the picture in the foreground has 4 coloured wires protruding from it, 2 yellow and 2 red.

Part of the description of this exhibit states: “placing photography in conversation with other artistic mediums – particularly painting and sculpture – to create hybrid works that are only part picture”.

pictures on an art gallery wall. In the middle of the room is a large roll of photographic paper that has been developed with streaks of colour. It hangs from the ceiling and lays on the floor.

Experiments with chemicals on photographic paper; experiments with photoshop artifacts as part of the image;  experiments with how one frames or hangs a picture.  What is photography anyhow?

two pictures on a wall of a gallery. The one on the right is of pink flowers and is in a metal frame. The one on the left is an abstract of white and black that looks like cracks in a white surface

Four pictures on an art gallery wall, all abstract. One of them protrudes from the wall at a 90 degree angle.

below: close up of part of the picture from above, the one that is hung perpendicular to the wall.

close up of what looks like a collage

Just because something is different doesn’t mean that it’s good just as not all experiments are a success but  kudos to those who try.  I will leave it to you to decide which category (good/bad) these pictures fall into.

ivory, stone, and bone

Posted: May 22, 2015 in galleries
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Animals, people, and figures from his Inuit culture and tradition
carved and sculpted from bones, ivory and stones,

the work of Manasie Akapaliapik, Art Gallery of Ontario, until June 2015

part of a sculpture by Manasie Akpaliapik made of bone, ivory and stone, a man's face

part of a sculpture by Manasie Akpaliapik made of bone, ivory and stone, a person's face

part of a sculpture by Manasie Akpaliapik made of bone, ivory and stone, the head of a walrus
part of a sculpture by Manasie Akpaliapik made of bone, ivory and stone, a man like creature with a man's face but with walrus tusks

beached at the waterfront

Posted: May 8, 2015 in galleries, waterfront
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‘The Death of a Journey V’ by Zineb Sedira,
at the Power Plant, Harbourfront,
south exterior wall facing the waterfront.
19 ft x 31 ft

This is a photograph that appears in Sedira’s ‘Shipwrecks’ series, a picture of the ‘United Malika’ that ran aground enroute to a shipping graveyard near Nouadhibou Mauritania in 2003.

A large photograph by Zineb Sadira of an old ship that lies rusting on the shore. A tree is in front of the photo. Although it is rusting, the ship is intact.

Although it is part of the CONTACT photography festival, it is scheduled to remain until September.

Demolition at MOCCA

Posted: May 7, 2015 in galleries
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‘Demolition Site’ by Jihyun Jung,
at MOCCA as part of the CONTACT photography festival

This Korean artist visits demolition sites where he paints one of the rooms red.
Over time, he documents the changes to this room as demolition proceeds.

below:  One of his photographs of a red room covers the entire wall at MOCCA.

 A large photograph of the inside of an abandoned building. The interior walls have been painted red. Rubble has started spilling into the hall from the demolition of the rest of the building.

One of the walls of the courtyard in front of MOCCA is covered with one of his photographs.   It is 30 feet long.  Very annoyingly, a car was parked in front of it the day I was there.  It was promoting a car dealership in return for their support of an exhibit at the gallery that shares courtyard space with MOCCA.   The two planters with the tall evergreens are very tacky too.

A large photograph (30 feet long) that covers the side of a building. The photo is of a building being demolished. It is to scale with the real building.

A close up of A large photograph (30 feet long) that covers the side of a building. The photo is of a building being demolished. It is to scale with the real building.

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