as I walk Toronto

Weems, all about town

Posted: May 30, 2019 in events, galleries
Tags: Blending the Blues, Carrie Mae Weems, CONTACT, Contact Gallery, Contact photography festival, galleries, Heave, Justina M. Barnicke gallery, King Street West, people, photography, Scene and Take, Slow Fade to Black

Each year the CONTACT Photography Festival spotlights a few artists. This year, Carrie Mae Weems is one of them. As I’ve walked around Toronto the past month I have tried to check out all the place where Weems’s work is on display.

below: On Spadina, just north of King is a large portrait of Mary J. Bilge (singer and actor) in red with the title “Anointed”. In the photo, Bilge is being crowned by Weems.

below: A small pink photo of a girl in the parking lot that is adjacent to the building where the above photo is mounted. The marks on the girl’s face are problems with the display case, not with the photo.

***

below: At the Contact Gallery, 80 Spadina Avenue, part of ‘Blending the Blues’ which is collection of images from a few different projects that Weems has done over her thirty year career. The picture shown here is “Untitled” 2017.

below: From ‘Blue Notes” 2014-2015 which involves blue toned images of people with coloured rectangles obscuring part of their faces. The picture on the right is a copy of the Booking Sheet for Sandra Bland who was charged with assaulting a public servant (i.e. police officer) in July 2015. She was died in police custody a three days later.

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“Scenes and Take”, 2016, is composed of two large photos (“Director’s Cut” and “The Bad and the Beautiful” below) on the outside walls of the TIFF Bell Lightbox at the corner of King West and Widmer Streets. Each photograph is accompanied by text which reads as a summary for movie. For instance, the text for “The Bad and the Beautiful” starts as “The Plot: Bright and beautiful, a young would-be starlet in Hollywood seeking fame and fortune. Along the way, she encounters erroneous assumptions, bad luck, and dangerous men.”

The photos are of Weems as a muse, or the embodiment of the black female gaze. She places herself on the set of ‘Scandal’, a series created by Shonda Rhimes and starring Kerry Washington.

‘Slow Fade to Black’, 2010, is a series of large posters on King Street West near Metro Hall – black performers slowly fading from fame and memory. They address the representation of Black women in popular culture

‘Slow Fade to Black’ was also the name of a book subtitled, the Negro in American Film 1900-1942 written by Thomas Cripps and published in 1977.

Performers, all black women, portrayed in this series: Katherine Dunham, Koko Taylor, Eartha Kitt, Abbey Lincoln, Dinah Washington (twice), Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Bassey, Josephine Baker (twice), Mahalia Jackson, Leontyne Price, and Nina Simone.

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And last, at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (the Art Museum at the University of Toronto), is ‘Heave’. From the gallery’s website, “multi-part installation Heave combines photography, video, news media sampling, as well as ephemera to probe the devastating effects of violence in our life and time. The complex installation explores the spectacle of violence in our contemporary lives relocating this present within sustained histories of conflict and uprising.”

There’s always something

Posted: May 29, 2019 in general Toronto, old buildings, people
Tags: buildings, College Park, Confederation Life building, Dundas Square, Dundas Street, fountain, Fran's, frog, mural, park, people, sculpture, Senator restaurant, signs, street, Victoria Street, water

Something new or something different.
And for sure, something’s changed.

below: Too cool for school. Dundas Square.

below: The north east corner of Victoria and Lombard (looking north on Victoria).

below: This building is on the north west corner of Victoria and Richmond. It is the Confederation Life building, constructed in 1892. According to Wikipedia, afire gutted the top floor of the building and destroyed the roof in June 1981 but the rest of the structure remained intact.

below: A 1912 picture of the Confederation Life Building. Photo source

below: Fran’s restaurant at the corner of Victoria and Shuter – a Toronto institution.

below: And just a bit farther north on Victoria is the Senator which is even older than Fran’s. That’s a lot of food!

below: Signs on Victoria Street including a marvelous old Green P Parking sign.

below: Protest poster with a message for Prime Minister Trudeau. Will you compensate us for the mercury crisis?

below: Breaking my habit of not photographing people sleeping on the streets – it was the large green frog pillow that made me chuckle and reach for my camera.

below: And speaking of frogs, a group of them have appeared at College Park. A group of frogs is called an army… but if these are actually toads then a group of toads is a knot. Hmm…. frogs prefer water while toads live on land. There are also differences in their eggs, tongues and teeth but the most noticeable difference is in their eyes. Frogs have round eyes that bulge out. Toads eyes are more oval and don’t bulge. Conclusion – these are frogs searching for water.

below: Looking north on Yonge street towards Alexander. The very tall building is at Yonge & Bloor.

below: More Yonge Street. Another juxtaposition of old and new; the opportunities for this kind of image are becoming commonplace. Also, I could probably take pictures on Yonge every day and still miss some of the changes.

below: Plaid, paw prints, and pink

below: One is happier than the others.

below: Dundas Street, just west of University Ave., looking towards Simcoe and St. Patrick streets.

below: North side of Dundas street, just west of Bay.

below: Who doesn’t like bacon? I prefer mine a bit crispier.

“Days go running and hiding
The weeks are going slippy and sliding
Years leave quicker every time they come”
from “When We Were Young” by Passenger

EMSF walk about

Posted: May 27, 2019 in events, transportation
Tags: Crosstown, Eglinton, EMSF, light rail, light rail vehicles, LRT, maintenance, Metrolinx, Mt Dennis, public transit, train, transit, TTC

Open Doors was this past weekend in Toronto. For one day only, the new maintenance facility for the Eglinton Crosstown in Mt Dennis was open to the public, the EMSF (Eglinton Maintenace and Storage Facility). Although the new trains (aka light rail vehicles) are very much like the new TTC streetcars and the new maintenance buildings resemble the Leslie Barns, here are a few glimpses of what is to come.

below: The parking lot and pedestrian access to the EMSF is off Industry Street.

below: Exterior of new Crosstown light rail vehicle. Six new vehicles have been delivered from Bombardier so far. Another seventy are expected to arrive before the Crosstown opens in 2021.

below: Interior, looking towards the front.

below: The AVIS facility – Automated Vehicle Inspection Station

below: Looking into the maintenance building.

below: The site takes up 42 acres of land. There are 8.5 kms of track.

Not shown: There is also a building for Transit Operations.

rants in the alley

Posted: May 25, 2019 in alleys, graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: alley, demolition, filming, graffiti, Graffiti Alley, lane, memorial, Nipsey Hussle, rants, Rick Mercer, smile, street art, students, video

Today’s wander down Graffiti Alley yielded more than just a few new paintings and bits of graffiti. I also came across a group of students from da Vinci school who were there doing an assignment that involved filming each other giving rants in the alley.

below: Nipsey Hussle memorial mural by Sum Artist

below: Smile!

Today’s encounter reminded me that I once encountered Rick Mercer in the alley as he filmed a rant for his TV program – photo from October 2011.

One last thing that I want to address here – maybe you could call it a rant of my own. Except that it will be in pictures not words. There’s something new in Graffiti Alley; it’s not unexpected but that doesn’t make it any easier, or better. The old Stephenson Rental building is on its way down.

In fact, it’s mostly down.

and mostly sad

Queen Street Raptor

Posted: May 24, 2019 in graffiti and street art
Tags: basketball, Kawhi Leonard, mural, NBA, playoffs, Queen St. West, Raptors, Toronto Raptors

Kawhi Leonard, bigger than life, on Queen Street West.

I came across this mural of Kawhi Leonard a few days ago. When I tried to find out when the picture was painted and who the artist was, I discovered that the mural had already been updated.

So back I went – to what has become a popular spot. Now the picture is Kawhi’s game-winning shot in the final seconds of the final game against the Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference semi-finals.

By the way, it’s not painted. It’s printed on vinyl in 6 panels and then stuck on the wall. And the storefront that it’s on? No sign? It’s ‘OD Toronto’ which is a consignment store with more Kawhi murals and stuff inside.

In case you haven’t heard, Raptors won last night to lead the NBA Eastern Conference finals 3 games to 2 against the Milwaukee Bucks. The next game is tomorrow night (Saturday). If the Raptors win tomorrow, they advance to the NBA Finals for the first time ever…. and the parties will begin. If they lose tomorrow, one more game will be played on Monday night. The Western Conference finals are already over; the Golden State Warriors beat the Portland Trailblazers in four straight games.

UPDATES:
1. A third mural appeared after here the Raptors won the Eastern Conference championship.
2. Another Raptors mural, near Dundas & Sherbourne

Craven Road once more

Posted: May 23, 2019 in locations
Tags: art, boots, cat, clock, Craven Road, dolls, fence, figurines, flag, found objects, frames, geraniums, houses, pictures, planters, signs, stuff

I went back to Craven Road this morning to see if anything had changed. The last time I blogged about this street was in November 2016. As with many things in life, some things have changed while other things remain the same. A quick tour of the street …..

below: Some of the cat paintings are there still.

below: These two paintings have been here since at least 2015 although the vines have started to grow over them. Once the leaves reappear (soon), the paintings won’t be quite so visible.

below: The sheep painting by Christine Kowal is still there

below: On the other side of the fence, backyards on Ashdale.

below: There is still a section of the fence that has been decorated with found objects.

below: Parking for pirates only. It was five past twelve when I took this picture so either it’s a functional clock or I happened past at a very fortuitous time.

below: A creepy doll and boots to watch you.

below: A faded bunny from days gone by, holding a little watering can perhaps to water the metallic leaves?

below: Part of a collection of found objects in front of a house. The gallery has expanded!

below: Today I met Johnny, the King of Craven Road. He mentioned that he appears in a video about Craven Road so I looked it up (on Vimeo, “Craven Road – Director’s Cut). The video was made five years ago which pre-dates the collection of objects that he’s standing in front of in the photo. If you watch the video, you will see some of the cat, and other, paintings.

below: A door knocker beside a front door.

below: One of the older houses on the street being renovated.

below: Grass and dandelions in their own little enclosure.

below: Red and yellow tulips in a small front yard that the fence is having trouble containing.

below: Geraniums in the planters on the fence

Women in Focus

Posted: May 19, 2019 in galleries
Tags: AGO, Alfred Eisenstaedt, art, Art Gallery of Ontario, drawing, Germaine Richier, graphite, Hanja Holm, Herbert Bayer, Ilse Bing, Jesus, Lotte Jacobi, Mary, painting, photography, Rudolph Koppitz, spider web, To Fix the Image in Memory, Vija Celmins, water, Women in Focus

‘Women in Focus’ is the name of a photography exhibit on at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) at the moment. I want to talk about that exhibit in this blog post but I also want to expand the post to include a few other women at the AGO that caught my eye the other day when I was there.

below: A woman’s portrait by Modigliani and a sculpture of a female form in the room beyond. The latter is “The Leaf”, 1948, by Germaine Richier. She’s a forlorn figure, standing naked and all alone.

***

The ‘Women in Focus, 1920s – 1940s,’ exhibit is fascinating. The history, not only of photography but also of the subject matter, is wonderful. The world was changing. Photography was there to be a part of that change as well as document it. Cameras and processing techniques advanced. Magazines flourished. The way that we looked at the world and at ourselves evolved. Photography became an artform.

below: ‘Hanja Holm with dance group, New York’, around 1938, by Lotte Jacobi. Gelatin Silver print. The photo is actually sepia toned and not as ‘black and white’ as shown here. Hanja/Hanya Holm (1893-1992) was the stage name of a German born choreographer and dancer; she was Johanna Kuntze (nee Eckert) but considered her name “too heavy” for a dancer. She is also considered one of the founders of American modern dance.

below: ‘St. Moritz, Frau Wernod-Gtoffel with a modern film camera’, 1932, by Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898-1995). Eisenstaedt began his career in 1929 with the Associated Press in Germany. Because of the war he emigrated to the USA in 1935 where he became a photographer for ‘Life’ magazine. I love the old camera… and what’s that in her mouth?

below: ‘Bewegungsstudie’ (‘Movement Study’) 1926 by Rudolph Koppitz (Austrian, 1884-1936), bromoil print. Koppitz was a leading avant-garde photographer of his time. Bromoil prints are slightly fuzzier than other photographs as the image is produced with an oil based paint.

below: ‘Sea of Ice (Genevieve)’, 1935, by Ilse Bing (1899-1998). Bing was born in Frankfurt Germany. She spent the early part of her career in Paris before moving to the USA in 1941. The exhibit at the AGO includes more of her work (and it’s all good).

below: “Good Night Marie’, 1932, by Herbert Bayer (1900-1985). It looks very contrived, doesn’t it? The study of the nude as a photographic skill – getting the skin tones right and all that. Or is it just soft porn?

below: On the left is ‘Colette’, 1939, by Giselle Freund (1908-2000). Colette (1873-1954) was a French author and in this picture she is writing in bed. Her best known book was ‘Gigi’. She was nominated for a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. The other picture is a portrait of Virginia Woolf, also a writer, by Man Ray (1890-1976).

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Vija Celmins was born in Latvia just before the Soviets invaded during WW2. She emigrated to the USA and settled first in California and then in New York City. ‘To Fix the Image in Memory‘ is a retrospective of her work at the AGO (until 5th August). Most of her work is in very muted tones if not shades of grey.

below: Five of a series of drawings (there are 6 in the series) of water done in graphite (i.e. pencil). One is the original and five are copies of it. These photos are small but I think that you can see that they are of the same waves. A lot of her work was intense – detailed drawings of water and the desert floor. She also did a series of drawings and paintings of stars in the sky.

below: A spider web painted in oils on linen. Celmins experimented with pictures of spider webs done in different media on different surfaces. This was my favorite – muted and slightly blurry.

below: I’ve cheated a bit here…. this is a screenshot of the top part of the results of a google image search on Celmins’ name. It gives you a much better sense of her work that I can convey.

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As I was walking towards the exit of the AGO I was still thinking about how women are portrayed in art. I found myself in the ‘religious art’ section of the gallery, from a time in history when the church was a major patron of the arts in Western culture. Apparently, it wasn’t a good time for women. There are plenty of Mary’s either in her virgin mother role or seen weeping at the foot of the cross, but there is a dearth of other women. Ponder that for a while but try not to get too depressed. And while you ponder, here is a photo of a small white statue bathed in light coming through a stained glass window. Mary’s watching over you.

GAWD’s animals

Posted: May 18, 2019 in graffiti and street art
Tags: animals, birds, blue, Christopher Ross, dragonfly, GAWD, mural, mushrooms, paint, pigs, pink, Runnymede Road, underpass

Just south of St. Clair West, Runnymede Road runs under the CP train tracks. In the summer of 2017 the wall on the west side of the underpass a mural was painted by Christopher Ross (aka GAWD). It is a collection of animals, mostly in shades of pink and blue – dragonfly, pigs, birds, and more. Most of the animals are in pairs.

At one end of the mural, this little engine sits on a tree stump.

wall blobs

Posted: May 18, 2019 in graffiti and street art
Tags: black and white, Jeremy Lynch, paste up, photos, Runnymede Rd., street art, underpass, water photograms

I’ve called them blobs for lack of a better word. It’s almost as if someone’s conceptual art project was released into the wild.

below: These two blobs look a like amoebas, or other single cell life forms. Can’t you picture them swimming in a pool of muddy water?

below: There is definitely a “life form” quality to them. With a little imagination, the middle one looks like a chicken embryo inside an egg. In fact, all three could be embryonic.

below: Now the life forms have evolved a bit and developed tentacles or little stringy bits like a jellyfish has. They seem to be interacting.

Have fun with them!
I found them on a wall on Runnymede Road just south of the CPR tracks at St. Clair.

UPDATE: These blobs are water photograms produced by ‘J’ . A photogram is an image made without a camera; objects (in this case, water) are placed directly on light sensitive paper. When a light is shone onto the objects, different shades of grey are produced depending on how much light reaches that paper surface. The more light, the blacker that area of the image becomes. White areas are produced by objects that allow no light to pass through.

East Bayside

Posted: May 17, 2019 in construction, old buildings, waterfront
Tags: chairs, condos, construction, development, film, lights, LRT, offices, pink umbrellas, sand, sugar beach

The other evening I was going to try some evening photography along the waterfront starting around Sugar Beach. As I walked down Lower Jarvis, this view caught my attention – looking west along Lakeshore Blvd. It’s a view that has been changing very rapidly. I counted at least seven cranes as I stood there waiting for some of the traffic to clear.

below: Sugar Beach. Unfortunately a film crew was already here so I didn’t stick around.

below: One of the buildings to the east of Sugar Beach is a new George Brown College building.

below: Film crew trucks ready to be loaded back up

The strip of green that you see on the right side of the above photo is part of Sherbourne Common (at the foot of Lower Sherbourne Street). From here east to Parliament is now being developed as East Bayside and is a continuation of the now completed development from Jarvis (Sugar Beach) to Sherbourne. East Bayside is bounded by Queens Quay and Lake Ontario as well as Sherbourne and Parliament. 1800 residences are planned in this space.

below: Some of the condos are under construction. Same old same old; yawn. They may look a little more interesting from a distance, but at street level they are hopelessly banal. If you want to buy a condo here, there are only a few left in the two buildings known as Aqualina and Aquabella. In the latter, only 3 are available, starting at a two bedroom suite for 2.8 million. Five million dollars will get you a three bedroom penthouse with two terraces but if you want to pay an additional 1 1/2 million you get 4,000 square feet on two floors (3 bedrooms and 2 terraces as well).

below: At least the “linear park” and waterfront path is being continued eastward along Lake Ontario.

below: Work is also underway on Queens Quay East. As a frame of reference, the tall building behind the billboard is in the Distillery District. Lakeshore Blvd and the Gardiner run behind the buildings with the blue trim.

What hasn’t yet been started is construction of two office buildings that will front on Queens Quay, called T3 Bayside. They are going to be made of wood which should be interesting.

There has been a lot of talk for the past 12 to 14 years about extending streetcar service along this route. So far a lot of planning and a lot of talk but that’s it. An LRT right of way running along the south side of the street has been approved but the East Bayfront LRT project, (aka Waterfront LRT) has stalled because of the usual political shenanigans and financial hiccups. A major part of the delay has been the question of how to link an East Bayfront LRT to Union station. The present tunnel is barely sufficient for the streetcars that use it now. Just recently (April 2019) the city released a report on how to address this issue. I haven’t read it all yet (it’s 40 pages long) but the gist of it is that the city is considering two options – 1. rebuilding the tunnel or 2. building an automated people moving system of some sort and leave all streetcars out of the tunnel.

below: There is a small trench down the center of the street.

Any ideas what’s being planned for the north side of Queens Quay?

below: Queens Quay turns towards Parliament Street. The blue building is a Sidewalk Labs information centre. The land that Sidewalk Labs wants to develop, Quayside, is close by – south of Lakeshore and east of Parliament. It also includes the little strip of land between Queens Quay and Lakeshore, i.e. that answers my question above about what happens on the north side of Queens Quay. There was some rumour (plan?) about Sidewalk Labs being involved in development of some of the Portlands but is that still on? As to what their plans are or where they are at now, I have no idea. That’s probably another blog post!

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