Revelation Day of Khalsa celebration at Nathan Phillips Square.
Fabulous colours and smells.
And LOTS of people! The people came from around Ontario as well as some from New York state.
below: There was free food for everyone.
below: There was a place for prayer
May is CONTACT Photography month in Toronto and like in previous years, some galleries start the month early. One of these galleries is the Ryerson Image Centre. This year, in the main gallery they are featuring the work of Shelley Niro, the 2017 winner of the Scotiabank Photography Award. You may have seen some of her work at the AGO where her shirts series of photos is also on display. Outside the building, in Devonian Square, there are large colourful abstract images glued onto large rocks. These are the work of Scott Benesiinaabandan, a Montreal-based artist from the Obishikokaang Anishinabe First Nation.
below: First, the poster/sign at the entrance to the Ryerson Image Centre. The four images on the left are from Niro’s shirt series of pictures – the full series is shown inside the gallery. There is also a video from 2003 that features this woman and the T-shirts standing in this location.
below: A series of three photos framed together titled ‘Mohawk Worker’. It is one of a series of six triples called ‘This Land is Mime Land’ (Apparently there are 12 in the series, but only 6 are on display here). Each set in the series has an old sepia toned black and white photo in the center, a casual posed photo on the right (of the same woman in each), and a posed, hand coloured ‘parody’ photo on the left. In this case, she is dressed in working clothes and a hard hat, but she’s applying lipstick and has a small compact mirror in her left hand. Other works in this series include, ‘Love Me Tender’ with the woman dressed as Elvis, and ‘Final Frontier’ with the woman dressed in a Star Trek outfit.
below: One of another set of pictures. Hand painted black and white photos of these women posing (hamming it up) for the camera. They are on the yellow brick road, and like Dorothy on her way to see the Wizard, they are wearing red shoes. “Red Heels Hord” 1991. It, like a lot of her work, challenges the stereotypes and cliches of Native American women.
Shelley Niro was born in 1954 in Niagara Falls NY and grew up on the Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve near Brantford. She graduated from OCA and a masters in Fine Art from the University of Western Ontario.
below: Four photos from “Are You My Sister?” 1994. This is only part (4/12) of the series. The glass was very reflective so you can see the shirt series that was on the opposite wall. Like most of her work, the matte has been hand decorated. In this case, patterns are made with performations in the matte.
Scott Benesiinaabandan’s installation, ‘newlandia: debaabaminaagwad’ is in two parts. First, on the sidewalk in front of the statue of Egerton Ryerson, the man who founded the University, is an image that has been glued to the ground. Parts of that statue have been used in the making of the image – it’s not too easy to see in this photo, but the top part of the image is the same shape as the top of the statue of Ryerson. Maybe you can see the purple draped head and the outstretched arm. It’s like the statue has been draped with cloth and/or pictures. In fact, the images used to create this were taken from photographs that Benesiinaabandan took of three First Nations flags.
below: The other part of ‘newlandia: debaabaminaagwad’ consists of large images adhere to rocks in the square, taking on the texture of the rocks.
Both of these artist have their own websites:
1. Scott Benesiinaabandan
2. Shelley Niro
subtitle: Finding treasures
Hidden behind ivy, on a building at Ryerson University, are three relief sculptures of men in athletic poses. There’s also a line of trees beside the building that they are on. No wonder I’ve missed them on previous walks down Nelson Mandela Way. Today the light was shining on them just the right way .
below: Javelin thrower. Does his left arm look a little awkward?
below: Man with a ball, and covered with ivy vines which was designed in 1962 by Elizabeth Wyn Wood (They are all the work of the same artist?)
below: Lifting weights.
Elizabeth Winifred Wood (1903-1966), also known as Elizabeth Wyn Wood, was born in Orillia. She graduated from OCA (Ontario College of Art) in 1925. Throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s, many new buildings in Toronto were decorated with relief sculptures on their exterior walls. Although many of these buildings have since been demolished, you can still see some sculptures as you walk around downtown. By the time that Wyn Wood designed these (and other) sculptures for Ryerson in the early 1960’s, the use of relief sculptures in this context was fading.
Yonge Street was quiet this morning
In a small park near the SE corner of Yonge & Finch,
in many languages but with one voice,
a memorial wall to those who lost their life, or who were injured,
in yesterday’s tragedy.
There were many reporters with their cameramen at the site this morning. It was rumoured that Mayor John Tory was coming. I had an appointment, which is why I was in the area, so I couldn’t stay. As it turned out, both Tory and Kathleen Wynne (Ontario Premier) paid the memorial wall a visit.
Dots, dots, dots. Millions of dots? Dots and lights worth waiting for.
‘Infinity Mirrors’, Yayoi Kusama, AGO
Kusama’s polka-dot paintings were based on visual hallucinations she has experienced throughout her life, often based on “a miserable childhood as an unwanted child born of unloving parents.” These hallucinations often involve repeating patterns that engulf her field of vision, a process she refers to as “obliteration”. Painting has helped to keep her demons at bay, to obliterate her anxieties.
In 1968 she returned to Japan. In 1977 she checked herself into the Tokyo mental hospital where she has lived ever since. She has a studio where she works during the day but she returns to the hospital at night.
below: In an effort to keep the waiting times down, the AGO is letting three people at a time into the rooms. I’m not sure who the man is, but he seemed to put up with Joanne and I and our cameras! This was the first room in the exhibit and it was a bit of a let down – it was the only one that wasn’t impressive. Minor gripe – why not a mirror on the ceiling?
below: 30 seconds per visit. All timed – note the stopwatch!
below: Stars and planets into infinite. Small specks in the vastness of the universe. Obliteration of the self as we become just a very tiny, minuscule dot in the infinite of space. This exhibit is “The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away” and is made with hundreds of hanging LED lights.
below: The words on the wall say, “The souls of millions of light years away”. This is the line-up for the room above. It was one of the shorter lines.
Kusama was born in Japan in 1929 and trained originally in traditional Japanese painting. One of the only American painters that she knew of was Georgia O’Keefe, having seen her work in an art book. She wrote to Georgia O’Keefe asking for advice on how to break into the New York art world. In 1958 she moved to New York City where she became part of the avant-garde art scene. She was into pop art and hippie counterculture. She organized a series of anti-war public performances featuring naked people who were painted with brightly colored polka dots.
below: This room was fun especially since I got to spend a few seconds alone in it. Dancing with pink balls.
below: Looking into “Love Forever” – a small hexagonal box with some mirrors on the outside and two small windows (peepholes!) as seen from the outside. This structure/exhibit was first shown in 1966.
below: Looking in the window…. It’s amazing what can be done with mirrors and lights in a small space. Mirrors combined with the technology of LED lights that can change colours with computer controlled programs made for an impressive display. An endless repetition of patterns.
below: Same room, different colours
below: Obliteration Room – multicoloured stickers that people have added to an all white room with all white furniture and accessories like wine glasses and dog dishes. As more people pass through, the more colourful the room becomes. The dots make it difficult to see the details in the room. Can you tell what is on the table?
Kusama also paints and makes sculptures.
Thanks to Joanne of My Live Lived Full for playing with me!
Last weekend
This weekend
I hope that you all had a great weekend! It was fabulous to be out and about enjoying the warm weather – everyone is happier when the sun shines and the snow melts! The following pictures were taken today when I was out walking along Queen West, people watching as I went.
below: Street artist SKAM and his graffiti tag. The original was painted in 2012 and had not been tagged over or messed up too much. Some of the paint was peeling so it was time for a make over.
below: Part of the latest Uber5000 mural is reflected in the window as SKAM paints.
below: Trinity Bellwoods Park (This is also where the ‘believe’ in yellow is woven into the chainlink fence – photo above).
below: The albino squirrel of Trinity Bellwoods Park – he’s up here somewhere!
below: Found him!
below: Reaching for a coffee
below: Walking the dog!
below: It wasn’t a happy day for everyone.
below: Smoking room
below: Supporting the locals. It’s also play-off time of the year and this year both the Toronto Raptors and the Toronto Maple Leafs are still in the playoffs in their respective sports.
Welcome spring!
April 20, 4/20, 420 day with its annual marijuana protest. The nature of the “protest” has changed over the years now that the fight for legalization is almost over. This year was more like a group of friends hanging out together at Nathan Phillips Square and enjoying the warmest day that we’ve had in a while. A few items, seeds, edibles, etc, were available for sale. The group didn’t have a permit for the event (they were turned down) but that didn’t stop them. The police (and other security) presence was very visible but confrontations were kept to a minimum – at least for the time that I was there which was early on. I left while Nathan Phillips Square wasn’t crowded.
below: Green whistles were distributed and there were times when the sound they made was quite loud!
A few pictures of flowers from Allan Gardens Conservatory today. We all want spring. The warmth of spring…. and the colours of spring like the shades of blue and purple in the hyancinths above.
A few florals to warm your soul. Soon it will be spring and we can put away our winter layers.
A return to St. Helens Avenue and the galleries there.
A few galleries devoted to contemporary art can be found on St. Helens Ave. I know that I have mentioned some of their past exhibits in previous blog posts. Exhibits change and so back we go. The three exhibits that I saw today have little in common with each other. Three artists with different views; three men trying to turn their thoughts and ideas into something visual. The first gallery that I visited today is the Clint Roenisch Gallery where the exhibit is “Hot Takes, No Sax”, by Torontonian Niall McClelland. It will be there until 21st April.
From Wiktionary: “Noun[edit]. hot take (plural hot takes). A bold, broad, and subjective moral generalization on a situation, with little or no original analysis or insight, especially by a journalist.” Something written quickly and without much thought put into it. Although some people associate it with journalism, you could also apply it to a lot of things online – think about the comments section after a news article, or something on your facebook or twitter feed. Sometimes I think that that expression applies well to contemporary art – thrown together to provoke but not much actually went into it.
below: Running diagonally across the room is a line of trunks and metal cases that are covered with bumper stickers. On the wall are 4 images, each with a black and white background. The frames are covered with more bumper stickers. This is only part of the exhibit.
below: These are the three images on the wall in the photo above. The frame on one side of the image on the left has the names of four American politicians from the not so recent past – Nixon, Goldwater, McGovern, and Carter. Some of the images may be familiar to you as well.
below: More of the stickers. Is there a theme to them? How do these relate to hot takes? Which side is the artist on? “Urban farmer”, “When you sit down for dinner, thank a farmer”, “Impeach Trump”, “Give a hoot”, “The times they are a changin”, “Be green”, “Bio fuels: no war required”, “Who’s your farmer?”, “I’d rather be gardening”, “Nasty woman”, “Break the chains, shop at independent stores”, “Saving seed is a basic human need”, “Localvore”, “Whatever happens to the water, happens to the people”, “What is the proper way to fold an anarchist flag?”
Next is Douglas Coupland’s “Tsunami” at Daniel Faria Gallery, until 28th April. Trashy in a certain way. Coupland has collected, cleaned and painted various plastic containers and other disposable items he found along the shore in British Columbia. A number of the items probably crossed the Pacific Ocean after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011. Trash on display? We’ve all heard the expression “reduce, reuse, recycle” which may be facetious here? Is it too pretty to be a statement about the environmental impact of plastics?
below: The large gold piece is a collection of more debris that Coupland has amassed and painted. Another one, all in black, is on a different wall (not shown here).
This spring, Coupland will transform the Vancouver Aquarium into a vision of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by filling aquarium tanks with some of the trash that Coupland has collected – by some I mean 20 tons of it. Twenty tons of found rubbish. Twenty tons of plastic and other debris. Jet streams will simulate ocean currents and the garbage will “float, bounce, disperse and gather along the tank, fragments flowing into one another like an overwhelming and exhausted assemblage”.
below: Tucked away in the back room of the gallery are four paintings like this, also by Douglas Coupland.
Part three is the exhibit “Raw War” by Bruce Eves that is on at the Robert Kananaj Gallery until 21st April. Eves was just given one of the 2018 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
“taps into a zeitgeist fraught with peril”
below: Part of Work #901 by Bruce Eves. There are seven panels in total. Every hour for a week in February 2014 he took his heart rate. The numbers in the squares are his heart rate. It’s difficult to see in this picture, but each square also has the date and time. In addition, each panel is a day. Something happened on Friday February 14th at 16:00 to elevate his heart rate to 123 beats/minute!
Eves has also painted a sequence of numbers that are actually nine blood pressure readings. It was after he learned that he had a heart condition that Eves started using his health (and the monitoring thereof) as subject matter. A self-portrait based on data about oneself, so to speak. How his doctor sees him.
A few things to think about?
(P.S. My apologies for the title)
Well, that was quite a weekend. An April winter storm with snow, sleet, ice pellets, freezing rain, and even some just plain rain. The streets were icy and the sidewalks were slushy and wet. Chunks of ice have fallen off roofs, tree branches have broken off with the weight of the ice that formed on them. And then there was the wind that blew hard. Of course I went out!
below: Dressed in our April finery. Black parkas.
below: There is a small, but interesting, exhibit at the Toronto Reference Library at Yonge and Asquith that I wanted to see. It’s called ‘Toronto Revealed’ and it’s in the TD Gallery on the main floor. It features drawings and paintings of Toronto’s past.
below: One of the paintings in the exhibit is this one, ‘Cherry Street Hotel’ by Gerard Lazare (1978). The Cherry Street Hotel was built in 1890 at the corner of Cherry and Front Streets. It later became the Canary Restaurant (1965-2010). The building is still there but it stands empty.
below: There was a display of small artworks by Nicholas Hornyansky (1896-1965), including this one of St. James Cathedral (1938). Hornyansky was born in Hungary and immigrated to Canada in 1929. He is known for the etchings and aquatints (another print making technique) that he did of Toronto buildings and landscapes.
below: Most of the paintings were very realistic (documentary) except this one – a wacky view of Bloor Street looking west from Yonge towards Bay by Carlos Marchiori, painted in acrylic in 1976. Even then, it is fairly true to reality. The darker tower on the right is on the NW corner of Bloor and Yonge. Stollerys store (the low building on the SW corner) is long gone.
While I was at the library, I wandered around and took a few pictures of its vast open spaces. It was warm and dry! I was expecting to be told to put my camera away, but no one seemed to care.
below: Most were too busy working to notice.
below: One more picture from the ‘Toronto Revealed’ exhibit is this painting of the intersection of King and Jarvis by Vernon Mould. It was painted in 1979. Was gas really 20 cents a gallon in 1979? No! That was the year that prices went metric and a litre of gas was 20 cents. I came back to this picture because I chose to chase down that intersection to see what it looks like today.
below: Et voici, same intersection, approximately the same angle. There is now a building (with a Second Cup on the ground floor) where Mould would have stood. By the looks of it, the three storey brick building on the NE corner has been fixed up since 1979. So glad to see that it hasn’t been replaced by a glass condo tower!
below: I wanted to find out more about the building, so I googled Sportsman’s Shop and I found a wonderful old picture of it from the 1970’s, obviously taken before it was renovated. Apparently, it was fixed up in the early 1980s.
photo credit: Gary Switzer, source: Urban Toronto
below: The next photo was taken as I stood on the same corner of King and Jarvis, but pointing my camera in different direction – looking west on King towards St. James Cathedral. This is the eastern limit of the King Street streetcar project which is why the multicoloured barricades block part of the righthand westbound lane.
below: These women are waiting in the wrong place. Although the city changed the location of the streetcar stops along King Street, the bus shelters haven’t been moved yet. At least they were (sort of) out of the rain. They soon realized their mistake.
below: Looking back, the prerequisite photo of a TTC streetcar through a rainy day window.
It’s always better to end a blog post on a happy note, right? It may be a dream (I hope not!) but spring can’t be too far away. April showers bring May flowers, right? On my second warm up stop I saw this cheerful, hopeful drawing tacked to a wall. It was one of many on the wall, all the work of Maihyet Burton. They were at the Artscape building at the Distillery District.
below: Headed home again.
Don’t put away your boots and hats yet!
