Toronto Outdoor Art Fair 2018,
Nathan Phillips Square
Posts Tagged ‘looking’
art at Nathan Phillips
Posted: July 9, 2018 in events, galleries, peopleTags: art, art fair, art show, artists, glass, images, looking, Nathan Phillips Quare, outdoors, paint, paintings, people, pictures, rust, sculpture, toaf2018, Toronto Outdoor Art Fair
And Things I Loved
Posted: November 12, 2017 in galleriesTags: AGO, American, art, Art Gallery of Ontario, exhibit, Florine Stettheimer, gallery, looking, maquette, new york, painter, paintings, people, poems, poetry, portraits, Stetties
Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry,
an exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario
Florine Stettheimer (1871-1944) was the 4th child of five, daughter of Joseph and Rosetta. Joseph, a banker, abandoned the family early on and was never mentioned again. Older siblings Walter and Stella married and moved out while the younger three girls, Ettie, Florine and Carrie remained in the same household with their mother until their deaths. They became known as “the Stetties”. They hosted salons in Manhattan and lived a life of leisure and artistic pleasure.
below: Family Portrait II, 1933, This painting has flowers, New York City references, and Florine Stettheimer’s immediate family portrayed in a theatrical setting/arrangement. These are themes that occur over and over again in Stettheimer’s work. Here Ettie is reading, Rosetta is playing cards, Florine is painting, and Carrie is playing hostess.
The Stettheimer children were born in Rochester NY. Between 1906 and 1914 Florine and her mother and sisters lived in Europe before settling in Manhattan.
A portion of the exhibit features a collection of designs for costumes for a ballet that Florine wrote while she was in Paris in 1912. ‘Orphee of the Quat-z-Arts’ (or ‘Revellers of the Four Arts Ball’) was based on a costume parade organized by Parisian art students and in it the main character, Georgette, encounters the ancient Greek minstrel Orpheus and a parade of mythical creatures, as she and her father walk down the Champs Elysee. The ballet was never performed.
below: One of 42 sketches and 9 relief maquettes, Georgette.
below: People, both men and women, were painted with elongated willowy shaped bodies.
Florine also wrote poetry and she liked to send her poems to her friends. In 1949 her sister Ettie published a book of Florine’s poems titled ‘Crystal Flowers’. This is one of the poems:
And Things I Loved
a poem by Florine Stettheimer
Mother in a low-cut dress
Her neck like alabaster
A laced up bodice of Veronese green
A skirt all puffs of deeper shades
With flounces of point lace
Shawls of Blonde and Chantilly
Fichues of Honeton and Point d’Espirit
A silk jewel box painted with morning glories
Filled with ropes of Roman pearls
Mother playing the Beautiful Blue Danube
We children dancing to her tunes
Embroidered dresses of White Marseilles
Adored sashes of pale watered silk
Ribbons with gay Roman stripes
A carpet strewn with flower bouquets
Sevres vases and gilt console tables
When sick in bed with childhood ills –
All loved and unforgettable thrills.
below: The painting in the foreground of this picture is ‘Self-Portrait with Palette (Painter and Faun)’, 1910s. According to the words that accompany the painting, the faun behind her symbolizes a memory inspired by Russian ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky whom she saw perform in Paris in 1912. After the performance, Florine wrote: “Nijinsky the faun was marvelous. He seemed to be truly half beast… He knew not civilization – he was archaic – so were the nymphs. He is the most wonderful male dancer I have seen”.
below: Self-portrait, 1933
“For a long time
I gave myself
To the arrested moment
To the unfulfilled moment
To the moment of quiet expectation
I painted the trance moment
The promise moment
The moment in the balance
In mellow golden tones…
Then I saw
Time
Noise
Color
Outside me
Around me
Knocking me
Jarring me
Hurting me
Rousing me
Smiling
Singing
Forcing me in joy to paint them…”
This exhibit continues at the AGO until 28 January 2018
tiff and the toilet paper
Posted: May 12, 2016 in events, public artTags: Bell Lightbox, CONTACT, downtown, french fries, globe, images, King St. West, Long Weekend, looking, passerby, people, photography, photography festival, razor blade, running shoes, Scotiabank CONTACT, sidewalk, smelling, TIFF, toilet paper, Toronto, typewriter, walking
It’s common to see posters pasted on walls so finding movie posters on the walls of the tiff Bell Lightbox didn’t strike me as unusual. I walked past this display until I noticed the sign that marked this as a CONTACT Photography Festival installation. Fake movie posters, many designed with a touch of humour, that look just like the real thing.
below: The installation, titled ‘Coming Attractions’ covers the corner windows and wall space. The posters were designed by ‘Long Weekend’ which is a collective of artists working out of Winnipeg. They were made from ads and illustrations from old books and magazines.
On the other side of King street, and just a but further east, is a series of eleven large images taken from past editions of ‘Toilet Paper’, a biannual magazine founded by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari. They hint at advertising and they blur the line between fantasy and reality.
below: Muhle is a German company that makes shaving products and one of their blades looks identical to the one in this picture.
If you like these images, you might also like Toilet Paper’s website.
worldpress photo exhibit
Posted: October 15, 2014 in events, locationsTags: Brookfield Place, display, exhibit, looking, people, photographs, Toronto
World Press Photo 14,
a traveling exhibition of prize-winning photographs assembled by World Press Photo.
At the Allen Lambert Galleria, Brookfield Place until October 21st

These pictures were taken from drones that were flying over playing fields. The shadows of the players look like they are the people.

Photo on the far left is “A flock of Guillemots (Uria aalgae) in a snowstorm in Vardo, Norway” by Markus Varesvuo of Finland.
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LEFT: Survivors of typhoon Haiyan march during a religious procession in Tolosa, on the eastern island of Leyte. One of the strongest cyclones ever recorded, Haiyan left 8,000 people dead and missing and more than four million homeless after it hit the central Philippines. Photo by Philippe Lopez of France.
CENTER: A woman reacts in disappointment after access to see former South Africa President Nelson Mandela was closed on the third and final day of his casket lying in state, outside Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa. Photo by Markus Schreiber of Germany.
RIGHT: A group of blind albino boys photographed in their boarding room at the Vivekananda mission school for the blind in West Bengal, India. Photo by Brent Stirton of South Africa.