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The environments in which we encounter stories play a big role in our remembering them. Smells, tastes, visions — all contribute to a fifth sense of a particular moment. In the instance of repeat conditions, your memory can flip back to the story without warning or conscious effort, and associate the experience of its telling as an essential element of its existence. In Cold Flows, Republic Gallery’s December show, Rose Bouthillier takes on a meandering of this exact sort. The exhibition mines her past — a journey into the psychic connections of disparate narratives and how they are created through a tally of divergent experiences. Bouthillier employs subtitles, translations, and generalized dubbing when compiling visuals. Watercolours, sculptural representations, and photographs combine to iterate the bond between time, material and representation, stretching and reconfiguring original experiences to their prospective limits.

Long before the modern day celebrity gossip rag, a revolution took place in the 1970s. Subcultures of drugs, overt sexuality, and free expression formed and begged to be documented. Photographers Larry Clark and Kohei Yoshiyuki did just that in their respective cities of Tulsa, Oklahoma and Tokyo, Japan. Though the worlds they came to inhabit were different, their methods were similar, becoming a spectator in each community and documenting their time in black and white film. Presentation House Gallery is presenting each series as separate exhibitions under one roof, creating a dialogue referencing hidden and marginalized communities.

Nuit Blanche (sorry, Scotiabank Nuit Blanche) can be frustrating: with hundreds of art projects spread across a city for one night only, it is physically impossible to see everything. Beer consumption takes precedence for many, and crowd navigation becomes a survival tactic, precluding real consideration of the work itself (the event’s purported raison d’être). But for all the commotion, every year Nuit Blanche commissions a number of excellent projects that can really give one pause in the midst of the chaos. One way to sift through the deluge is to go small-scale. In this spirit, I’m zeroing in on one curator, one zone and four projects you should probably check out.

While the Vancouver Art Gallery’s forthcoming exhibition, The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art, enjoys the hype campaign of a blockbuster, its frugal precursor is quietly showing on the gallery’s third floor. Largely drawn from the VAG’s permanent collection, Unreal makes a case for the continuing vitality of the surrealist project in contemporary art, likely in the hope that you’ll return to see what dreams may come this summer.

Over the last eight or so years, Sandy Plotnikoff has used an antique foil stamping press to apply glittering, metallic foils onto probably thousands of objects, accumulating and transforming huge quantities of cheap, unremarkable objects, disused commodities and thrift-shop finds. He’s known for hand-printing and pasting hundreds of Value Village price stickers to unlikely or unsaleable objects, and for giving new life to bread tabs, bottoms of sneakers and, perhaps most memorably, vintage postcards, where for instance he captioned snapshots of the Grand Canyon with the wry announcement “Holidays Cancelled” and views of Mount Vesuvius with the heading “Toronto.” Snap fasteners, Velcro, buttons and second-hand socks are also among the artist’s choice material, his clusters of snaps becoming the stuff of sculptural form while simultaneously colonizing sweaters and wrist cuffs. Through his experimental adaptations of such ubiquitous material, Plotnikoff recuperates and transforms ordinary or obsolete objects into sculptural matter.

Since the Venice Biennale first opened in 1895, the ‘biennial’ exhibition has become central to the way contemporary art regions around the world represent themselves. Now spanning three centuries, the bi-annual survey exhibition continues to grow in popularity as meanings get muddled along the way. Self-described biennials are too many to count and have come to represent efforts to take the pulse of contemporary art in its global and local manifestations. Within this sprawling field, regional biennials, often folded into the programming mandates of museums and branches of government, occupy a unique role. Unlike worlds fair-styled international affairs, museums like the Orange County Museum of Art—others include the Whitney’s biennial of American art, or in Canada the triennial of Quebec artists at the Musée d’art Contemporain—organize group exhibitions that present new works to be consumed largely by audiences that reside in the same region as the artists.

Upon entering Walking, Square, Cylinder, Plane I am filled with an overwhelming anxiety. The exhibition title repeats in my mind cyclically, a rhythmic poem of seven syllables. I circumnavigate the gallery quietly with great concentration. Six paintings, oil on canvas, are hung sequentially down the length of the gallery, three to the left and three to the right. At the end of the space, almost as an after thought, stands a vitrine, its contents systematically assembled. Fourteen watercolour drawings on paper are placed two by seven. Each column and row is separated by a framework of painted balsa wood, emphasizing an involved yet illusive structure.

As Carl Sagan gazes off into the cosmos during his 1980s PBS television series of the same name, he ponders the delayed travel of light from the stars. He notes that, “space and time are interwoven,” so that “we cannot look out into space without looking back in time.” Watching him gaze out into space from 2010, I wonder if future generations will continue to look back at him looking back in time. Antique Sky, Jay Isaac’s recent solo exhibition at LES Gallery, could be seen through a similar kind of temporal imagination…

Explore the glowing work of Jay Isaac, an artist who uses unusual medium

Not the regular fare at the National Gallery of Canada. Pop Life: Art in a Material World explores the history of Pop Art.

Lee Henderson has the ablity to close up his gallery in under a minute and ramble down the road with it stowed under his arm. Leah Turner caught up with him and his travelling gallery.

SAMPLE:
As Color readers well know, in recent years Vancouver art has experienced a proliferation of representational drawing and work on paper. Drawing is situated generally within the spirit of DIY collaboration, and a tendency toward the expressively low-tech, the handmade, and the naively rendered; while its popularity might well be explained by its practicality. It’s accessible and inexpensive; essentially, it’s a fundamentally intimate practice, done in the home, or in a bedroom even. And, as Vancouver-based novelist and art critic Lee Henderson’s unique curatorial project proves, it’s also portable.

It’s an odd fit, a skateboard magazine profiling an exhibition of watercolour landscapes from the early-to-mid 20th century. Even for Color. But this retrospective of the late Charles Burchfield, who occupied an uneasy position in American art history—revered by many but overlooked amidst the emerging brand of American modernism of the postwar years—is its own curiosity. Its presentation at the institution that bears the artist’s name is but one stop along the way for a show that initiated at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. The Hammer, an institution better known for its contemporary programming, has indeed struck up a curious pairing, inviting famed contemporary American sculptor Robert Gober to curate a monographic exhibition of an artist he would seem to bear little relation to. But judging from the rigour and sensitivity of this exhibition, the affinities run deep.

Grant Barnhart’s new solo exhibition, a collection of acrylic paintings and a couple of sculptures, is simultaneously excessive and withholding. The handling of paint is light, combining a natural, at times muted, palette with subject matter that is heavy on narrative. Both conventional and absurd, Barnhart’s imagery tempts us with familiar categories of narrative while simultaneously needling us with absurd scenarios and incongruous elements – as we attempt to reconcile the familiar with the strange, we are incessantly reminded to ask, just what is the “it” we are begging for?

One of art history’s best told tales recounts how artists learnt to convincingly render reality, hinging, of course, on the 15th century “discovery” of linear perspective and its potential for remarkable illusionism. Contrary to what the five following centuries of artistic practice might suggest, the success of Australian-born, London-based artist Ron Mueck proves that verisimilitude and technical virtuosity still holds us very much in thrall today. Organized by the National Gallery of Canada, and in large part comprised of works in their permanent collection, Real Life brings Mueck together with acclaimed Israeli and Berlin-based artist Guy Ben-Ner, to probe the philosophical territories of reality, artifice and everyday existence. Originally shown at the National Gallery’s satellite exhibition venue in Shawinigan, Quebec, in 2008, Real Life has since toured to several venues across Canada, including where I took it in, at Calgary’s Glenbow Museum

Same Same / SHOW

Video artist Breitz examines screen icons and pop culture then delves into the world of twins with edited and constructed interviews.

SHOW

Creating feelings of nostalgia in his recent exhibition at East Vancouver’s LES Gallery.

RAGNAR KJNARTANSSON

wordsby nicholas brown

In weighing my decision whether or not to attend the 53rd Venice Biennale, I did what many do: balance financial and scheduling considerations against the professional and personal lure of (arguably) the biggest art exhibition in the world, held in (arguably) the most magical place in the world. Doing so in the midst of a recession made it all the more difficult, but always lingering in the back of my mind was the anxious injunction to go to Venice now before it sinks into the ocean. Well, I went. And in spite of a rather tepid overall exhibition – more on that in a minute – it turns out I had the right idea. Not only did Venice flood unseasonably during my brief visit, but I got to attend Ragnar Kjnartansson’s The End, an appropriately apocalyptic show that represents Iceland’s participation within the national pavilions at the Biennale. Taking place in the Palazzo Michiel dal Brusa by the Canale Grande, the work forms a kind of terminal location for weary art viewers.

Five world-renowned Vancouver artists showcase their craft in Nomads, a group exhibition presented by the National Gallery of Canada. Nicholas Brown examines the art these world-wanderers brought home.

The Drunkard’s Walk, 2008 by myfanwy macleod
ink jet print, 87 × 155.6cm

wordsby nicholas brown

“The National Gallery of Canada’s recent group exhibition features some of Canada’s best-known emerging to mid-career artists whose practices are international in both recognition and trajectory. That all five artists originate from Vancouver is neither a surprise nor an easy pill to swallow for many Canadians on the other side of the country. The Lower Mainland is renowned for producing artists who shuttle back and forth between Europe and other international locations, bringing prestige and attention back to their home town…”

FUNKAESTHETICS:

Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto ON

(February 12 – March 23, 2009)

words by nicholas brown

QUISQUEYA HENRIQUEZ

wordsby nicholas brown imagescourtesy david castillo gallery

By the time this issue hits the rack, it will be the worst time in decades to be an art dealer. In the wake of the global financial crisis, there was an initial calm in the art world, as people began to speculate just how long it could remain unaffected by the events on Wall Street. But on December 3, 2008, when I entered the exhibition centre at Art Basel Miami – North America’s answer to Switzerland’s Art Basel, the largest and most prestigious international art fair – things were looking decidedly grim. Functioning as both a trade show and a site of quick commerce, where eager buyers line up to view booths manned by dealers looking to market and sell works by leading international artists, art fairs are costly to participate in but promise massive sales for savvy salespeople. This year rumours swirled: nothing was selling, it was a buyer’s market for those collectors that were still in the game (ie. no more hedge fund investors), and the massive cost of participating was bringing diminished returns. But outside of the convention centre, others were content with displaying their artists without much care for the short-game tactics of the main fair.

GEOFFREY FARMER

wordsby joni murphy

imagescourtesy of Musee d’art contemporaian de Montreal

The play of ghost and fake, low budget facades. The discussion of what’s really real and what’s really far-out are all things addressed in Vancouver-based artist Geoffery Farmer’s work. His recent show at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal is reviewed by Joni Murphy aiming to expand your mind when you read and digest Farmer’s work…