Browsing “The Opening Series”

THE OPENING is all about introducing the fascinating, quirky and wonderful people working in and around the visual arts in Vancouver. Each week, we’ll feature an artist, collective, curator or administrator to delve deep into who and what makes art happen!

We’re profiling something a little different this week on The Opening – films. But not just any films. Two incredible visual arts documentaries that will be airing in Vancouver in the next week as a part of the 2012 DOXA Documentary Film Festival: Marina Abromovic: The Artist is Present and Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry. Both films deal with artists who were hot international topics recently and should help make their impact on not just the art world, but the world at large more clear.

Film still ‘Marina Abromovic: The Artist is Present’ by David Smoler. Courtesy DOXA.

Serbian performance artist Marina Abromovic has long been known for her intense performances which test the comfort of the audience as much as herself. She uses performance as a means of fostering a relationship with the audience while she explores the limitations of the body and mind under varying stages of duress. From 1976-1988 she was in an intense relationship with another performance artist, Ulay. As a pair they worked as twins of one another, exploring ideas of conciousness and their relationship to the space around them.

From March 14 to May 31, 2010, The Museum of Modern Art in New York staged an enormous retrospective of her performance work, both solo and during her time with Ulay, called Marina Abromovic: The Artist is Present.She hired and trained numerous other performance artists to stage these works, which ran every day during the museum’s opening hours. The entire exhibition culminated in the longest piece of performance art in her career: Abromovic sat in a chair on one side of a small table, with a chair on the other side for anyone to sit on for as long as they liked. Patrons lined up for hours to sit with her, some decrying the whole idea as a farce and others feeling as though they had reached transcendence. The performance even led to an online 8-bit version by artist Pippin Barr that operates in real time (play here).

Film still ‘Marina Abromovic: The Artist is Present’ by David Smoler. Courtesy DOXA.
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THE OPENING is all about introducing the fascinating, quirky and wonderful people working in and around the visual arts in Vancouver. Each week, we’ll feature an artist, collective, curator or administrator to delve deep into who and what makes art happen!

It’s a damp Sunday evening in February when I arrive at 147 Main street to interview Nicole Ondre and Vanessa Disler, two friends and graduates of Emily Carr who partnered together to open Exercise in the fall of last year.

The entrance near the corner of Powell and Main is unassuming to say the very least – there is no signage, no special sandwich board or window treatment to indicate the arrival of this fresh and bold new artist run space straddling the edges of Chinatown, Gastown and the DTES.

The Opening at Exercise, photo by Jennifer Kim

Nicole greets me at the door and we’re immediately in the storefront portion of Exercise that serves as the gallery and exhibition space. There is tarp on the floor and paint on the walls and my rods and cones are instantly juiced in anticipation for Yunhee Min’s exhibit, “Spectra: fixtures, attachments, and ornamentals” that is being set up.  But more on that later.

Further in from the gallery we pass through the middle section reserved for artists’ studios.  After interrupting and being introduced to a painter at work I follow Nicole and Vanessa into the back and we settle ourselves in the inviting candle-lit, wood-paneled lounge comme salon. Just back from a trip to LA, I can feel the inspiration and excitement buzzing from the two partners who’d spent much of their time visiting the small, unique artist run centres there. A number of paintings surround us. I am particularly taken by the one dominating the eastern wall with its large swaths of black.  It is Vanessa’s work, and it is energetic, ambitious, and spirited – much like Exercise itself.

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THE OPENING is all about introducing the fascinating, quirky and wonderful people working in and around the visual arts in Vancouver. Each week, we’ll feature an artist, collective, curator or administrator to delve deep into who and what makes art happen!

Bryan Newson is the Manager of the City of Vancouver’s Public Art Program. He and his staff have been responsible for bringing you everything from Ken Lum’s Monument for East Vancouver to Rodney Graham’s Aerodynamic Forms in Space, and hundreds more. I met with Bryan a few weeks ago to discuss how he got involved in the creation of the program, what it does, and where it’s headed in the face of budget cutbacks.

Inges Idée ‘Drop’

Can you tell me about what the Public Art Program does for the City of Vancouver?

The Public Art Program is designed to bring artists forward in planning and development processes that are in this city’s jurisdiction. This includes finding ways to incorporate artists, their artwork and contemporary art practices, into new facilities such as libraries or community centres. It also provides a mechanism for requiring major private developments such as the larger of the new condos and things coming into the city, to commission new artworks in association with their new developments.

Additionally, it looks after things like what do you do when the government of the Northwest Territories wants to donate an Inukshuk for English Bay. What’s the process for handling that, who needs to be consulted? That’s actually a gift of state… you just accept those. But if somebody just wants to donate an artwork, and we spend quite a bit of time wrestling with this issue, we go through a few things: What is the artwork? What is its artistic provenance? Is it a good artwork (by which we simply mean does this work merit long-term placement on city land)? The real issue being, there is nothing more valuable than public space or public land. There’s tremendous pressure on that land, all sorts of agendas for it. I like to think of this part of the Public Art Program (the part that’s not dealing with commissions either for the city or for the private sector, but the part that’s figuring out what to do with donations), I see that as a way of protecting public space, or at least bringing some rigor to the discussion about what should go up on public space.

Do you get a lot of art by donation or is most of it by commission?

We used to. When the program started there was a whole tradition, and most of the artwork that was out in the city was donated by somebody.

The Vancouver Biennale (which is I believe three non-profit entities working in some relation to each other), bring in some major artworks and site them around the city. They have approached us seeking permission to site the works on a long-term basis. Up to 30 years was the original request, but I think we’re talking about 20 years now. We’re coming to an agreement with the Biennale about that. The downside is it means we would take a piece of public space, there would be an artwork there for up to 20 years that people would become familiar with, and then it would disappear. Or it could actually disappear at any point if the Biennale decides to take it elsewhere. The good side is that we’ll go through a process of determining the appropriateness of the work and whether it merits the space it’s in (and I think in most cases we’ll be determining yes it does), and the public gets, at no cost to the city, an artwork for 15-20 years to look at.

At no cost to the city other than the upkeep of the land I’m assuming?

The upkeep of the artwork will be at the cost of the Biennale, because it is selling and fundraising work. They’re fundraising right now to try to raise $1.5 million for a piece. If we owned the work, we would be responsible, but if they own the work they are responsible for its upkeep and maintenance and its insurance. Most of these works would be surrounded by a mowing strip. Some of these works are so popular that the grass does not grow! So it is easy for the Parks people to continue to maintain the space around them.

Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas ‘Abundance Fenced’

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THE OPENING is all about introducing the fascinating, quirky and wonderful people working in and around the visual arts in Vancouver. Each week, we’ll feature an artist, collective, curator or administrator to delve deep into who and what makes art happen!

Chris von Szombathy is a visual & auditory artist, designer and writer residing in Vancouver, Canada. His recent Esophaus Now show at Unit/Pitt garnered a great deal of attention and helped pave the path towards his latest project, a show at Catalog Gallery with Drew Shaffer. Titled Love is in the Error, and featuring a monumental interactive sculptural piece, the show opens tonight and runs until February 26th. I sat down with Chris last week while he was in the midst of finishing pieces, and began the discussion by asking him about his recent summer show at Unit/Pitt.

‘Big Desires’ – polymer clay, cardstock, acrylic paints & mediums (2010)

I was really happy with it. That show was a bit of a return for me. A few years ago I stopped doing visual work completely to work on music, and I didn’t really get back into it until 2006. After doing my first solo show at my friend’s gallery, WRKS DVSN, I was able to make contact with [what was then] Helen Pitt Gallery. The show at the Unit/Pitt, I didn’t really promote it, but the opening night was jam-packed. I was really excited. A lot of people in the community had assumed I had left the country since they hadn’t seen me in five or six years. The reaction I got from those people was really overwhelmingly positive. Because of that show, I’ve been able to work towards the new show for Catalog.

I’ve known Drew for about a decade. He’s got a frame of reference that was very different from mine, but at the same time we were hitting on all these similar things. Because we had so many of the same reference points, we already knew a lot of the things each of us would talk about. I have a lot of respect for him and love for him as a friend. We’d been talking about doing a show together for ten years, but quite honestly, if we had decided to do a show back then I wouldn’t have been ready for it. I still don’t feel I’m ready for it. But I’m so happy that we’re doing it, and I have the most respect for his work. I’ve learned so much from the guy that he’s almost my mentor in some ways. He would totally puke if he heard that. He’s one of the ones who taught me how to see things. Both of us have been doing our own thing for the last ten years, but we’ve been in contact. I think what we’re doing is, at least for this city, a little different.

‘A Beginner’s Guide to Craftsmanship’ – polymer clay, glass, wood, paper, hair, acrylic (2011)

The larger piece we’ve done for Catalog has ended up being a perfect metaphor for our working relationship. To build “You Complete Me” (a 2′ x 3′ skinned head) we got a DTES Small Arts Grant from the Vancouver Foundation. We wouldn’t have …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

THE OPENING is all about introducing the fascinating, quirky and wonderful people working in and around the visual arts in Vancouver. Each week, we’ll feature an artist, collective, curator or administrator to delve deep into who and what makes art happen!

Artist Scott Massey works with light, most often using photography, sculpture or both to conjure ideas about space – from that which surrounds us everyday in our urban lives to the unknown bodies above us most often contemplated by telescope. He will be completing two new installations as part of the Contemporary Art Gallery’s upcoming exhibitions. Massey and I sat down over beers recently to discuss his interest in space and light, the difficulties of being a photographer in Vancouver, and the aforementioned installations.

‘Buff Frame’ 2006, from ‘Minor Incidents’ series. Enlarger colour print, 30×30″

You often alter or amplify something that already exists, whether natural or unnatural, sometimes accentuating an existing intervention. Why these interventions?

So often people navigate their way through the world without taking much notice. I find it kind of fascinating that with a very subtle intervention, you can totally change the reading of the scene and change people’s awareness of it. With the Minor Incidents series, I wanted to know what the smallest change I could affect was that would have some significance. What I needed to identify was the most poignant aspect of a scene. By changing that thing, it became obvious that even a subtle change was going to have larger implications.

It was also about the degree to which we operate with very little knowledge of the world. What happens when we flood environments with 24-hours of light? It changes things. The amplifying of something is really a way of saying “Hold on, what are we missing here?” Repercussions have occurred because of a circumstance we’re creating. What’s the trade-off for that circumstance? So the altering is heightening an awareness of things that already exist.

In terms of what it is that you change in any given landscape, do you often find yourself drawn to certain things over others?

That’s part of the wandering process. If I go back to the Minor Incidents works… what happens with those is I wander around until something hits me. I don’t go out with this idea that I need to find a certain scene to enact a pre-meditated reaction to it. That’s why those were very interesting in the sense that if something happened it happened, and if it didn’t, it didn’t. I couldn’t force it. Most of the time I would have some success with that, to a greater or lesser degree. Usually there’s something interesting to be found, pretty much anywhere. I think Orozco is a good example of someone who can navigate a completely banal environment but touch on something and twist it just enough that it all comes out of that little action. The Arte Povera artists, that was their intention, bridging that gap and bringing art to the masses as something that we should experience on a regular basis. That it’s not only housed in museums, that it can be anywhere.

‘Square Foot Elevation’ 2007, from ‘Minor Incidents’ series. Enlarger colour print, 30×30″

So you’re trying to find the art in the everyday?

With that series, absolutely. I’m not saying that’s an overriding concern in all of what I do because it’s not. With other things, if I think about Rememeration Piece #1, that was more about recognizing the effects …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

THE OPENING is all about introducing the fascinating, quirky and wonderful people working in and around the visual arts in Vancouver. Each week, we’ll feature an artist, collective, curator or administrator to delve deep into who and what makes art happen!

Heavily interested in the history of art and those who have changed art before him, Damian Moppett creates detailed homages to these moments of change. The interdisciplinary artist’s work is currently being exhibited at Rennie Collection in Chinatown, the collected works spanning over 8 years of Moppett’s practice.

‘Untitled’ 1998, acrylic on canvas (courtesy Rennie Collection. Photo: artist)

I know you grew up surrounded by art. Can you tell me a bit about your family’s artistic history?

Both my Mom and Dad are professional artists, and my Dad is a traditional abstract painter. When I grew up in Calgary, he was the curator of what’s now called the Illingworth-Kerr Gallery at the Alberta College of Art [now Alberta College of Art and Design]. He had a studio downtown. My Mom had a studio in various places over the years – downtown, our garage. She was teaching at the Alberta College of Art mostly in drawing, sometimes in sculpture. So yeah, I was surrounded by art. My Dad’s brother was a curator at the Mendel in Saskatoon. My paternal grandmother was a painter, my maternal grandfather was a painter and a potter, and started Ceramic Arts in Calgary, which had a number of West Coast potters there. He started the ceramic department at ACA as well. Yeah, art wasn’t an alien thing. I didn’t always think I was going to be an artist but I drew all the time. My Dad taught me how to paint, and we would argue about art when I was a kid. But I wanted to be a race-car driver for a long time. My hero was Gilles Villeneuve.

When you finished high school, did you start out going to school for art?

I took night painting classes with Iain Baxter when I was in high school, and liked that. Then I got into ACA when I was 17 and did two years there. I realized that… my Dad was at the gallery, my Mom was teaching, and fellow students would say things about them to me without realizing. It was just really difficult having my parents in the school, so I had to leave. I applied to transfer to the Ontario College of Art [now Ontario College of Art and Design] in Toronto and moved there when I was 18. I didn’t like it. I went to OCA for two weeks and dropped out. I was supposed to be going into third year but they didn’t have enough studio space, teachers didn’t show up for class, and I didn’t know anyone my age in Toronto. So I left and decided to come to Vancouver. I took a year off and painted on the fire escape of my apartment in the West End, and then applied to Emily Carr and got in. It worked out well because Steven Shearer, Ron Terada, Allan Switzer and Peter Jensen were there – good people to fall in with.

Obviously your family had an influence on what you became. Do they still have an influence on you now?

Yes. When I was first in art school I was actively making art that was opposed to their method of art-making. As time goes on you mellow though. My last show at Catriona Jeffries was the first show that the influence of them, in particular my Dad’s painting style, had been apparent in my work. It was something I fought against at first but embrace now.

What other things typically influence you?

There are obvious references in the work that’s in the Rennie Collection exhibit – Mike Kelley, Anthony Caro, Alexander Calder. I used to be a big fan of Martin Kippenberger’s work… I’ve always been interested in painters, even though most of my work seems to be about sculptors. I enjoy looking at and thinking about painting the most.

‘Rodin’s Triton + Nereid’ 2006, graphite on paper (courtesy Rennie Collection. Photo: artist)

Would you consider yourself an appropriator, or are you just continuing an ongoing conversation in art?

Everybody’s version of appropriation is …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

THE OPENING is all about introducing the fascinating, quirky and wonderful people working in and around the visual arts in Vancouver. Each week, we’ll feature an artist, collective, curator or administrator to delve deep into who and what makes art happen!

You may have noticed something called the Goethe Satellite popping up around Vancouver during the last half of 2011. As Kate Armstrong and Malcolm Levy explained in my interview with them, the Satellite is a two-year initiative of the Goethe Institut, the German cultural institute whose closest Canadian counterpart would be the Canada Council of the Arts. Kate and Malcolm have been working heavily with local cultural institutions to engage in an international artistic conversation.

Patrick Cruz ‘Maybe Attending’ at the FIT, August 2011

Tell me about yourselves.

Kate Armstrong: I’m a writer, curator and an artist. I work on putting together cultural events of various kinds: exhibitions, events, gatherings and publications. I make my own work as well.

Malcolm Levy: I’m an artist and a curator. I work on a lot of different kinds of projects. Mostly video based, some with new media.

I understand you collaborate frequently. Did you collaborate before Goethe [pronounced: Geuh-tah]?

ML: Yes. We’ve collaborated on projects for almost 10 years together. The first time we actually collaborated was when Kate curated the ArtCamp series, which was an “unconference” that happened at New Forms over three years.

KA: And for the past two years we’ve been working in a more formal collaborative way with something called Revised Projects. With that we work together on independent curatorial projects putting together exhibitions and events.

How did you get involved with the Goethe Institut?

KA: They had originally approached Malcolm about doing a location study for this city and looking at the lay of the land in Vancouver culturally. We wrote a report with recommendations about how to support the cultural landscape here.

ML: To give context to the Goethe Institut: the way that the Goethe Institut operates internationally is that they have offices, galleries and pop-up spaces in different cities around the world. In Canada they are in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. They used to have one in Vancouver, which closed a number of years ago. So for the last number of years there has been no Institut presence in Vancouver. What they were really interested in was seeing what might be possible within a context like that.

KA: They had been supporting cultural events in Vancouver throughout the last decade in various ways, but they wanted to increase their visibility in the community. So what emerged was this idea to make the Goethe Satellite Vancouver. The concept became a mobile space – as opposed to establishing a project space that drew programming into it in a continuous way, it became more about creating a mobile satellite that was working with the existing cultural institutions in the city in order to facilitate new work and new forms of exchange with Germany.

‘Intangible Economies’ forum at Grey Church in connection with Goethe Satellite@Fillip (Photo: Fillip/Artspeak)

Is everything supposed to be somehow connected to what is going on in Germany as a whole?

ML: To some extent, absolutely. Collaboration with artists in Germany is one of the focuses, but in many different ways. Fillip for instance had a conference in November called ‘Intangible Economies’ and they invited …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

THE OPENING is all about introducing the fascinating, quirky and wonderful people working in and around the visual arts in Vancouver. Each week, we’ll feature an artist, collective, curator or administrator to delve deep into who and what makes art happen!

Rachel Rosenfield Lafo is a recent transplant to Vancouver from Boston, MA. With a long career as a Curator in a couple of different institutions in the United States, she expected to have little problem finding a similar position here. I chatted with Lafo at Everything Cafe in Chinatown recently about what she’s done before, what she expected in Vancouver, and how she’s overcoming a lack of institutional art positions in the city.

Lafo leading Public Art Tour of Coal Harbour during Vancouver Art Hop, April 30, 2011

Before you moved to Vancouver you worked at the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum for 24 years in Massachusetts, first as Senior Curator and later as Director of Curatorial Affairs. Can you tell me a bit about your roles and what you did during your time there?

The DeCordova was, at that time, a regional New England museum. It had a collection of modern and contemporary American art focused primarily on New England artists, as well as a 35-acre sculpture park. In the Sculpture Park we exhibited artwork from all over the United States. The Museum’s focus has changed since I left but that’s what the mission was when I was hired.

As first Senior Curator and then Director of Curatorial Affairs I was administrative head of the department. I organized exhibitions, wrote catalogues, recommended works for acquisition for the collection… basically all the things museum curators do. I was very active in the local art community going on studio visits, seeing shows, giving lectures, serving on art juries, leading art trips, and meeting with collectors and other colleagues. I also traveled to see art outside of the area.

Which artists did you work with while you were there?

Many, especially after being there for that many years. You probably will not have heard of these artists who are well known in the New England and New York art communities – Gerry Bergstein, Mary Frank, Scott Prior, Gregory Amenoff, Tabitha Vevers. They all had New York gallery representation and so are known there but I don’t think they are known here. I organized a one-person show of William Tucker’s sculpture – he’s a well-known British artist now living in the US, and another of bronze self-portraits by Robert Arneson, a well-known California artist who died in the 1990s. I also curated many group exhibitions on themes such as self-identity, humor, photographs of children, highly detailed mark-making, and animals in art. I worked with a range of artists from younger emerging artists to older more established artists.

At the time, what was your impression of Vancouver as an art community?

I don’t think I had much of an impression, frankly. It wasn’t really a scene that was discussed in Boston. Now the Boston art scene, although quite lively, is not well-known outside the area because Boston lives in the shadow of New York. Years ago I lived in Portland, Oregon and worked as a Curator at the Portland Art Museum. I did visit Vancouver then. So I had some idea about the Vancouver art scene, but that was a long time ago! Things were much different then. I remember going to the Vancouver Art Gallery… I don’t think the Contemporary …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>