Browsing “The Opening Series”

THE OPENING is all about delving into the fascinating, quirky and wonderful visual arts in Vancouver. Each week we’ll feature an artist, cover an exhibition, discuss a lecture and everything else in-between to delve deep into who and what makes art happen!

Text-based art got its start with the conceptual artists of the 1960s, and has metamorphosed into countless new forms since. Emerging artists today may count among their list of influences Yoko Ono’s directional works, or Ed Ruscha’s evocative paintings of poem fragments layered over LA sunsets. Black & Yellow group exhibition Text Text Type showcases new works that draw from this history of text, language, and writing in visual mediums. I met with curator Allison Mander-Wionzek, and contributing artists Jacquelyn Ross and Anna-Marie Repstock to discuss their fascination with the written word, as well as Black & Yellow’s recent move to the MAKe space in the wake of the Waldorf Hotel’s highly controversial closure.

What was your motivation behind curating a text-based show?

Allison Mander: I think my initial interest in putting this show together came together through a conversation with Kyla Mallett and some of her colleagues at the Capilano Review. They were, at the time, hosting an event at the Waldorf Hotel and wanted to use our space to do a reading for the most recent issue of the Capilano review, which was all about text-based work. So I figured it would be more interesting to put on a show in relation to their reading, as opposed to simply having them in the space while another show was happening. Because Black & Yellow is more interested in working with emerging artists instead of more established artists like Kyla, I asked her for some suggestions and she put me in touch with Liz Knox, who is one of the artists in the show. After talking to Liz, I started to look at different text-based works and how they were incorporating language. I thought it would be a great opportunity to highlight some younger people and what they were doing in a different way.

Jacquelyn Ross: It’s also interesting in relation to the conceptual art show at the VAG, which is all text-based work from the sixties.

 I was wondering about what was so alluring about a text-based practice and what drives your interest behind it.

Anna-Marie Repstock: Especially considering painting – it is something that is considered outside of language, and purely visual, so it is all the more interesting to me to play with that idea and find out what happens when you put language into painting, and I actually see language as abstract as paint when it is manipulated. When there is colour, form, composition, it has all the same formal abstractions that painting already has. Language and painting are not necessarily opposed, even though historically it kind of played out that way. Conceptual art was always kind of down on painting. …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

THE OPENING is all about delving into the fascinating, quirky and wonderful visual arts in Vancouver. Each week we’ll feature an artist, cover an exhibition, discuss a lecture and everything else in-between to delve deep into who and what makes art happen!   This week’s guest article is brought to you by Agnes Wisden, an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Vancouver.

WORDS: AGNES WISDEN

After making my way down into downtown Vancouver and up the stairs to The Hive, a collaborative shared studio space for innovation and community, I was greeted by the set-up for this evening’s activities and the sweet sounds of a DJ warming up for another round of Late Nite Art.

A much-loved local club created by Claudia Carmen and Julien Thomas, Late Nite Art is all about inclusive social engagement. Its mandate notes that “you don’t need to be able to colour within the lines or draw portraits of fruit bowls – you just need eyes, ears, and an open mind,” as non-artists and artists are equally welcomed. The spread on the central long table, an appealing clutter of art supplies, magazines, scissors and glue-sticks, reminded me so much of a childhood filled with adventure and creativity. Just as in those nascent stages of art-making, we were encouraged to be as experimental and carefree as possible with our materials.

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

THE OPENING is all about delving into the fascinating, quirky and wonderful visual arts in Vancouver. Each week we’ll feature an artist, cover an exhibition, discuss a lecture and everything else in-between to delve deep into who and what makes art happen!

Seemingly inseparable duo Brennan Kelly and Alex Stursberg, also known as the art collective ‘Double Happiness‘, have made a name for themselves creating strange and lively collaborative art. From channeling the juvenile and occult in mystical blanket forts built in the basement of Shudder Gallery, to curating a participatory, print-based free-for-all for last year’s Canzine West, Vancouver’s best “bromance” looks outside of the traditional art institution to make art rad again. To mark the debut of their most recent collaborative project at the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Fuse tonight, I spoke with Kelly & Stursberg about their origins, process, and D.I.Y. leanings.

Visitors to shows and events that you have worked on together can easily clue into the fact that you guys are good friends and excellent collaborators. How did you first meet?

BK: We first met at the former space of the Red Gate on West Hastings. I remember stumbling upon the gallery which was open, void of people but full of art. I was kind of just loitering around taking the work in when Alex came out from the back and was friendly enough to chat with me. I think I had been in Vancouver for all of about 2 months at the time. This was in 2010.

AS: That sounds about right. I think it was actually at a group show that Brennan had art in at Red Gate, I recognized his work and was a fan. He was hanging out with Jamie Bizness or Rylsee or someone. He seemed like he wasn’t a weird dick, and I liked that about him. Almost two years ago, Brennan moved down the alley from me and the rest is pure bromance.

 If you had to describe each others’ work and process in a nutshell, how would you do it?

AS: Hm, an intentional breakdown? What I always love about Brennan’s work is that he’s not afraid to make fun of what he sees around him or himself for that matter. I do think he’s on the internet too much though.

BK: Deconstructed North American pop/consumer culture. Maybe that’s more of an accurate description of the work he was producing. He’s beginning to explore a lot of new avenues and producing some great work in the process. The one thing I admire most about Alex’s work is the confidence he has to take an idea and run with it, not worrying about its inevitable conclusion.

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

THE OPENING is all about delving into the fascinating, quirky and wonderful visual arts in Vancouver. Each week we’ll feature an artist, cover an exhibition, discuss a lecture and everything else in-between to delve deep into who and what makes art happen! This week’s guest article is brought to you by Agnes Wisden, an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Vancouver.

WORDS: AGNES WISDEN

“My studio was private, but not a closed environment. Rather, it was a stage that I inhabited and opened to those around me.”

— Paul Mpagi Sepuya

Running from January 26 until March 2 at Artspeak is Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s Studio Work. Curated by J.J Kegan McFadden, the exhibition is comprised of Sepuya’s most recent works, which were created in a 2011-2012 artist residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Inside, a sparse few portraits are hung on the wall without any titles or dates of creation. In the center of the room is an L-shaped desk with neatly choreographed stacks of photographic paper prints, a small amount of books stacked at the ends, a few pieces of dried orange peels, and scribbled one sentence process notes. Besides the artist statement located in print by the gallery office and a zine you can pick up about Studio Work, the notes and books on the desk provide the only words in the exhibition itself.

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

THE OPENING is all about delving into the fascinating, quirky and wonderful visual arts in Vancouver. Each week we’ll feature an artist, cover an exhibition, discuss a lecture and everything else in-between to delve deep into who and what makes art happen!

Whether we have been pursuing the sheen of nostalgia through vintage markets, cassette-only releases, yellow basement stacks of National Geographics, or the fuzzed-out sounds of new bands trying old things, one thing is for certain: our love for lo-fi is not a new thing. As comparatively new technology ages, however, this love is certainly becoming a strange thing. We’ve seen inklings of internet nostalgia crop up everywhere from Azealia Banks‘ “controversial” adoption of seapunk, to Twitter feeds dedicated entirely to AOL Messenger away messages.

The art world has been especially intrigued and seduced by the ephemera of our digital lives. Net art is, for now, too sprawling and present to properly categorize, though its growing importance and receptive reach into both past and future is difficult to ignore. Jeremiah Johnson‘s Void Gaze, for example, pairs a nascent Internet text game with abstracted web drawings to beautifully poetic effect, while Michael Guidetti‘s Bounce Room 1 uses rudimentary 3D animation techniques in tandem with painting to explore ideas of perspective and perception.

From instant pleasure to the positively arcane, these digital explorations make for a marvelous foil to the sleek aesthetics of consumer technology today. In their newest series, Archeologists, local comedy animation duo Bart Batchelor & Chris Nielsen nod to this weirder, darker cousin of rooting through your parents’ storage unit for forgotten LPs by pairing their love for “low rent” aesthetics with a uniquely absurd sense of humour that is more Dada than Dreamworks. Each episode is a celebration of terrible 3D animation filled with curses, black magic, desert landscapes, and inexplicable links to Dictionary.com. Fittingly, I caught up with Batchelor and Nielsen online after the release of the latest Archeologists episode last week.

AQ: Hey, Bart & Chris. Let’s talk about how you guys got your start. How did you two meet? Do you both have formal training in animation, or is something you picked up on your own? 

Bart Batchelor: Chris and I met at art school. We both applied to the Emily Carr animation program and got rejected (which is apparent), but got in to their film program and started making lots of stupid stuff together. Funny enough, right out of Emily Carr, we made an animated series for The Comedy Network called The Woodsmen. I guess being bad at something pays off – when you’re being really dumb.

Chris Nielsen: I should also mention that we’re both Okanagan boys, and we met at OUC (now UBC Okanagan) in the fine arts program. We’ve been living in Vancouver for a decade now. Can hardly believe it.

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

THE OPENING is all about delving into the fascinating, quirky and wonderful visual arts in Vancouver. Each week we’ll feature an artist, cover an exhibition, discuss a lecture and everything else in-between to delve deep into who and what makes art happen!

When we think of fashion, we think often of glamour — of high-gloss sex and lavish excess, swan-feather dresses and flutes of Veuve Clicquot. Behind every sartorial spectacle, however, there is a true labour of love, and a myriad of  experiences, historical references, and symbols that the casual viewer can only begin to unpack. In founding the newly-minted GRAY publications, editors Tobin Gibson and Holly Goldsmith-Jones want to introduce us to the quieter side of fashion and the idea of “dress as an agent for creative responsibility”.

I met up with Gibson and Goldsmith-Jones to learn more about GRAY at the Chinatown mainstay of Unit/Pitt, where they were holding their launch party. The room was packed in spite of the sub-zero temperatures, and attendees were immediately welcomed by the engaging Gibson and effervescent Goldsmith-Jones. Above the happy din rose mysterious hums and screeches – an otherworldy soundtrack generated by a spotlighted sculpture by Soledad Muñoz, one of GRAY’s contributors. Gray ice, cradled by woven fabric attached directly to the ceiling, dripped onto an elegantly curved steel plate. A device MacGyvered by Muñoz recorded, oscillated, and amplified these noises back into the room.

Hung on the opposite wall as both a complement and foil to this future-feeling sculpture were embroideries made by Gibson’s grandmother, Cecilia Gibson. It was these embroideries, which were unearthed during a visit to his family home, that began the conversation between Gibson and Goldsmith-Jones. The hand-woven textiles, which range from abstract geometric patterns to traditional Ukranian motifs to representational peacocks, “came from a very honest place,” explained Gibson, and were striking in their exploration of colour, pattern, and tradition. They came to represent Gibson’s and Goldsmith-Jones’ growing interest in “the politics of excess and simplicity in fashion.” …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>