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!

On December 15th, the work of more than a dozen artists will light up the screens of Vancouver’s oldest Internet café in this city’s first ever Speed Show. An exhibition format first conceived by Berlin-based artist Aram Barthol, the Speed Show was designed to be as accessible as the Internet itself – all you need to create this guerrilla gallery-like setting of your own is an internet cafe, some initiative, and of course, browser-based art. This DIY curatorial approach makes sense for the exponentially emerging genre broadly categorized as Internet or net art.

Digital collage composed of glitches from various altered JPEGS, Mel Paget

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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!

Brad Chernoff and Kaycee Marchant operate one of the premiere framing shops in Vancouver – Chernoff Fine Art. Artists, collectors and everyone in between come to them for their commitment to the protection of their art… but also because they are just plain great people. Framing is a notoriously waste-creating practice mostly due to the packaging that all the materials arrive in, and Marchant has worked hard at finding homes for everything from high-code plastic tubes that carry spacers, to the foam that moulding often comes wrapped in. I visited them as their exhibition with Angus Ferguson was winding down.

A selection of the hundreds of frame samples velcro’d to their wall

How did you begin framing?

Brad Chernoff: I came out of Emily Carr in 1987 and started framing for some of my artist friends like Rodney Graham and Neil Wedman. I just saw a need for conservation framing at the time and there weren’t a lot of people doing it. Just from word of mouth it basically developed from there. That was 25 years ago.

I know you specialize in conservation framing – no economy, no pre-made frames – that’s obviously a conscious decision.

BC: I think so. We’ve always dealt with more original artwork and more fine art, and the conservation element has always been quite important.

Kaycee Marchant: It also makes our job more interesting. We get to see beautiful things come through. The more economy level framing, which is where I learned how to frame was incredibly boring. You just see poster after poster, Klimt The Kiss after Klimt The Kiss. Why buy a poster when you can go get some fabulous Emily Carr grad show artwork for a similar or only slightly higher price and frame it up.

BC: It’s funny – I came across Klimt original prints. I ended up buying a portfolio of Klimt prints from 1907, and they did have a The Kiss print in it, and all the prints happened to be originals that Klimt had overseen himself. I’ve worked with antique pieces as well as antique prints.

How does an average order work?

KM: We work by appointment. We’ve never done any advertising, so all of the people we have relations with are either referrals from other people or people that we have a long standing with. And they ring in, you know I have this piece, can I come in and see you. We set up an appointment and they come in. The reason for that is we like to both be present for the consultation. We both have different ideas but we both think the same way, so we can help to fine tune the consultation process and the design. There are hundreds and hundreds of choices, so we’re able to sift through that.

Installation view ‘Angus Ferguson: Skiffy’

BC: We have a certain look that generally we kind of do, which is a minimal museum look.

KM: Though of course we’ve done everything under the sun.

BC: That’s true. But the majority of work we’ve done, the frame fades away behind the art itself. We’re trying to show the art as best we can.

KM: They take those thoughts away, and we will usually work out a price for them then and there, take photographs and send them their options over email. When they approve, we’ll proceed with the work – order the …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!

Neil Wedman graduated from the Vancouver School of Art in 1977, after having studied media, film and photography. Since then, he has made his name as both a painter and media artist, having shown both locally and nationally in exhibitions and film festivals. Neil spared a recent afternoon for coffee, burgers, and ice cream, and a good long conversation about his body of work to date.

Plate from ‘Burlesk’, 1999

I’d like to start by asking you about the Burlesk book. You decontextualize these tiny, single-panelled comics. You make them more realistic, and you give them this grim atmosphere. You weave them into a narrative: certain ones repeat, certain ones become more detailed.

I was really happy with it. I do think that I should have made it more into a narrative. As a narrative now it’s fairly poetic; it beats along with a certain kind of rhythm. I sometimes wonder if I shouldn’t have made it more narrative. The thing is, if it was more straight-forward, then it would become a graphic novel. That doesn’t interest me that much. I guess the thing is, narrative kind of fascinates me, the function of narrative and the structure of it. It’s interesting, but I don’t care for it that much. As a painter, you always try to get away from narrative. You always try, especially as a painter who has done quite a bit of figurative painting. In fact, all my paintings are recognizable as something. People always ask you, ‘What’s the story behind this?’ and you try to disavow that, get away from trying to tell stories. I know it comes up all the time. People say storytelling is important. It’s a part of our culture, it’s a part of the way we transmit information. I’m absolutely not interested in storytelling. When I watch a movie, I consider the narrative a necessary evil.

So what is it you’re invested in?

I think I like the structure. I like the formality of it. I like the images. I can watch non-narrative films without any problem. I’m most happy with a film when I don’t know what’s going on. I just watched Planet Terror the other night. That’s a good one. You don’t know what’s going on for practically half that film. When they do finally tell you what’s going on, the reel goes missing, and all of a sudden the rib shack is on fire and everybody’s friends and everything’s been explained. I really like that. I think that’s great, and I think that film very much is about the experience of watching a film without really having to tell you a lot of story. They just use a lot of conventions, so you can follow it because you’re familiar with the conventions of the narrative, but you don’t really need that much of an explanation.

In terms of Burlesk, I think I deliberately wanted to stay away from narrative. Michael Turner was behind that project, because it was on his imprint at Arsenal Pulp Press. It was his idea to make it a novel. I was just going to make it a series of drawings. I think that to convey it as a novel and to have a certain kind of repetition in it did make it much more structurally sound than just a folio of drawings. The whole cover design was taken from a book by a guy named Walter Karig, and the book was called Zotz. It’s an illustrated story about a guy who can point his finger and say “Zotz,” and have an effect on things. The cover design was very good so I based my cover on it. The beginning of the book starts on the dust jacket like that. It makes the text something else, a little like the illegible catalogue. It becomes much more a part of the design, in an overt way that might be more noticed by people who don’t normally notice those kinds of things.

‘Untitled Flying Saucer Monochrome #3,’ 2006-7, oil on canvas, 48×72 inches

Also, Pyramid Power had a feature of cartoons in an early issue. For that, I’d done the same principle as in Burlesk, but I kept the cartoons as cartoons. They were more like collages, and they have captions on them. The captions are taken from a book called Breakthrough, recordings of dead voices. A guy named Dr. Konstantins Raudive in the 1960s did a series of experiments taking clean fresh tapes, putting them in a tape recorder in a sound-silent room, and turning them on. When you played them back, you’d hear very faint voices. It’s called …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!

Originally hailing from Vancouver, Dr. Cliff Lauson is now Curator at the Hayward Gallery at Southbank Centre in London, UK. A graduate of UBC and formerly the Education and Public Programmes Coordinator at the Museum of Anthropology (1998-2003), Lauson completed his MA in 2004 and Phd in 2009 on the History of Art at University College London. Previous to his position at the Hayward he was Assistant Curator at Tate from 2005-09. While living and working in London, he is still very much engaged in what is happening in Vancouver, having written his dissertation on the so-called ‘Vancouver School,’ and worked with and written about Ron Terada. He is currently curating an upcoming Hayward Gallery exhibit with David Shrigley, and writing about Vancouver-based Damian Moppett for the upcoming Rennie Collection exhibition catalogue. Lauson will be giving a lecture at Emily Carr University next Wednesday, November 23 at 7pm.

Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre (Photo copyright Morley von Sternberg)

How did you become interested in art?

I became interested in art during an exchange year at the University of Glasgow while I was completing my BA degree at UBC. I took my first history of art classes there and was particularly taken with Surrealism. At the end of the year, like many North Americans, I spent the summer backpacking across Europe and I tried to find as many of the works that I had studied to see them first-hand, including the Scrovegni chapel in Padua and large-scale paintings by Jacques-Louis David at the Louvre in Paris, in addition to many paintings by René Magritte.

What were your early impressions of the Vancouver art community while you still lived here?

Growing up in Vancouver, I didn’t pay much attention to the Vancouver art scene, except for the occasional blockbuster exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Like many non-artworld Vancouverites, I was not aware of the impact that Vancouver-based artists had (and continue to have) internationally. Upon returning to Vancouver to finish my BA, I started to follow art in Vancouver more closely. My entry into art and curating however came via my job as the Public Programmes Coordinator at the UBC Museum of Anthropology. The museum studies programme that was established by the late Michael Ames had developed a world-class reputation, and it made the museum a brilliant learning environment even though I was not studying in the Anthropology department.

Why did you decide to leave Vancouver and continue your education in London?

I moved to London because it is an art capital and I wanted to study in place where I could be surrounded by a wealth of artists, exhibitions, and galleries. Its proximity to Europe made it a more appealing city to me than New York. In terms of studying, I found that the emphasis on independent research and frequent teaching in galleries were ways of learning that really appealed to me.

You have been a Curator at Hayward Gallery in London since 2009 – can you tell me a bit about your role there and what projects you have upcoming? Tell me also about the space you are working with and any particular challenges or benefits that it presents.

As Curator I research, develop, and organize exhibitions with primarily, though not exclusively, contemporary artists. The Hayward Gallery is one of the few purpose-built public art galleries in London and is quite large compared to other institutions. Its configuration is essentially the same as it was when it opened in 1968 – five interior galleries and three sculpture courts. Three of the inside spaces are fairly cavernous, so can be quite flexible but one always has to ensure that an artist’s work is presented at its best in those spaces. I am currently preparing an exhibition of work by British artist David Shrigley which will run from 1 February – 13 May 2012. He is best-known for his humorous drawings, but he makes artwork across a variety of media – all are very funny.

Ernesto Neto ‘The Edges of the World’ at the Hayward Gallery (2010)

Has your impression of Vancouver’s art community changed now that you are involved in a larger community in London?

Studying in London really allowed me to see Vancouver’s art and artists from …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!

In the all things digital and computer made, Kim Kennedy Austin feels a little bit lost. As she puts it, “I like that time where things were industrially fabricated, but made by someone who knew how to make it themselves by hand.” The very ethos of everything she creates is a celebration of things made in that spirit, from hand-designed 70’s book covers to mechanical drawings in an unusual colour.

The written word is a part of that celebration, evident in her book cover works but also her affinity for hand-drawn type. A graduate of Emily Carr Institute (now University) in 2001, Austin works at the Vancouver Public Library. While she doesn’t enjoy writing herself, she certainly enjoys reproducing texts she finds in various sources, particularly from old technical manuals. She often uses “found text, whether it’s some sort of antiquated text where just the way they write is so lyrical. From when they are …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!

Vancouver artist Raymond Boisjoly combines an invested interest in text-based works with a black metal aesthetic. A graduate of Emily Carr’s Fine Art’s degree program and UBC’s Master’s program, Raymond’s work is featured in Or Gallery’s Studies in Decay, a group show with Jordy Hamilton and Laura Piasta, curated by Jonah Gray. Raymond is currently a sessional instructor at Emily Carr.

‘The Writing Lesson’ series (2011) sunlight, construction paper, Plexiglas (photo: Blaine Campbell, Republic Gallery)

Congratulations on the Or show. How did it all begin?

It came about through discussions with a friend of mine, Jonah Gray, who’s in the CCST Program at UBC. He had certain interests, like the ability for art to refer to social reality—art that isn’t self-contained, that is somehow a response to some sort of phenomenon ‘out there.’ He was interested in particular works, and we had talked about this body of work I was making.

Your piece is alongside the work of Jordy Hamilton and Laura Piasta, and all three bodies work really well together.

Yeah, it’s definitely a funny group of works. I really like Jordy’s project. It’s totally absurd, just kind of insane. I like the colour of Jordy’s photographs, those vintage consumer colour prints, what age has done to them. They’re yellowed, all of the colours are slightly muted, and the way that the surface has been affected as well, those spots of discolouration. Totally something that I can appreciate.

You’ve got this beautiful object in the crystallized denim jacket, and then a bike getting shot up. Both of these are alongside a text which references a black metal aesthetic. The entire show contains a very youthful and almost angry impression…

Yeah. Or it somehow seems almost vital. As if there’s something kind of active within them.

So much of your work seems to have this contradiction of enchantment and disappointment, positivity and negativity. This is something that you’re always working through?

It’s nothing that I’m pursuing consciously. A lot of it just happens in the process of making the work. This sort of thing, I guess, is just always there. It’s something I usually only recognize in retrospect. Especially with a lot of the more recent text works, where it’s trying to pursue some kind of complicated idea, but then there’s a certain sentiment borne out in it that I don’t know if I did pursue consciously. It’s a very strange feeling. I try to understand my encounter with it, which is hopefully not so different from how other people encounter it: this object that is kind of difficult to absorb, that has some bearing on my understanding of the world, and that doesn’t confirm or deny any sort of idea. It is a generative object to try and think through.

‘The Writing Lesson’ series (2011) sunlight, construction paper, Plexiglas (photo: Blaine Campbell, Republic Gallery)

‘Spuzzum’ is very abstracted. To look at it, there is so much meaning in the form alone, and then in the actual content of the word. This is something that emerges in a lot of your text-based work.

The work exists so that you have to look through the tarp to see the text. The tarp is the most immediate visual phenomenon. There’s text behind it, but the tarp is in front of it. For the work that I just recently showed at Republic, The Writing Lesson, I used trans mounting, mounting an image to a piece of plexi. The plexi necessarily becomes a part of the image. The use of a tarp makes a similar relationship, a necessity of looking through materials to see what the work actually is. …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>