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Vie des Arts

English Reports René Viau, Françoise Belu, André Seleanu, Jean De Julio-Paquin, Bernard Lévy, Yves Prescott, Hedwidge Asselin and Marie Claude Mirandette

Volume 51, Number 208, Fall 2007

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/52501ac

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Publisher(s) La Société La Vie des Arts

ISSN 0042-5435 (print) 1923-3183 (digital)

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Cite this article Viau, R., Belu, F., Seleanu, A., De Julio-Paquin, J., Lévy, B., Prescott, Y., Asselin, H. & Mirandette, M. C. (2007). English Reports. Vie des Arts, 51(208), 103–110.

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This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ Holy Water Cannot Help You Now, 2005. OXFORD, U.K. Courtesy Modern Art Oxford

STELLA VINE RETROSPECTIVE What she is, is a contemporary figurative painter, her paintings, MODERN ART OXFORD however, are far from being stuck in 30 PEMBROKE STREET OXFORD 0X1 1BP some kind of revisionist back-track­ ing. She is undeniably modern and TEL+ 44(0)1865 722733 original, and very much the voice of FAX+ 44(0)1865 722573 the times. www.modernartoxford.org.uk Her models aren't always heroin- fuelled pop stars. She also does por­ Several years ago, Charles Saatchi, traits from photographs, among the most successful and equally them paintings of mother and child controversial collector of modern and a series of images of Princess art in Britain, put together a show Diana. The exhibition also includes of recent discoveries that he called, portraits of the artist's family. what else, New Blood. According to him, those were the voices of the fu­ Hung salon-style on the walls of ture; an eclectic contingent of action the gallery, they form an unusual sculptors and instant painters, pantheon of figures, a tragicomic mostly from Germany. The show had mutual-admiration society. a slow run and few took notice of Vine's detractors are many. To its so-called stars. most her art is tasteless and im­ moral, but to others she is a breath Until they came upon Stella of fresh air, even if a tad fetid. Vine's paintings. In her introduction to the cata­ Uke previous Saatchi protégés- logue accompanying die exhibition, Tracey Emin, she of the unmade bed Now, ten years since the death of clude portraits of fashion model Germaine Greer writes: "As a woman installation that received the 1998 Princess Diana, the media are once Kate Moss, cigarette in hand, with paints her face everyday, Stella Vine Tinner Prize much to the horror again abuzz, and that's a good thing the inscription 'Holy water cannot paints the painted face, the mask be­ and chagrin of art-connoisseurs, for Stella Vine and her retrospective. help you now', as well as her some­ hind which celebrity females take and Damien Hirst whose latest When Saatchi purchased the time boyfriend, musician Pete Doherty, cover even as they flaunt themselves. creation, a diamond-studded skull, painting, Vine was the media's fa­ both performers famous for their Paint cannot tie. Every brushstroke recently fetched $100-milliion- vorite topic and aspects of her life drug addictions. threatens disintegration." Vine has become the artist everyone story became fodder for the merci­ "Diana and her demons, Kate loves to hate. But unlike Emin's The paint in Vine's works seems less British tabloids. and cocaine, Jose Mourinho and his vapid sexually charged installations, to be alive. It does not sit on the face, For it is not just her style and dog. Is any subject too raw for this and Hirst's vulgar excesses mas­ it drips and dribbles in the form of subject matter that shock and pro­ notorious artist?" wrote Waldemar querading as talent, Vine actually running mascara or blood-red voke. Stella Vine herself is an out­ Januszczak in The Sunday Times. puts brush to canvas. smeared lipstick; what is dead are spoken and colourful figure. The answer is "no", and that's the eyes of the subjects, veiled with One of the Young British Artists, Born in 1969 in Northumberland, great, for Vine's nonchalantly irrev­ drugs or apathy, despair or elation, as they are known, she rose to in­ she studied painting part-time at erent take on society's fascination belonging to people trapped with­ stant fame when Saatchi bought two Hampstead School of Art in 1999, with celebrities, no matter how inane out realizing the tight circumference of her paintings in 2004. One was but what the press likes to draw out their antics, is strangely apt and en­ of their public persona. of Princess Diana, and the other de­ time after time, is the fact that she tertaining. She selects images from Dorota Kozinska picted heroin addict Rachel Whitear, earned a living as a stripper before newspapers and magazines that whose death was a media sensation giving it up for art. capture the facial expressions and in Britain in 2000. Both were con­ Lost in all this juicy gossip is emotions that are often very per­ troversial images, with the parents Vine's art. She paints in a raw, naive sonal, mirroring the torrid stories of of Whitear pleading for the image style, using bright, at times sweet these fleeting pop stars. of their daughter not to be displayed colours, subverting the portraits by Vine's free, loose application of in the 2004 New Blood exhibition. caricaturising the features, turning the paint adds rawness to her works, The Diana controversy was them into graffito-like or poster art and combined with an element of even fiercer. Vine's portrait of the reminiscent of Andy Warhol's un­ self-portraiture, makes them impos­ Princess, with words scribbled in abashed appropriation of famous sibly irresistible. One cannot be bad red lipstick across her picture, faces. Vine uses thickly textured and while looking at art. spelling: "Hi Paul, can you come brighdy coloured paint that some­ "I'm not interested in being a over. I'm really frightened...", (a ref­ times looks as if it is mixed directly shocking artist and not interested in erence to her buder, Paul Burrell), on the canvas. Her paintings are being a celebrity myself', Stella Vine shocked the public. For the Brits, loud and exuberant, at times funny, is quoted as saying. this wasn't merely bad art. and quite often tragic. "This was treason", in the words Recent paintings on show at of one reviewer. Pete Doherty, 2005 this, her first ever retrospective Courtesy Modern Art Oxford incorporating some 100 works, in­

VIE DES ARTS NP208 103 ENGLISH REPORTS

VANCOUVER The works appear to be organic composed of a hundred, small, as Paul Freeman's pastel drawings in that they look as if they grew in heroic gestures-salutes to the infinite of distopic elk with more than the nature and not simply from the variety of form attainable from mod­ usual compliment of anders. Julian DALE ROBERTS hands of Dale Roberts. Some re­ est, cellular, elemental foundations. Forrest's indifferent renderings of NEPTUNE'S CHILDREN semble the more exotic fungal Yvonne Owens website photos of soldiers in their 1-251" August 2007 growths that adorn tree trunks in the barracks and David Janzen's large Jeffrey Boone Gallery North Western rain forest, their ruf­ painting of a collapsed water tower 140-1 East Cordova Street fles and fringes the gills of delicately EDMONTON bearing the words "Welcome to Vancouver, BC V6A 4H3 hued mushrooms. Some blossom Arcadia" are terrific images but un­ into their shapes and contours like necessarily transcribed into paint. Tel: 604-838-6816 ALBERTA BIENNIAL OF www.jeffreyboonegallery.com tiny arboreal entities. Seen in terms However, Sarah Adams-Bacon's of the vegetative realm of their ma­ CONTEMPORARY ART 2007 36 drawings of class pictures, al­ terials' primary origin-the cultures LIVING UTOPIA AND DISASTER though awkward, are handmade and industries of the sea-they evoke October 27,2007-January 6,2008 translations that read tike a dialogue intensely expressive seaweed with memories rather than a tran­ growths, or some of the more flam­ Walter Phillips Gallery scription. The effect is greatly as­ boyant underwater plants that fur­ 107 Tunnel Mountain Drive sisted by handwritten accounts of PO Box 1020, Station 14 nish the aquarium environments of the author's relationship with, and Banff, Alberta T1L1H5 tropical fish. Placing them into the the later fates of, the documented aquatic realm of animal fife might Tel: 403.762.6281 people. The matter-of-fact stories of interpret the forms as the miner­ Fax: 403.762.6659 bullying, cliques, intolerance, early alised accretions of brilliantly [email protected] pregnancies, alcoholism, and sui­ coloured coral colonies, or the coil­ June 23-September 9, 2007 cide will resonate with anyone who ing extravagances of mollusc shells Art Gallery of Alberta had a childhood. and sea anemones. Undersea geol­ 2 Sir Winston Churchill Square Flying the flag for abstract paint­ ogy might provide a visual reference Edmonton, Alberta ing this year are Mark Mullen and Ge­ more along the Unes of deep-sea T5J 2C1 offrey Hunter. This inspired pairing mineralizations or lava flows-or the www.artgalleryalberta.com/ pits Mullen's confections against decorative flanges of unfathomable Hunter's workman existentialism. thermal vents. The actual craft of In 2005 the Edmonton Art Mullen's three large and lovely can­ human exploitation of the sea lies Gallery became the Art Gallery of vases squeeze patterned frosting on behind those works that suggest Alberta and announced plans to re­ to blurry grounds. Dozens of can­ fishing nets, crab baskets, and lob­ place its 40-year-old Cold War vases piled in two stacks accompany ster pots-each with their precious, Hunter's less cheery trio. Perhaps he Distort # 75/100 "bunker" with a post-modern Crocheted cotton, found object beguiling cargoes. bauble. The "greenhouse" collides wants the viewer to recognize the (mixing whisk), driftwood, paint 11" x6" x 4.5" Some pieces are distinctiy erotic, the boxiness of the old design with labour behind the finished work. Per­ suggesting intimate anatomies or del­ flashy new snowdrift swoops and a haps the casual stacks express an icate, vaguely recognised genital or­ whole lot of glass. The ostentatious anxiety about the value of the activity. Dale Roberts creates sculptural gans and erogenous zones. Curling, design seems more L.A. than Ed­ Mary Kavanagh's six mini-DVDs works that span a great range of coiling, wrapping, folding-the sculp­ monton—a city with a taste for the of her trip to the White Sands Mis­ scale and expression, fabricating his tures are embodied inscriptions of severe, plain and utilitarian—but is sile Range feature sunbathers with pieces from a variety of unlikely strength and vulnerability, tactile sen­ sure to satisfy its primary goal: to umbrellas and beach towels and a materials, including wood, hemp, sitivity and desire. They seem valor- drive Calgarians crazy. fashion shoot. Wonderfully surreal, rope and twine. Utilizing rope- and ously trusting in their labial display, In the meantime, the sixth edi­ these moving postcards are about net-making skills learned during an putting it out there in celebratory tion of the Alberta Biennial is our ability to adapt and find touristy early life spent in the Maritimes, magnitude. One focuses on the indi­ housed in a nicely renovated site pleasure anywhere, or, our oblivi­ Roberts uses nautical objects and vidual pieces one by one, after first nearby. "Living Utopia and Disaster" ousness (or adaptability) to the textiles to create delicate, complex being dazzled by their legion num­ collects work from 22 Alberta well-advertised coming calamity. forms resembling aquatic plants, bers upon the wall, a fiesta of carni­ artists. As always, the show is un­ corals, shells, and sea creatures. val colours and jaunty fetishes, like even, crowded and well worth a Chris Flodberg those that festoon the headpieces Recollections of a Trip to Paris, 2007 These forms are knotted, woven, visit. There are topical works, such Oil on canvas crocheted, strung or twined into of Mardi Gras celebrants or Cirque 8' x 16' x6" shape and often incorporate scav­ du Soleil trapeze artists. A few pieces enged cloth and found objects, in­ describe the timelessclassica l sym­ cluding delicately coloured fabric, bolism of mysticism:, mandorlas, glittering beads, glass orbs, antique lemniscates, spirals and parabolas. lace, cascades of fringe, and gleam­ Overall, the distinct 'personali­ ing metal. Contrasts of surfaces and ties' of the one hundred Distorts textures, combined with exquisitely are found to be likeable, all convey a balanced complements of colours confident positivism and humour- and shapes, create grand, sym­ a certain jaunty cachet. Each packs a phonic patterns that resonate potent, if tiny, wallop in terms of'stage throughout the show. presence.' Their collective charisma can only be described as quixotic,

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Kay Burns' installation invites us Atom Egoyan and Turkish video pictures to show her, but she re­ to stand on platforms that vibrate in artist Kudug Ataman. members very little of her past. It turns response to our motions and look The seven young women of var­ out that she has no testimony to give. at a blurry video that does the same. ious ethnic origins are recounting This has the potential to disappoint. The mildly interesting technovelty an incident in the life of Aurora While she looks in confusion at does not quite square with the rela­ Mardiganian, whose personal story, the pictures, the accusations from the tional aestheticish hype in the told in 'Ravished Armenia,' was Auroras gallery are audible, but Kevser artist's statement. made into a Hollywood film in the Alba cannot or will not remember. Terrence Houle's pastoral pho­ early 20* century. She's not pathetic, nor is she an­ tographs of a suburban park, a This is not a cinematic experi­ guished; in fact she's good tempered. baseball game and pow-wow ence. Egoyan wants you to come up "God knows when I'll remember" dancers each show the artist-nearly close and pay attention. Yet your par­ The point is that Kevser Alba was naked, except for a loincloth and ticipation must be a struggle, head herself a witness to slaughter. She's some pow-wow regalia-lying face twisting and body turning to keep up the genuine article, whereas the down in the grass. At once shock­ and follow the voices coming from seven faces who construct a com­ ing and funny, Houle has us strug­ the side and behind. The narration is pelling story are hired stand-ins. Sensualita, 48x48 gle with him to figure out how an swirling around the room. The chal­ And here any glimmer of dissatis­ Photo: Ralph Thompson urban Indian fits into the urban and lenge is magnified when the women's faction evaporates. Photoimagerie tnc Indian scenes. He fits the ambiva­ voices start overlapping. About his film entitled Ararat, lence of the exhibition tide best. An It's a multi-track cinéplex, which also addressed the enormity of iconoclast, Houle offers no solu­ where each actor's stripped down the Armenian genocide, Egoyan asked Born in Milan, Italy, 1939, tions, only problems. language is choreographed to a cli­ "How does an artist speak the un­ Brusorio studied with and under its greatest proponents, artists like David Garneau max. We are learning about brutal­ speakable? What does it mean to lis­ ities: forced marches, soldiers, ten? What happens when it is denied?" Lucio Fontana, Roberto Crippa and Carlo Carra, who formed a group rape. The choreography leaves time One of the messages of Auroras/ of highly original thinkers preoccu­ to absorb the story us it unfolds. Testimony is a warning not to in­ TORONTO pied with spatial relativity and at­ When the emotion breaks, just one vest too much in seeking out the tuned to the advancements in character carries the show. The oth­ "real thing"—this case Kevser Alba science and technology. Their art, in AURORAS/TESTIMONY ers stand by. We are witnessing them -because it may provide no intelli­ the true sense of Modernism, was not ATOM EGOYAN AND as they witness for us. It becomes gence, while a constructed reality obvious why Egoyan chose to use merely avant-garde but also aimed at KUTLUG ATAMAN should never be underestimated. the plural form of the name Aurora reforming existing artistic norms. For an artist this notion provides June 1-10,2007 in his title. These women are part Matter, colour and sound in consolation. And for those trying to Artcore Gallery everywoman and part tragic Greek motion were the focus of this "new remember, it offers release. Distillery District chorus. (Geographically we're not art", as they were to become for Anne Lewis 55 Mill Street that far away and the epic propor­ Brusorio. His style evolved and de­ Toronto, ON tions of the Armenian slaughter are veloped over a 40-years career that Tel.: 416 920-3820 consonant with tragedy.) Agoyan spanned continents, to border at www.artcoregallery.com cast actors whose faces conjure MONTREAL this point on craft, so precise and other genocides, Rwanda, Darfur, meticulous are his works. Nothing An intense storytelling was in Bosnia. These women could be tes­ ALFREDO BRUSORIO is left to chance, and everything is progress in the darkened Artcore tifying at the Nuremburg trials or in born of the mind. space away from the torpor of The Hague. RECENT WORKS Elegant and enigmatic, his paint­ Toronto's Distillery district in full Leaking into this whirling drama Galerie Lydia Monaro ings are inspired as much by an in­ summer party mode. On three walls come cackling sounds from else­ 34 St. Paul St. W. ner landscape as they are by the art of the gallery, seven room-high pro­ where. They are the voice of Ata­ Tel.: 514 849-6052 of Southwest Hopi Indians. jected faces of young women shared man's piece, entitled Testimony, [email protected] Equally open to a mathematical the narration. playing in the next room. The Turk­ www.galerielydiamonaro.com analysis (it has been attempted), as Presented as part of Toronto's ish language penetrates into the Au­ to a metaphysical explanation, his Luminato festival and in conjunction rora's accounts. This is where Ata­ The latest works by Alfredo compositions are based on the har­ with the Art Gallery of Ontario, the man supplies another face to fill out Brusorio at Galerie Lydia Monaro mony between the many elements, world premiere of Auroras/Testi­ our experience. are the quintessence of conceptual each in its designated spot. mony provided the opportunity to Shot in a simple home video for­ art. They hark to the naissance of Within this rigid spatial system, a be touched by the chimera of the mat, Ataman, a 2004 Tlirner prize Modernism and continue in the es­ narrative of esoteric proportions is Armenian genocide. The two-room nominee, is interviewing his former oteric tradition of movimento unfolding. Each composition begins project brought together Canadian- nanny, Kevser Alba, al05 year old spaziale, or spacialism, that origi­ with the circle, (the only element in Armenian director and video artist Armenian woman. He has brought nated in Italy in the 1940s. the painting made with the aid of a tool; the rest is all drawn and painted by hand), the sign for life's eternal cycle of birth and death.

Atom Egoyan Auroras Credit: © Ego Film Arts, 2007 Courtesy of Artcore. Fabrice Marcolini Artcore/Fabrice Marcolini

VIE DES ARTS N°208 105 ENGLISH REPORTS

Across this giant round surface I have to be honest; I was skep­ input. In her Cantique 3 (2004), cally touching in the machine's ten­ float two 'umbilical cords', the twin tical about the new exhibition at the two faces in profile, a man and a tative attempts at putting words to strands of good and evil, extending Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. To woman, are grimacing at each other pictures. I felt a kindred soul in beyond the frame of the painting, begin with, it seemed to me that while uttering sounds and sighs that there. And just to see how The Giver into infinity. Suspended against this e-art somehow did not fit within the ebb and rise as we press the buttons of Names would see me, with the backdrop is a cluster of colourful institution's hallowed walls, and sec­ on a console accompanying the video artist's tacit encouragement, I placed nodules, oddly organic forms sym­ ondly, I still get more of a thrill look­ screens. Depending on which but­ my head on the stand whUe the cam­ bolizing humanity. ing at a good painting or sculpture tons are pushed and in what order, era took my picture. It soon began That, 'grosso modo', is all the than technology. a symphony of sounds begins to to transform on the video screen as artist will divulge about his paint­ I was wrong. E-art, New Tech­ form, as the faces continue their the machine broke it down into frag­ ings. The rest is up to the viewer to nologies and Contemporary Art, absurd dialogue. ments, forms, colours, outline. It be­ decipher. With a littie hint, the styl­ the brainchild of the fabulously suc­ It's all great fun, but just as I was came a moving painting, changing ized form of the Indians' sacred cessful Daniel Langlois Foundation beginning to wonder whether this is rapidly, transforming incessantly bird, the condor, may appear, its celebrating its tenth anniversary, is actually art, the shimmering projec­ while remaining within its borders. wings extended into abstracted presented as part of the Museum's tion screens courtesy of David Rokeby Words, mosdy disjointed and non­ ribbons of colour, transporting us contemporary art department cur­ put that doubt to rest. Admitting to sensical, started running like subtitles into a mythical realm, but ultimately riculum and therefore apdy suited having an ambivalent attitude to tech­ under my fluctuating reconstituted what is captivating is the perfect for the space. It is fresh, it is hip, it nology, this Toronto artist employs its portrait, too fast to recall but gready balance of the spatial arrangement. is definitely contemporary, and in potential to illustrate emotional, tran­ entertaining in their irreverence. From a period of exploring the words of the MMFA's director, sient states, and his installation Seen The artists in this large in ideas quiet tones, and after a self-imposed Nathalie BondU, it has transformed (2002) is lyrical almost to the exclu­ but small in scope exhibition have hiatus, Brusorio is back propelled by the museum into a virtual lab; one sion of its technical workings. made friends with technology, incor­ an explosion of pure colour, his acrylic of ideas, images, sound and move­ Composed of four large projec­ porating it into their creative envi­ paints never mixed, the canvas pulsat­ ment, and animated by a huge dose tion screens showing the Piazza San ronment with a particular panache, ing with a raw vibration, As in the com­ of imagination. Marco in Venice, it is both painterly giving reign to their imagination and position, so in the choice of palette, Works ranging from installation and poetic, quiet to the point of be­ original talent, and inviting the viewer nothing is left to chance in Brusorio's to video to a patent application for a ing static, with images suspended in to interact with their creations. stylized paintings. Every line, every dot, fantastical apparatus are presented by time while still in motion. More The exhibition is free,a s are all the resembles a musical note in a visual ten artists from Canada and abroad, memory of a place than the actual shows at the MMFA until January 27, modernistic symphony. all funded by the DLF and commis­ site, Rokeby's work offers a highly 2008, and a treat for anyone open to It ends just so. At a very precise sioned especially for this event. aesthetic sensory experience. "the brave new world" of art. moment, with the placement of a fi­ Leaving all artsy prejudice be­ One of the most important media Dorota Kozinska nal red Une, the painting is done. hind, I entered the exhibition space arts figures in Canada, this artist has Dorota Kozinska with an open mind only to be in- numerous exhibitions to his credit, standy seduced by a sensual, multi- and his imagination does not rest on ELAINE DESPINS E-ART tentacle installation by UK artist video projections alone. Philip Beesley. Titled Hylozoic Soil, THE SEA INSIDE NEW TECHNOLOGIES In The Giver of Names (1991), it exuded a disturbingly organic pres­ also shown at the MMFA exhibit, he October 10-November 11, 2007 AND CONTEMPORARY ART ence; its delicate white filaments employs complex processes involved Galerie Dominique Bouffard Ten Years of Accomplishments floating on currents of air, fleetingly in formatting objects into human and 1000 Amherst, suite 101 by the Daniel Langlois Foundation brushing against the visitor's face, computer linguistic systems to con­ Montréal, Québec September 20-December 9,2007 bridging what is artifice and what is struct an interactive installation, H2L 3K5 The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts nature with its undulating structure quirky and brilliant. To put it more Tel.: 514 678-7054 Jean-Noêl Desmarais Pavilion composed of fine synthetic mesh the simply, Rokeby's creation analyzes www.galeriedominiquebouffard.com 1380 Sherbrooke Street W. artist calls "geotextiles". objects placed in front of a camera Tel.: 514 285-1600 Montreal choreographer and and projected onto a monitor, and Elaine Despins first caught my www.mbam.qc.ca dancer, Marie Chouinard reaches be­ then attempts to describe them draw­ attention with her Presence/Emer­ yond the world of dance with a video ing from a lexicon of words the artist gence exhibition several years ago, installation of talking heads, a mar­ coded into its memory banks. in which she showed a series of vellous combination of image and The resulting run-on sentences 10 large format oil paintings Marie Chouinard Cantique (2004) sound that moves from humorous to are surreal and oddly poetic, and (198cm x 143cm) examining the Photo courtesy of the Compagnie intense depending on the visitor's Marie Chouinard there is something anthropomorphi- human body. Suspended against an

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inky black background in the upper straightforward composition. With great originality in han­ part of the painting, horizontal nude The cool, quiet mood and econ­ dling the medium, this intuitive and backs provoked an unforgettable omy of coulour in Despins latest versatile artist has breathed fife into visceral reaction. Vulnerable, obliv­ works have echoes of Edward Hop­ these quiet portraits with delicate ious to the viewers' curious stare, per's silent landscapes, but her yet assured brushstrokes. They these embryonic shapes stood for models are less alienated, and their slowly sink into our own visual un­ the artist's exploration of the gaze is difficult to ignore. These oil consciousness, speaking to our strength and fragility within each on canvas paintings are striking in senses from within. Cool and one of us. their simplicity, and all lies in their serene, at times sombre, these faces Despins latest production, The masterful execution. It shows that are at once real and surreal, as are Sea Inside, continues this in­ Despins has come into her own with the paintings themselves. ward/outward journey, as she ana­ her latest series. There is a touch of Dorota Kozinska Duo-logy II (2006) lyzes that which we see and that play and experimentation in these Oil on canvas 18 x 24 In. which we don't, hidden within the works, as if the artist's has finallyal ­ HUGO WUTHRICH human form. lowed herself to turn around and First titled Listening, this new face her inner vision. THE ZIG AND THE ZAG OF ART tourists with their props. Toscana production follows the Presence/ No need for deep analysis when September 6-30,2007 (2007) for instance has a man with Emergence and the later Virgin looking at Antoine or Simon, por­ HAN ART a beret adjacent to a whimsical Mary series, and emerges, as it traits of young boys lost in their own 4209 St. Catherine St. W. woman's breast, and there is a leaf­ were, from them, giving birth to a world. Realistically executed with­ Westmount like shape below, a Delaunay-esque new visual landscape and symbolic out being saccharine, these wide- Tel.: 514 876-9278 rectangle set into the lower section, lexicon. Gone is the contrast of the eyed children make mesmerizing Fax:514 876-1566 and other pseudo-mechanisms, two ebony background and the translu­ models. We cannot help but stare other vertical face portraits. It's a cent skin, gone is the sharp light that into those dark eyes that seem to see Words could describe Hugo jumble of associations we all like to seemed to envelop the curled-up something we cannot, something Wuthrich's art, but they can never see, and spontaneous, which is a body. In their place we have a shim­ beyond, or perhaps within, as they recreate the experience of witness­ rare commodity these days... These mering, greenish space, and a new lay quiedy on their stomach, cheek ing his art firsthand. There is a sense painterly hieroglyphs are worthy of set of models. to the cool, translucent surface that of joy, of exuberance and abundance. le Douanier Rousseau. It is still a body suspended in just barely reflects their features. His art is open and accessible, Working in a highly spontaneous space and time, but this is very In some works, the bluish-green­ whether the medium be set and cos­ way, Hugo zig zags amid the artifacts much an active participant in the ish space enveloping them begins to tume design, painting or sculpture. of life animating the creative spirit, in­ composition. Young boys, several form its own universe, folding upon Wuthrich's works are not trapped in fusing his art with a social tempera­ women, are quietly lying down on a itself, creating just barely recogniz­ time. On the contrary, they capture ment and persona. He builds visual transparent, reflective surface rem­ able contours. Could this be the har­ that sense of the moment we experi­ maps of unconscious associations, iniscent of ice. They all face the binger of a new series in this young ence as children. There is something and when it comes to painting, they viewer; eyes wide open but looking artist's career? A foray perhaps into so simple and direct about these are intimate memories of a place, not beyond, lost in a deep reverie, or the world of impressionism? forthright paintings. at all realistic, instead personalized perhaps, as the original tide sug­ For now Despins remains fasci­ The way he uses colour, orches­ constructions replete with faces, fig­ gested, listening... nated with the body separated from trates to embellish these personalized ures, buildings and nature. This is a No more dark meditation, these its environment; there are no nat­ scenarios he paints is brave, extrava­ contiguous and complete cosmos. works are infused with colour, al­ ural elements in her works, no gant in a good way. The humour is in that collision of ex­ beit somewhat unnatural, adding a adornments, just the body in a Ironically, there remains a tinge of pressive volition and materials that surreal touch to the otherwise larger space, body "as vehicle", the folk art gesture, of its hand made takes it form in a roll of the dice, for in the words of the artist. craft character in Wuthrich's paintings Wuthrich is a painter whose associa­ The question behind these com­ on view at Han Gallery that range from tions spring directiy from the mind Simon onto the aims. Journey to the East Oil on canvas positions: What do these eyes see? 1984 to 2007. The large scale paint­ 38 x 42 In. The answer it up to the viewer. ing titled Three Heads (2007), has an (2007) us a perfect example of this with introspective, yet playfully sensitive its perambulating associative figures, tinge of humour to the expressive fa­ always joyful, each emblematic, a sign cial gestures of the heads, which are to the others, and these painted per­ variations on a theme. sonages, objects, micro-architectures The whole Han Gallery Hugo all seem to breathe in the neutral softly Wuthrich show could be considered coloured spaces between them. as a collective homage to an infor­ These paintings are built in a mal, essentially humanist perspective space that is always unidentified, a on fife. Wuthrich's compositional mimetic place, imagined and then style, catches our interest because it brought into being. never takes itself too seriously, and Permeated with an immediacy when autobiography enters into that is child-like, these paintings re­ these paintings, it is as if the artists veal a painter endlessly collaborat­ were flirting with time, capturing ing with, reinventing himself amid a moments with a mimetic abandon, as language that transmits itself out of if all the world were a stage and the a paintbrush as if it were a divining subjects within a paintings perpetual rod, capturing the most memorable,

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intense feelings, and transmitting or of the continuity of these Quebec- situ n the McGill Ghetto in 1954, communicating them to us all. We based artists' careers. Included are Armand Vaillancourt's large scale have mostly sensed, felt, heard, en­ works by Anne Kahane, Robert Ecran d'acier was installed on the visioned similar experiences, and Roussil, Yves Trudeau, Mario MacKay Pier at the Expo Theatre here at Han Gallery, they conjure it Merola, David Sorensen, and Ar­ Mall, and represents one of all up as if it had just taken place a mand Vaillancourt that give us a Canada's most sophisticated ab­ moment ago... As Hugo Wuthrich sense of how these artists' works stract sculptors work at its apex. Not comments, "It has to come from me. have evolved over the years. long after Vaillancourt would create It comes naturally." Most surprising are Anne the Embarcadero Fountain in San The primitive, art brut charac­ Kahane's recent aluminum cut-out Francisco. Nous irons jouer dans ter of Hugo's art is analogous to personages Les Amis (2006) and l'Ile (2000), a found sculpture is every person's search for a deeper Seated Figures Vlll (2006). Slight fascinating for the diversity of spa­ purpose, but all this in a world over- folds and almost photo-like 3-D im­ tial relations existing between its populated by masks, artefacts, on a agery situates her work much as the composite forms. Aux premières planet that is over-producng. interlocking carved wood sections of nations (2005) made of wood, Hugo Wuthrich's art is a testi­ the 1960s art did. There is something glass and steel is another sophisti­ mony to the human spirit and the photographic, instantaneous and cated homage to the Native peoples way the creative spirit can outdis­ reverential about these cut-out of North America. The hanging tances itself at times. Nothing is too forms. They could even recall the wood branch sections are like smooth, too confected, and the tex­ colourful paper cut out pieces bones, the painted hieroglyphics ture of life invades it all. This is an die bedridden Henri Matisse created lively symbols of an ancient cultural anthropologist's dream-artifacts in large scale at the end of his life. heritage strongly linked to nature, from the present constructed or Mario Merola's totemic Tree (1992) while the formal structure has an painted with a sense of urgency and sculpture has a folkloric character architectural character. Yves this, in an era when the immediate reminiscent of Gauguin's carvings, Trudeau's sculptures are beautiful, tactile reality subsides, and the and there is a joyful naivete here. if somewhat hierarchic, a sort of iconic media-based image predom­ The sculptor Merola, seems to have Catholic modernism, elegiac recon­ inates amid the informational bar­ achieved a more human perspective structions of cathedral elements. rage and the electronic ticket. Art is and scale with his recent works. The These small scale works on view more than all this, and chance is a concrete and enamel Expo 67 piece have a sense of mystery, and capture our imagination. Above all, they key one might use to unlock that Kalena looked almost sci-fi or Soviet Mario Merola inner world of expression, and (or both) in its large scale, some­ have that lyrical sense we likewise Tree (1992) nourishes a poetry of chance. As what austere, designed character. see in Roland Poplin's sculptures. Dubuffet once wrote: "There are an David Sorensen, who exhibited Robert Roussil, a force of his era in STOWE, VERMONT infinite number of accidents in a cast cement and bronze sculptures the field of sculpture, who now lives painting." Hugo Wuthrich's art de­ as part of Expo 67's Youth Pavillion in France created a surrealist cast MICHAEL FLOMEN scribes an infinity inherent to life, with its discotheque and amphithe­ iron sculpture tided Migration for and does so with a simply vigour and the Garden of Stars Plaza at Expo. INTERPRETING NATURE atre located at La Ronde. Some of th raw beauty. The exuberance we feel, the cement pieces were cast at his Perhaps more than any other of June 1 S^-August 25 that resonates throughout this com­ St. Henri studio while the bronzes these sculptors, Roussil has stayed Helen Day Art Center prehensive exhibition at Han Gallery close to his origins as a sculptor, as were cast at a foundry on Long Tel.: 802-253-8358 an archaic, lyrical looking Untitled is reminiscent of Niki de Saint Island in New York. The egg forms www.helenday.com Phalle. The wheels and cogs that that were part of the Growth series bronze from the 1990s attests. Seen turn are metaphysical ones, and the recall Brancusi's The Beginning for what it is, Expo 67 Revisited is Using light sensitive materials narrations are. of the World (1924), but evolve a show that brings some context to an such as Agfa photo paper or Mylar John K. Grande this universal form, moving it into ever changing arts scene, in that we painted with emulsion, Michael the language of minimalism of the emerge from this show more aware Flomen has evolved his own lan­ 1960s era. Eggs were some of of the continuity of these artists'ca- guage of photography, particularly POINTE-CLAIRE the first ancient sculptural forms reers and aesthetic preoccupations. with respect to its relation to nature uncovered by archaeologists and In knowing this, we likewise sense the and natural phenomena. The process have been an unconscious motif we same for the upcoming generations is one where nature enacts its phys­ EXPO 67 REVISITED recognize since primordial times. of artists that have followed these now ical, climactic and light effects as in July 8-Aug 26, 2007 The Millennium Stele series on senior artists. As well, we sense Expo a laboratory out of doors. The event 67's effect as a cultural motor in the Stewart Hall Art Gallery view for this show are miniature of nature thus becomes something of Canadian scene, whose reverbera­ 176 chemin du Bord-du-Lac bronzes play on and with the a nature theatre played out on pho­ tions echoed on for a decade or two. Tel.: 514-630-1254 totemic form with an intricate play­ tographic film or paper. The results ful, even musical sense of Une, and Calder's Man sculpture, the second are fascinating, and as varied as one largest Calder Stabile in the world, Revisiting Expo 67, and the form. These works recall one of could expect. Some of them look Sorensen's early influences, the still stands close to the original Expo downright extra-terrestrial, or ab­ sculptors who exhibited there 40 67 site and the Biosphere created in years after the event, curators Joyce artist Bill Reid with whom he stud­ stract, but this abstraction is what na­ ied early on. Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome ture is all about in its diversity. Millar and Serge Fisette has brought site on Ile Ste-Hélène attests to this the present and past together Renowned for his Tree of Never certain of the effects that great global cultural event. will be achieved, Flomen produces through photos, maquettes and Durocher St., an ongoing public John K. Grande actual sculptures to give us a sense artwork that was a tree carved in unique single images with photo

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VENICE, ITALY In a recent interview, Altmejd emphasized the instinctual nature of his work, much had to do with in­ THE INDEX tuition. Referencing animal heads at DAVID ALTMEJD AND CANADA the Public Art Fund to the mirrored, AT THE VENICE BIENNALE geometric installations at the Guggen­ Pavilion du Canada heim, the narrative of Altmejd's work Biennale di Venezia has always focused around the cel­ Giardini di Castello ebratory nature of Canada's savage Venezia wilderness. After almost one hun­ July 10 to November 21,2007 dred and fifty years of a country struggling with identity politics, "The Index" has grasped Canada's Stepping into David Altmedj's post-modern concerns in the most cryptic fantasy world is like enter­ eloquent manner-Altmedjt's apti­ ing a savage but somehow friendly tude for proliferating signifiers nature park. In this year's Venice Bi­ amidst the wilderness has created ennale, after hours of wandering original dialogue regarding Cana­ through cartoon skeletons (Korea), dian identity. Altmejd has contained portraits of fruit (Hong Kong), ac­ the savage wilderness of Canada cusatory love letter debris (France), in an enclosed marble space of a and multimedia reiteration (every­ crystal atrium. Logs are discarded body), we happily reach the oasis everywhere. The overwhelming that is the Canadian Pavilion featur­ Two Sfep. 2005 grandness of Canada's hinterland is ing the mirrored shrubbery and Edition 4 The results are unpredictable, contained in a flurry of lounging 91 cm x 91 cm monstrous horror of David Gelatin silver toned print and nature plays as important a role monsters. as the photographer in the final Altmejdt's "The Index". Hope and love are rare in the art composition. The analogy in art Altmejd has been quoted as world, especially when you're using paper, and small edition photos, could be to Andy Goldsworthy's calling his sculptures "open ended werewolves and giants as a medium. usually no more than four, with die Snowball Drawings, where the melt narratives" replete in symbolic po­ An artist like Altmedjt who brings re­ negatives. Created in situ on photo­ of ice and snow, combined with pig­ tential. The savage beast, the domi­ sistant forms to us shakes up notions graphic paper, usually at night, when ment results in surprising and in­ neering outdoors crisscrossed of complicity in art creating new di­ die effects of the moon produces the teresting patterning on paper. These amidst the panoptic enormous mir­ alogues and a richer understanding imagery as it interacts with water, recent Flomen photos, enacted over ror in the middle becomes instinc­ of ffie world around us—whether it wind and diverse natural species, the past few years, are surprisingly tively familiar to this Canadian and be natural or supernatural. Flomen lets weather interact with the different than the urban studies, the not only because of the sudden ap­ surface. The remarkable abstract, human body and the situationist pearance of my own reflection Melissa Lam physical and phenomenological ef­ scenarios in black and white seen amidst glass. Bewddered passerby fects are on view at the Helen Day Art in Flomen's book Still Life Draped step gingerly around the mirrored Center in large format works that re­ Stone published by the Paget Press wilderness. From the Pioneer Tales mind one of the history of photogra­ in 1985- Born in Montreal in 1952, of Susanna Moodie to the Wilder­ phy, and while respecting the past, and the master printer of J. Henri ness Tips of Margaret Atwood's first The Index, 2007 Flomen's photos compose themselves Bronze, steel, polystyrene, resin, paint, Lartigue's exhibition for America in book, every Canadian is well versed wood, glass, mirror, Plexiglas, lighting ontologically within the continuum system, silicone, naturalised birds and 1975, Flomen continues to evolve in the subject of primal nature as a animals, synthetic plants, branches from of nature. Henry Fox Talbot's photos the language of his photography. In­ key part of our identity narrative. a synthetic tree, pine nuts, horsehair, of plant species, and the surrealist synthetic hair, jute, leather, glass fibres, terpreting Nature as a show com­ "Giant II" is a barely recognizable chains, wire, feathers, quartz, pyrite, Rayograms of Man Ray with their own other minerals, glass eyes, clothing, bines the phenomena whether the hairy Leviathan reclining languidly shoes, fishing wire, jewelry, glass pearls, etc. unconscious twist have led on to the actions of water, light, air or exter­ on the pink speckled marbled floor. 333 x1297 x923 cm works Flomen has created. They are, Photo: Ellen Page Wilson nal physical elements with an inge­ Its limbs deflect you with broken With kind authorisation of the Rosen in a sense an encounter with God, for mirrors patterned on top of its Gallery, New York, and the Stuart nious sense that surpassed the pho­ Shave/Modern Art, London. the effects come from outside. tographic role of documentation, hairy skin acting © Oavid Altmejd A Brassai of the backwoods, and equally is less egoistic in its as a hideously whose streets are rivers, and stop­ sense of the photographer's role ac­ discernible com­ lights are trees, Michael Flomen tually is in relation to our place in ment on our own generates imagery in all seasons, the universe ... As Michael Flomen reflection seen in whether in Vermont, the Laurentians says "I make photographs of things the monster. All of or elsewhere. Flomen's activity pro­ we do not see, but know are there." a sudden it comes duces remarkable documents, in to me. As I gaze at part abstract, and equally dynamic John K. Grande the Giant pulsating and they rely on nature for their amidst the smell force. Nature's design interacts with of green pine trees the artistic gesture most amazingly and haphazard in Flomen's visual night recordings logs, I realize, this of a firefly's path in darkness with feels like Canada Two Step, for instance. like nothing else.

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FREDERICTON, NB no small measure, by the curator's I would certainly call him a social Smart, and it is repeated in an­ excellent essay in the book length realist. His education at New York's other essay in the catalogue by Saint MILLER BRITTAIN catalogue. I have often thought that Art Student's League during this pe­ Thomas University professor Allen the history of Canadian art in the riod, and his strongly held Christian Bendey, postulates that Brittain was WHEN THE STARS THREW DOWN first half of twentieth century, be­ beliefs, place him firmly on the left. strongly influenced by the images THEIR SPEARS cause of the Group of Seven's stran- Indeed, many of the artists he stud­ and words of William Blake. The 20 April—16 September 2007 gle-hold on the public's imagina­ ied with, and those with whom he subtide of this exhibition, When the The Beaverbrook Art Gallery tion, could be subtided: the tree in was friends in the United States, Stars Threw Down Their Spears, is 703 Queen Street art. Brittain was not in that forest. identified not only with Socialism drawn from lines by Blake. I might Fredericton, NB He was rooted firmly in urban life but flat out with Communism, differ in detad on the subject, but and that is why he is sometimes a through such groups as the John the influence is there nonetheless. It is about time that there was a forgotten figure in our art history. Read Clubs. The Depression was a Smart also makes a case for com­ critical look at the work of Saint Brittain's best work, to my mind, hard time both in the United States paring Brittain to the hero, Gulley John artist Miller Brittain (1912- was done in the 1930's and mirrors and Canada and many artists be­ Jimson, of Joyce Cary's 1944 novel 1968). The Beaverbrook Art Gallery the Depression. There is some ar­ lieved that Capitalism had failed. The The Horse's Mouth. Certainly, there exhibition, Miller Brittain, When gument to whether or not he was a answer, they thought, was to be are similarities, and Brittain knew of the Stars Threw Down Their real social realist in the American found in a Socialist future. Their the book, but if I were to compare Spears, does just that. The exhibi­ model of social realism, but there artistic models, and surely Brittain's Brittain to another artist it would tion, curated by Tom Smart, places can be no doubt that he had a real as well, were the Mexican muralists have to be the real-life English artist the artist in his rightfulspo t in Cana­ sympathy with the people who were such as Diego Rivera, Jose Orozco Stanley Spencer. Mind you, Spencer dian art history and is aided, in the subject of his art at that time. and David Siqueiros. might very well be the model for Like his slightiy older col­ Joyce's fictional Jimson. Both Brit­ league, Jack Humphrey, tain's and Spencer's late religion- he returned for economic based paintings are odd and reasons to Saint John dur­ strange, but they are profound at the ing the Depression, be­ same time. It would be nice if cause it was home and a the work of all good artists, and place to ride out the Brittain is more than a good artist, storm. Unfortunately for continued to improve throughout Canadian artists such as their lifetime, however this is not the Brittain and Humphrey, case here. Sometimes their work Canada did not come up stagnates and other times it just be­ with a plan to use art and comes, as in Brittain's case, odd. artists as a tool to fightth e I believe that Miller Brittain: Depression, as did the When the Stars Threw Down Their Americans with their WPA Spears is one of the most important programme. Saint John exhibitions of this year. Fortunately, was a hard place to be and after it closes in Fredericton, it em­ Brittain's art at this time barks on a national tour. It will be reflects that fact. His street at The McMichael Canadian Art scenes and portraits of Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario this period, such as from November 10, 2007-February Longshoremen Off Work 10, 2008, and The Art Gallery of (1938) and Head oj a Man Nova Scotia in Halifax from April 12 (1932), are not gloomy. to June 15, 2008. The exhibition Quite to the contrary, he is also scheduled at later dates in ennobles his subjects. Saint John, New Brunswick and Brittain saves his scorn Charlottetown, PEI. for a series of drawings, This exhibition needs to be seen such as "D'YeKen John by as many Canadians as possible, Peel?" (mi) and Three as it will certainly change minds Little Maids(1937) that about the place of Miller Brittain in show the rich in an ironic our art history. fight, which was akin to Virgil Hammock showing them fiddling whde Rome burns.

Head of a Man, 1932 Graphite on kraft paper 49.5 x 36.0 cm National Gallery of Canada (no. 28891 )

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