sculpture

Three Minotaur studies
Been working on a open sim maze project, and the Minotaur narrative is something artistically dear to me or awhile and this provides a good opportunity to start my (resistive) reading of that myth. Here’s some prelim work from November:
Art Souterrain – 4km into the underground city (2010)
I forgot about this video! One of my first “art documentaries” – it gets funnier but not easier. Description below:
Two goofballs from Toronto decide to travel to Montreal and keep a video diary of their exploration of Nuit Blanche 2010, following the “Art Souterrain” route of contemporary art in the subway tunnels and public halls underneath Montreal.

10 unsuccessful photos of Jim Lambie’s stairs at the Albright-Knox
And one normal one.
Was in Buffalo for the first time in my life and my partner and I loved it. The downtown architecture and neighborhoods were fascinating, dense and historic. Compared with the terrible state of the ravaged City of Hamilton it was truly a vision of what a community in a former rustbelt city could be – especially as a place allowing and encouraging the arts to flourish. If it made sense at this point in our lives my partner and I would live there in a heartbeat. That’s the power of preserving a city’s built heritage and making a downtown community livable.
One of the highlights of our visit was a visit to the Albright-Knox Gallery of Art. Finally, I was at this gallery I kept hearing about – and now I know why. It kinda was exactly the gallery you wanted it to be – not too big, not too small and full of famous art and unknown (to me) masterpieces.
Below are some of the photos they allowed us take – Jen sitting on these crazy ass stairs that my phone had trouble with. I think it’s the straight hard edge colour contrasts that defy media reproducibility – and I loved it.

Pop-Up gallery exhibit one for the books
Open Book Group Exhibit at 21 Rebecca Street.
Hamilton purportedly has a DIY culture and attitude and that reputation has attracted many arty types like myself to this quirky rust belt city. Sometimes, the perception is not really the reality and many of us have been yearning for empty buildings downtown to be bought and turned into impromptu exhibit spaces – and only three years later, have I finally seen this happen the way many of us have been daydreaming it should happen.
Welcome to the neighbourhood, Book Club Gallery.
Located on Rebecca, just off of James Street North and in the shadow of the Jackson Square monstrosity, the Book Club Gallery was never a Book Store. It was a wool broker office, and a print shop, and a hair salon – it is currently a pleasant austere space with art by some of Hamilton’s best artists. At least for the next few weeks – who knows what the owner, Cameron, will do with the space next but having a pop-up exhibit is such a great way to fill the space in the meantime. There are a lot of empty storefronts in Hamilton, and their owners could learn a thing or two about fostering community from people like Cameron.
(Unfortunately, Hamilton has many empty storefronts because of their owners are slumlords who don’t want the “expense” of the space being used for anything. They just want to flip the property at some point in the future after people like us creative class types put in all the hard work to improve the community and thus the real estate value. The City councilors here are, in turn, kinda meta-slum lords because the home crowd in this small city all know each other and look out for their “buddies”. But things are changing because there are so many new people arriving , and we’ve see that things are better elsewhere and so things will change here. This is a kind of hostile cultural takeover. But enough of this issue at the moment..)
Back to the show – the participating artists in this exhibit, one of the best so far of 2013, are Donna Akrey, Sarah Beattie, Andrea Carvalho, Margaret Flood and Svava Thordis Juliusson.
There was a small amount of people who attended the opening, but it’s slightly off the Art Crawl beaten path. A couple of sandwich boards would address this problem nicely. Such a good show – Cameron, please consider keeping it open for the next art crawl!

Donna Akrey’s work is sprawling and subtle. Go ahead and try to find this bear. You’ll be glad you did.

Andrea Carvalho – this work really takes advantage of the space, I think. These sculptural installations look like “Office Ghosts” to me. Love this.
[photos]Go see Dagmara Genda & Bruce Montcombroux @ The Inc
Make sure you check out this exhibit at Hamilton Artists Inc before it’s over March 13th, 2013. Some remarkable work by these two artists from western Canada.
(I like taking photos of artists and their work. I think I’ll do more)
[video / photos] Walk Through of “ignition 1” exhibit @ Hamilton Artists Inc’s JSN Gallery
Emily Benedict Katie Leaf Devan Marinaccio
(sorry I touched the sculpture. i was only trying to help. it got stuck and it looked easy to fix, but it wasn’t. I knew if I kept trying to help I would destroy it. also, a lovely show.)