The A Word

…all things I talk about on this week’s show, and you can listen to it here. As promised, I’ve posted the image with information for the EYOJG events that are upcoming.

I give you a few images of one of Kai Chan’s works, looking all sexy and beautiful and engaging. This work, Aurora, is at the Mendel right now.

Here is this week’s radio show, and some images that interrelate: but you can listen to the show here, and I’d point out that I’m posting it a bit earlier than usual as Frank Shebageget will be speaking at the U of S this Thursday (tomorrow).

His work is posted above, and Frank has one of my most favourite exhibitions in the history of AKA Gallery…a space with many tongues……and in that wonderful sexy aesthetic way, I also give you an image of Kai Chan, who opens at the Mendel this Friday, as well.

There is also a worthwhile exhibition that just opened at the Saskatchewan Craft Council, and the invitation is posted below for you as well. There’s some excellent work in this show. I’m also posting up a bit early, as I talk about it on this week’s show, the poster for INHABIT, a project by the MFA students at the U of S, that is happening in the Snelgrove right now but that will end with an Open Studio night next week. The poster is below, as well, with all the information you need.

…which is one of my favourite songs by the Talking Heads, and I play it this week, as it seems appropriate when talking about Emmanuel Licha’s work at PAVED which opens this Friday. This week’s radio show can be heard here. Enjoy.

And the Canadian Romantic will be making an appearance at AKA Gallery this Thursday night, at 7 PM.

…which will mean something when you hear the show. A number of events are mentioned, from LUGO to FUTUROLOGIST to Rural Readymade. Listen to this week’s show here.

I think I may have referred to Rural Readymade as Prairie Readymade several times in the show  (what is it about shows Shauna McCabe curates that I can’t get the names right with them? An unforgivable slight, as she’s often presenting worthwhile and engaging projects….or I can claim I come up with alternate titles, as she accepts my mistakes with good humour…).

An image by Dustin Wilson, from FUTUROLOGIST

We Were Lovers, who will be performing at LUGO at the Mendel

….and you may feel free to not let the door hit your ass on the way out. But there were some significant events and exhibitions and other such things this past year (like Bronwyn Eyre quoting the CARFAC newsletter like it wasn’t a self serving, contradictory last screech of desperation), and many exhibitions in Saskatoon that directly challenged the provincial imaginary of a “new Saskatchewan”. And I play a little Tom Fun Orchestra at the end. Enjoy the last broadcast of 2011.

In terms of updates, Michael Farnan, a past A Word guest on several occasions and survivor of the MFA program at the U of S, has a new website. Check it out here.

Here’s this week’s A Word, the second to last of the year, and Megan Bocking, who is Program Manager at the Bytown Museum in Ottawa, and has worked at the Mendel and National Gallery, among other places, talks about audience and what we expect of them, and what they may expect of us, in terms of museums and galleries. You can listen to it here.

For next week’s show I’ll be touching on a number of things that happened during 2011 that are significant, or worth noting, or perhaps that are just worthy of repeated ridicule. A merry X-mas to you all, and hoping you all have a good holiday.

This week’s A Word touches on a number of events and exhibitions in the community, and one that is up very briefly is seen below: a work by Amelie Atkins, and you can find out more information about it here. The most important thing is that you have a very brief few days to experience this work on 20th Street.

However, another event worth checking out this week is AKA’s End of the World Art Draw: you can find out all the information you need about it here, and here. There are a number of works by artists like Tammi Campbell, Grant McConnell, Joseph Anderson, Jayce Salloum…and the tickets are a mere $40 each, or two for $60. Buy one and support AKA Gallery, and you have an excellent chance of getting an amazing work of art. And you can listen to this week’s A WORD here.

This week’s show is a conversation between myself and Jayce Salloum, whose exhibition history of the present is at the Mendel Art Gallery right now. You can listen to it, or download it, here. We talk about the show and a number of issues around it, and I should mention that Jayce had spent some of his early years in Southwestern Saskatchewan, which feeds into my theory that many people from here are the first to question any notion of an homogenous “history”, even with the rhetoric of the “new Saskatchewan”…..

a still from Salloum's video work / conversation with Soha Bechara

This week’s radio show is a conversation between myself and Ellen Moffat, in the structural interventionist audio exploration that is her solo exhibition at PAVED titled PickUpPutDown : Enjoy.

Opening performance at PAVED arts

The performance the night of the opening of PickUpPutDown.

Now, there is a reception this Friday at Luna Hill of works by Evgenia Mikhaylova and the poster, and several images, are here for your enjoyment and information.

Here is this week’s radio show in which Marcel Petit and I talk about his upcoming film projects and the environment within which they’re being created, from Saskatoon to Ottawa. Enjoy.

And I will also (shamelessly mention) that AKA is having a fundraiser in December : the End of the World Art Draw, and the poster is below. A number of these artists are significant on local and national levels, and the tickets are a steal considering the works up for the draw.