The A Word

…which I steal from this  excellent article in the Regina Leader Post.

In 2008/09 Saskatchewan television and film production stimulated $75 million in economic activity and created over 1200 jobs in the province.

Since it’s inception, Saskatchewan film employment tax credits have generated 623 million in production with a cost of $100 million to the government.

Or, to paraphrase Rick Mercer, Sarah Polley has employed more carpenters and workers in making a film than Brad Wall ever has, or will.

I am passing on a request to send letters decrying this ignorant decision to SYMIA at: vanessa@smpia.sk.ca and these letters will be posted at Brad Wall’s office to demand an explanation and not the usual governmental stonewalling and silence.

Here’s a JPEG of an example letter: my regrets for not having it in word, but you can add or subtract what you like with this.

It is worth noting that part of the “boom” here is due to cultural industries: and that we will take that boom with us, if we leave. I would also suggest contacting your MLA (hey, there’s going to be three more of them – guess we don’t mind paying for something like that, when most of them don’t do anything. There is no government subsidy like when it subsidizes itself….that sounded obscene, but not in the way I meant it.)

…when I thought it was no longer possible, but hey, this is where like minds bleat. This is an interesting article in the Sheaf (yeah, re read that, I said it), and I’d add that the author is solely speaking of undergraduate degrees.

I’d contribute the question to the debate of asking what it means when a school continues its trend of “six year BFAs”, accepting their own undergrads into their “MFA program” when this is a practice banned at most universities? None of the candidates have any skills, exhibitions or reasons for admittance other than that the jury members wrote their letters of application. It is reminiscent of an accusation made against the Emma Lake “school” that incest and an almost proud ignorance of any other place has led to what most incest leads to….

I suspect an ethical overview is required: but while I’m wishing, I’d like a pony.

A curator, writer and colleague of mine with an international reputation who was treated like garbage while obtaining a degree at the U of S once asked me what would happen to our degrees, when the Art Department invariably folded: I responded that we’d no longer see our degrees and work be demeaned by others.

Perhaps if the Clarion project goes forward, we can expect an improved level of professionalism – or maybe some professionalism – in the department.

That’s right: I’m an idealist.

There will be opportunity for people to speak of Chet, and share memories and anecdotes, at this gathering.

No, this is not photoshopped, and no, this isn’t a joke (well, other than my play). AKA and the ECA Community Rink had our game of shinny yesterday, and more pictures will be going up at AKA’s FB page and website and on FLICKR, but I thought I’d put this out there to titillate and horrify you all.

And there was a time when I wanted to grow up to be Ray Bourque.

One of the ways in which Saskatoon’s isolation hurts is in that we rarely see touring exhibitions by genuine “Art Gods” of the western canon. When studying Art History in Windsor / Detroit, I could see a roomful of Ruebens, a breathtaking miniature by Jan Van Eyck, a smattering of the Quebecois Automatistes, and Diego Rivera – his mural in the Detroit Institute of Arts was (literally) worth the price of admission, every and any time.

Perhaps this is why karaoke modernism proliferates like a venereal disease here, and why the current renaissance of Saskatchewan art is often to be found in Aboriginal artists, or new media. Our indoctrination has failed, or we know real art when we don’t see it. And with the “choice” in the “art department” at the U of S this year to have an external “head” ignorant of any visual art discourse, five faculty on sabbatical and a hopelessly tenured painter whose only ability seems to be to seamlessly ignore anyone not of their “level”, the beat goes on.

But nevermind:  the current exhibition in the side gallery at the Mendel is a touring show, courtesy of the National Gallery in Ottawa, titled The Symbolist Muse: A Selection of Prints from the National Gallery of Canada. The names you’ll recognize here include Picasso, Gauguin, Munch and Toulouse Lautrec. Their work is as good as it ever was, in that frightening ability of Art (note the capital) to transcend its time. We live with seemingly constant war (Afghanistan, Iraq, Oka, Caledonia) and “Big Brother” governments playing footsy with torture, poverty and racism, and an apocalyptic anxiety – just like Picasso or Lautrec did.  Picasso depicted it: Lautrec ignored it, and Gauguin fled it. But all of them felt it, even if their response was the aimless hedonism best personified by Lautrec (I say with envy).

Edvard Munch and James Ensor – whose works are infused with end of (last) century anxiety that we still carry – present works that though small prints, are jewels. Ensor evokes a subtle horror, a precursor to surrealism: and when one considers that the scent of the first World War was in the air, his images make even more sense (from his “bug heads” to gas masks, Cronenberg would approve…). These artists not only had a fin de sieclé sentiment, but these were also the days leading up to the “war to end all wars”. In Timothy Findley’s novel about this, The Wars, a soldier speaks of the fantastical death dealing flying machines, noxious gas warfare, endless trenches and flamethrowers: all straight out of Revelations. He’s assured that “men could not do these things, and surely would not. But they did”. That bitter despair seems to waft off of some of these images. The pale blue gallery walls make this worse, like the failed attempt to cheer up a hospice. This is almost an insult to Picasso’s image of a meager meal before a thin and hollow eyed couple upon whom the grave impatiently awaits…

Munch’s images of women are also diseased and dying: this loneliness and starkness is emphasized by the medium of printmaking, with impenetrable blacks and delicate marks, barely suggesting a shape. Edgar Allen Poe is a major influence here, and you want to keep his fatalistic, sometimes murderous, tales in mind. And like Poe, and Munch, many of the artists here use “woman” as symbol both good and (usually) evil, and animals and other phantasmagora are common. And we still carry some of those (misogynist) symbols with us, thanks to that neurotic pervert Freud. He was also a contemporary of many artists here, and his notion of the subconscious can’t be ignored, in The Symbolist Muse.

Franz von Stuck, “Lucifer,” c. 1890. Etching on chine collé on wove paper. Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada.

Other images play upon nationalist symbolism that will soon lead to Sturm and drang: and when some of these images were made, the Russian, German and Ottoman Empires all still existed, and their destruction would lead to Fascism, Communism and further blood and nationalism that these images anticipate. Every prophet in their house, so to speak.

I’m surprised to see this show here: the Mendel is not a secure space environment wise, for such valuable works. But this is a point to end on, as these works are so relevant that perhaps that risk needs to be taken, as whenever I’ve been to see the show, the gallery is never empty, and often has more than a dozen absorbed viewers. And that is what makes this show worthy: these ideas and images are not just about their world, but ours, in this year where the world is supposed to end. I’m sure that’s what many viewers of these prints also felt, a hundred years ago and yet not so far away.

…that although the new file sharing protocol I’m using is more reliable than the previous, shows will still be deleted if not downloaded for at least a month. So, if you want to listen to a past show, and it’s not there, check the dates, and feel free to email me to re post it.

Now, I’m off to play shinny.

The accompanying video with this, which can be seen here, is excellent: and remember that if you want things to be better, especially in terms of the series of metallic abortions that litter the streets of Saskatoon under the misnomer of “art”, do something to make it better, whether it be submitting a proposal to this, or disseminating it and encouraging others. And I give you screen grabs with the fabulous Miss Velkova.

PAVED Arts and aodbt architecture and interior design have formed an unique opportunity for local media artists to create a public art piece that responds to the aodbt building, located on 235 Ave D North in the Caswell Hill neighbourhood of Saskatoon. Experimental and independent media artists are invited to address the subject of “contemporary technology and design”– creating a public artwork that integrates with the aodbt building and/or attributes of the surrounding neighbourhood. We encourage submissions that consider: interactive new media, video and/or audio, a response to the immediate environs, and aspects of the building itself as well as the activity on site.

The selected new media public art project will be installed in the spring of 2012 with an official unveiling slated for June 15, 2012. Artist fees will be paid as per CARFAC fee schedule, as well as some costs related to installation and art materials.

Sometimes the Star Phoenix pleasantly surprises me, and Gerry Klein’s well reasoned, intelligent – and FACTUAL, unlike some of the critics – take on the false controversy around the REMAI Art Gallery is worth the read.

You can read it here.

Once (perhaps while inebriated, ahem) I interrupted two faculty to tell one that their exhibition “Glimmer” was “fucking beautiful”. The other was someone whose work I’d described with equal enthusiasm, but the opposite appraisal. But I say this not to embarrass myself, but to illustrate that I’m effusive with praise when it’s merited, and generous with contempt when demanded (as all informed gallery goers should be). Thus, Kai Chan’s exhibition at the Mendel, A Spider’s Logic, is “fucking beautiful”. And the ignored, offending parties here are the rusted “sculpted” failures littered around this city, brown excrements on our street corners that too many think are “real” sculptures. It’s an interesting contrast…. the karaoke modernists usually claim all the ideas at play in Chan’s work. However, he delivers. They don’t. Both do it repeatedly.

The works are spread across the vast back gallery space, and are at times dense, at times almost ethereal, and all share a sense of beauty and deliberation. This exhibition “brings together more than a dozen major works…spanning 35 years, these works reveal the artist’s extraordinary conceptual and formal range, and illuminate his very personal manner of observing nature and the built environment.

Using everyday materials such as branches, thread, string, toothpicks, buttons and recycled plastic objects, and applying mixed-media techniques, he mixes, heaps, wraps, weaves, braids, layers, fastens, rolls, twists and stretches them to create fascinating and ingenious installations and sculptures…Chan’s expressive and imaginative pieces are characterized by a minimalist use of unexpected materials. He celebrates the ordinary by melding tradition and modernity.”

Several works are specifically worth note: Mirage fills one wall, looking like a delicate rendering of a series of waterfalls or cataracts, done in thread, sometimes with heavy “marks”, sometimes with single tenuous threads. Marilyn has a gracefulness that suggests it bends as opposed to drooping, and that makes me wonder if it’s named after the icon. This work is in a pale pinkish cotton thread, while the former is in a rich deep red. Aurora / Aurore is the work you’ve seen reproduced in most of the Mendel publicity. A thick, almost bodily swathe of material wound around and hanging in the middle of the space, it’s a work that shows a perverse element of Chan’s work: an invitation by its tactile nature that I’m not allowed to indulge. I feel I could wrap myself up in this work and wear it home across the park (it’s no surprise that Chan has made clothing, as well).

Other, smaller pieces are just as engaging (and fucking beautiful). Talk – made up of two parts, with metallic and symmetrical parts that have “tails” of long, luxurious reddish thread – seems to float off the wall in stark contrast to the white background. Deep Breathing is another work I want to touch, as it has a sheer, organic shape whose translucent is wrapped around a metal “bone”, and having the same “tail” as Talk. Hung as part of a trilogy, these works deserve more prominent placement. They are sexy.

I’ll end with the work that is opposite, across the gallery space, from Mirage: this is Shangri La, and could best be described as a series of “lines” that are in fact numerous blades of grass in beads, poked into the wall to make delicate “pencil marks”.

These are as minimal and sparse as they are intensive to create (tiny holes drilled and each blade gingerly placed). They span all over the wall, but I must say that I wish there were more, that they were a bit lusher, and that they weren’t so brown and molted (it is February, I suppose). The blades share a beauty of form (that almost denies their function here) with the works made in cotton thread, or others in twigs, bamboo and other ephemera.

This show was curated by Sarah Quinton from the collections of the Mendel, Cambridge Galleries, Canadian Museum of Civilization and Chan’s studio, and is toured by the Textile Museum of Canada and the Varley Art Gallery. And there are numerous other works in the space that I’m just as seduced by, and that are as beautiful.

Kai Chan’s work – like a number of genuine sculptors in Saskatoon, like Stacia Verigin or Carole Epp –is new, “melding tradition and modernity”, while referencing the past, without resorting to plagiarism and regionalist ignorance. But the next time you see a rusted metallic “sculpture”, remember that isn’t Art – and good contemporary Art of form and space and shape and size – is at the Mendel, in A Spider’s Logic.

The current exhibition at AKA Gallery, Dustin Wilson / FUTUROLOGIST, may initially deceive you into thinking that you’ve stepped into a project that was rejected by the Western Development Museum. The drawings, videos and the helpful handout with its accompanying list of symbols and definitions belie the wry humour at play. But like all “comedians”, Wilson is illuminating some essential truths (just as Margaret Atwood did in Oryx and Crake), about our potential future(s), our contemporary attitudes and the essential relationship between those two things.

The site of contested [future] narratives for Wilson is his native New Brunswick (he and I had an entertaining – and depressing – discussion about how a number of places in Canada are either never included in the national narratives, or are present solely as outside misinterpretations – he must be a trapper, eh, and I must be a farmer. Or he must be a craft artist who works in fur, and I must paint stripes….). This provincial focus allows a specificity for the Futurologist that is Wilson’s persona with this work, as in his talk at AKA he spoke in a dry, tongue in cheek manner of the “messages” he recieves from the future, and his attempts to decipher and decode them for us all. His words (which I commented previously could be grafted onto a number of sites in Canada, and beyond) speak of  “dissecting issues of rural identity in the current era of rapid social, economic and physical change, [Wilson] draws a line from the unfortunate outcomes that result from short-term, reactionary thinking and connects this with the current global issues of climate change, migration and mass extinction which humanity will inevitably be forced to contend with.”

A number of the images Wilson presents indicate that they take place in C.E. 2300, or further in the future. Some of the inhabitants of New Brunswick at this juncture in time have changed – genetic engineering is alluded to, sometimes fostered by unknown outsiders (perhaps government, perhaps private industries) – to be more hairy, to better tolerate the environment, perhaps all to be better “workers”.  A personal favourite is the genetic offshoot of mer people, who were bred to do work in one of the waterways, but discovered they could survive on their own on fish and other forage, abandoning any oppressive “invisible hand” of the market. Or, to quote Wilson’s illustrated guide, they “don’t work here anymore”: change is rarely predictable, and not often interested in conforming to expectations.

Other images depict the poorer, indigenous inhabitants “bootlegging” some of the technologies, while evolving wildlife disrupts other imposed notions of order (characters described solely as “blue suits” seem to have a role as faceless enforcers of some military / industrial / ‘we’re from the gov’t and here to help you” complex). At his talk at the University, several people spoke of Atwood’s foray in SF with Oryx and Crake, and Year of the Flood: both speak to how the best laid plans go awry when we consider only what we can do, and not whether we should – or, less philosophically, using pigs to grow brain tissue doesn’t work so well when the world ends due to a manufactured virus, and the “pigoons” make a play to be the dominant life form, and that cerebral tissue helps them move up the food chain….

The installation in the gallery proper is minimal, but the aircraft wire used to display the drawings, graphs and other pseudo scientific “research” is aesthetically engaging: and works well on a conceptual level, suggesting the images can be moved or re arranged, as better to fit the research of this Futurologist. To refer to his talk at the university again, Wilson spoke of the changes we (as a species) have made to our environment, and how he is “hopeful” about the future in a “geological” sense, suggesting that his focus on New Brunswick indicates that history – or the future – both happen most relevantly on a local scale, and that we may wish to trust local, immediate experience over that which is remote, that need not live – or die – with the consequences (did I mention the pigoons already?).

At its core, this is genuine research: just as Atwood once commented that her works weren’t fantasy as they were firmly grounded in what we are doing, experiencing and deciding now. Can’t you picture a future where workers willing to be “augmented” will be given the rare jobs in areas that are not part of the governing class’ electorate? Or where it’s required to have this, just as its now required to have a cell phone, FB profile and so many other aspects of technology that in their invasiveness deny that this stuff was supposed to make a shorter work week, and more freedom? Just wait: the gov’t wants to read it’s employees email now, but soon, they’ll just want to modify your DNA so you can have 12 fingers and type like a superhuman…but Wilson, in FUTUROLOGIST, suggests that the best laid plans will not be so smooth. After all, life happens, and evolution happens, and maybe that 12-fingered employee will start a dissident paper that leads to a revolution. One can only hope that in the future posited by Wilson there are more of the “mer people”, and lesser of the “blue suits”. But that might be our responsibility….