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Cooler Than Cool: worthless and priceless

“..an aesthetics of interaction.”(Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis)

“We’re not complaining that the values people once believed in are now empty; to the contrary, we’re doing our best to empty them more and more. Get used to it. Stealing is a thrill in itself; this enjoyment is the real reason for postmodern appropriation. We aim to undermine those “convictions” of authenticity and truth, of proper meaning and right order, that sometimes seem to be as dear to Marxist dialecticians as they are to bureaucrats in the Pentagon. Speaking in my own voice is a tedious chore, one that the forces of law and order are all too eager to impose. They want to make me responsible, to chain me to myself….But forgetting myself, speaking in others’ stolen voices, speaking in tongues: all this is pleasure and liberation. Let a hundred simulacra bloom, let a thousand costumes and disguises contend.”(Steven Shaviro, Doom Patrols: A Theoretical Fiction about Postmodernism)

“I only wanted to find great people and let them talk about themselves and talk about what they usually liked to talk about and I’d film them.”(Warhol)

If you’re following some of the more entertaining (if insular and a bit masturbatory) debates in the art world right now, there’s a concerted number of voices decrying the academicization of art aesthetics – which essentially means the elimination of them to serve the politics of the moment. This manifests in different ways, whether in that works are solely to be interpreted through a specific ideological lens or only considering specific groupthink (or approved ideology, edit as you will), ignoring and denying all other.

I might suggest an example in the recent interpretation of Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale which has handmaids that are African – American, which in Atwood’s book was biblicaly impermissible to Gilead’s theocrats, as non whites – whether by biological or social designation (such as Jews) – were deported or executed. It’s an interesting tell of the ideology of the producers of this series, that Atwood’s novel’s reach (abuse of power in the name of religion being no surprise) is narrowed to serve a very specific interpretation (the abuse of women in the name of religion being no surprise). It’s reminiscent of the debate as to whether Hillary Clinton lost the last American Presidential Election, or if Trump won it…and that historical event clearly delineated that many ideologies don’t always intersect smoothly. To offer a further nod to Atwood’s Gilead, it’s like how calling oneself a “Christian” can mean anything, or nothing, and that Atwood, in her book, showed clearly that enslaving anyone in the name of your invisible friend is a poor, poor thing. End of tangent.

This is one of the ways in which art schools and their respective ideological apparatus limit dissent and reinforce their own propaganda. In his excellent book on Art and Sociology, Editor Jeremy Tanner asserts that art historians often value works that sociologists dismiss and vice versa, and that where their ideologies overlap in an “art object” (an inexact, but workable term) is as rare as a unicorn. “Taste is the enemy of art” declared Marcel Duchamp infamously, and Warhol’s further fracture of what might be called high or low taste is well known, and still reverberates.

I recently attended an artist talk where Warhol’s image of Marilyn – do we even need a last name – was shown as how “pop” and “art” meet and take on a viral life beyond even what McLuhan expected or guessed at…and the artist in question was / is still producing versions of Warhol’s Marilyn that further challenge – or collude with, or enhance, or erode – taste, consumerism and capital. This article is an interesting one, in that light, and this rebuttal is also worth considering.

As to where I stand in this debate, I find myself more often channelling Bartleby and asserting that I’d rather not…..or more exactly, I prefer to take things as they are, at times, in a more Modernist assertion of social interactions, and am less interested in a post structural framework that, as postmodernism eats its children alive, hurtles us towards cultural immolation by means of Trump or Clinton, a post truthiness where ideology eschews all the things that make Art enjoyable and accessible, and yet still challenging….

It might seem strange that the previous tangent was inspired by Cooler Than Cool (Ice Cold), a collaborative  exhibition by Katie Mazi and Jenn Judson. It’s a show that borders on silly, and that refuses – simply will not – take itself seriously. Yet in doing so, it offers an amusing and sometimes very slick demonstration of the joint nature of creation (beyond the artists to the models, even), how photography can beautifully capture a performative experience, and that it is good, sometimes, to take what you do seriously, while never taking yourself so, in that vein.

The teasing online statement they provided was minimal, but inviting: “Do you like art and do you like to laugh and/or cry? Good. It’s a photo show. Two amateur photographers, ten plus+ amateur models and one new body of work. Some call the photos dumb, others call them sexy. It’s up to you to come to the show and decide for yourself. Kate Mazi and Jenn Judson present to you: Cooler Than Cool (Ice Cold). A photo based exhibition that you have to see to believe.“

The works in the Dennis Tourbin space at NAC are primarily photographs: but there’s also the clothing, and some items, presented, that were part of the tableaux that the artists present. The images are kitschy and cheesy, seemingly frivolous, and the models seem to invite us to join in at their unselfconscious self mockery, that is as clear and bright as the colours.

The titles are as evocative, as they are silly: I’m reminded of children’s toys or games, which fits with the aesthetic of play in that these are like Halloween costumes, or children (in age or at heart) playing dress up. Daddy Cool, Hot Wheels, Fresh Cut, Iceboxxx, Bingo Babe (my favourite), My Name Is (Gator Ray) and Dynamite Dude are all titles that (as they’re listed separate from the photo works, as the pieces are numbered on the wall) you can easily match to the images, after an initial tour of the show.

In conversation with the artists, several ideas came to the fore: the idea of “throwing people off, producing something that seems familiar but then jars”, a seemingly familiar aesthetic which then falls apart with the models, purposefully fracturing the initial reading of the images. All the models are amateurs, and friends of the artists, and from various communities other than / including the visual arts, so there’s a freshness and honesty to the roles they perform that’s not overtly determined by expectation. Both Judson and Mazi sheepishly describe themselves as hoarders when it comes to clothes and items that were relevant to Ice Cold, and that immediacy in a personal space also manifests in how the sites range from St. Catharines to Hamilton to Niagara Falls to Grimsby. Taking this aspect of the local further, an earlier version of this was displayed across the street on St. Paul, at the Mahtay Cafe, with the catchy title of They Hate Us ‘Cause They Ain’t Us 2017. It’s very fresh work, so not as clearly defined in their minds and more about the creation – the performance of it – at this point. They collaborate in a very seamless manner, with no specific roles but both doing everything (both work at the same place, and there’s an intensity between art and life with the creation / process of these works) that is echoed in a “real willingness of the models to become the characters”. As this is a continuing body of work (there was also a piece in the #Canada150 exhibition at City Hall, in downtown St. Catharines, playing upon the attraction / repulsion of tourist traps, and on a subtle level explored the dependence of the economic health of the region on this industry), Mazi and Judson talked about future video pieces, and the works at NAC are surely cinematic (both in the larger than life personas and in the graphic and vivid nature of the “scenes”). Their artistic choices were “made on the fly, reactive and immediate”: even though you’re only seeing one image for each character, there are about ten photos selected from each shoot, and “uniqueness” within the larger narrative of all the characters and images and scenes is important. The characters “should be individuals” within the larger story that Mazi and Judson are creating here…so some basic parameters are set, and then flexibility, in terms of interacting with the models and the sites, lead to results that are only partly expected, but more about possibilities.

There is the idea of kitsch, for sure: works that evoke an emotional response over an intellectual one, and that’s applicable here. But that’s also a superficial reading that doesn’t do the works full justice, as there’s also a sense that this work couldn’t be made anywhere else other than a region that is so tourism dependant (the same way that Levine Flexhaug’s work had a different resonance here, with his paintings sharing a sensibility with the many and ongoing tableaux of the Falls).

Their statement in the show perhaps encapsulates it best: “Two years ago, a shared love of Muppet Treasure Island brought Katie and Jenn together. Since that moment, the two have realized that their lives connect in ways beyond foolish puppetry on the big screen. Combining both their closets and their sense of humour, this new collaboration series is an authentic blend of their individual artistic styles.

Cooler than Cool is a series of digital posters that challenge the aesthetic of what has been considered “cool” in the worlds of art, fashion and leisure. Each of these looks have been constructed in order for the characters to better perform their style. This work is era – less, timeless, worthless and priceless.

So bad it’s good, so wrong it’s right. Its Cooler than Cool.”  

This collaborative, sometimes excessive, cinematic display of cultural fractures of “cool / not cool” is on display at NAC (Niagara Artists Centre) until the weekend of October 8th.

All images are copyright of the artists.

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Memory and Place: At an Intersection of Nations

but they had their being once
and left a place to stand on.
– Al Purdy, Roblin’s Mills

Its fitting that the first exhibition to open, and the first event of Celebration of Nations, was Awakening of the Spirit in the VISA Gallery, curated by Samuel Thomas. This became clear at the last event I attended (the curatorial talk on the Sunday following the Thursday opening reception), when Samuel spoke of his selections for this show. He began with the works of Daphne Odjig; one of her pieces (In Touch With Her Spirit) was also the main media image for the show, and (a testament to the quality of her work) seemed to become a defacto visual signifier for the several days worth of events that comprised Celebration. 

Its also appropriate as Odjig’s activism (and artwork) opened doors – sometimes forcing them open, sometimes knocking them down – for many Indigenous visual artists, and by extension, many people. Awakening the Spirit, to paraphrase Thomas, was built around three images specifically, as the basis for whats in the gallery. The first of these was Odjig’s aforementioned Spirit, then Norval Morrisseau’s Virgin Mary and then Carl Beam’s Apache Spirit Dancer (he also commented that the overall title of the exhibition takes its impetus from the spiritual focus of the three “foundation” works). This isn’t to say these are the only notable pieces, whether talking about aesthetic quality or historical relevance: Joshim Kakegamic, Roy Thomas, Leland Bell, Simon Brascoupe, Bruce King and Christi Belcourt round out the wall works, and Vince Bomberry and Carl Simeon have sculptural works here, as well. Its a strong, quality exhibition, with the possibility of connections and challenges between many of the images and objects on display.

In Touch With Her Spirit, Daphne Odjig

Samuel Thomas joked that he didn’t want to present “something that looked like a yard sale” and he’s done a fine job here in what he’s shepherded into the gallery. Unsurprising, really, as he’s an artist and activist (and a past recipient of the OAC’s Aboriginal Arts Award) and his manner was one that echoed his words of wanting to share the vision of Suzanne Rochon – Burnett, and her collection.

There are several important intersecting narratives that converge in the gallery. I’ve said before that art history is a form of history, and the legacies of Odjig, Morrisseau and Beam are very much the notion of having been the shoulders upon which others stood and are still standing.

One of the last exhibitions I saw in Saskatchewan was at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. This was 7: Professional Native Indian Artists Inc. and was an exploration of what’s colloquially called the “Indian Group of Seven.” (I might interject a line Thomas cited in his VISA talk, of Odjig asking why her work was described relative to Picasso, and why Picasso isn’t compared to her, as she was (is) more relevant her. This might be a bit of misspoken recollection, by Thomas – or me, hah – as Morrisseau, not Odjig, was often labelled the “Picasso of the North”, but the more relevant question of who / where is the arbiter of quality still stands).

The large room that is the VISA can be walked / read counter clockwise (this is how Thomas toured the works, and it’s an effective approach). The artists’ works aren’t interspersed, so it can be read like chapters, which helped Thomas to build the story around his choices.

Morrisseau and Odjig were also teachers (of Thomas and Bell, according to Samuel Thomas) and the creation and support of Indigenised institutions is ongoing and still important. Thomas spoke of the Manitoulin School (this could refer to formal groups or more organic ones within the Woodlands tradition) and these community centred initiatives are still promoting and preparing Indigenous artists (the current Brock Chancellor, Shirley Cheechoo, is a contemporary chapter in this with the Weengushk Film Institute).

There is a diversity of style: Simon Brascoupe’s works are more like petroglyphs, with the acrylic looking more like stains within stencils, and Bruce King’s works are more thickly and richly painted, with the acrylic juicy and gooey. Morrisseau and Odjig are more “flat” in the use of colour. Morrisseau is arguably the best known example of the Woodlands School, and immediately recognisable. (Another personal interjection, which I do less as a marker of subjectivity, but of the importance of these artists: one of the first artists I ever encountered as a boy, who made me want to be part of that world, was Morrisseau. His illustrations for Legends of my People, The Great Ojibway, introduced me to the strength and power of his work.)

The space is full, but not crammed. The bright colours and strong flowing lines of Odjig and Morrisseau compliment each other, with exceptions: four more earthy and sensual images by Odjig have more formally in common with Carl Beam’s works, diagonally across the room. Beam’s large paper works (sometimes silkscreen, sometimes emulsion and ink) are more restrained in tone and hue, but this gives power to his appropriated images, often political in nature (several of his works are scattered around the Marilyn I. Walker School, on display year round). Beam was well known for his desire to be known as an “Indian who makes Art”, not an “Indian Artist.” An important distinction, when many spaces (half a century ago, and yes, still now) employ tokenism or ghetto mentalities in labelling Indigenous artists (for example, a University Art Acquisitions committee member – at an anonymous place, in Saskatoon, ahem – once barked they had money for “real” artists and “other” money for “Indian artists”…and many artist run centres are just as segregated, though their lip service to “indigenisation” is as loud as it is hollow). At this moment, allow me to employ the soapbox I seem to have found myself standing upon to praise the PAC (Performing Arts Centre) as the locus point for Celebration of Nations. I’d add that it was announced that Annie Wilson is now in the employ of the PAC, and that should please anyone who knows her work with In the Soil.  

Returning to VISA: Beam’s works are subtle, sometimes darkly dense and requiring a focused attention to parse the images, and other times they’re like decoding a puzzle, with his sampled images being presented in a manner that requires us to read them like a visual sentence. Albert in the Blue Zone, Chief, Spirit of the Eagle: all are strong pieces, and you can understand the curator’s desire to not mix & match the artists here, but allow their singular voices to speak. Beam builds on Joshim Kakegamic (also a printmaker, and one of the founders / facilitators of the Triple K Co – operative Press that helped disseminate Morrisseu’s images to so many places where so many of us encountered them) and then Thomas adds another voice to the story, and so on, and we go further in this visual history of Indigenous / Canadian Art.

Thomas ended with Christi Belcourt (as regards wall works) and this offers not so much a “conclusion” as an updating to contemporary dialogue, as Belcourt’s Untitled acts as a marker of her own ongoing advocacy. Untitled, though acrylic on canvas, has aspects of patterning that are also seen in the pieces by Roy Thomas, and Belcourt’s role as a Metis artist / activist is a good image to take with you as you visit NAC (Niagara Artists Centre) to see We Aspire: an exhibit of work by Métis artists in Niagara (but we’ll get there, in a moment).

As Odjig passed in 2016, this also offers a sense of continuity, and of a new generation acting on the example of the old…(the quote I began this piece with is an acknowledgement that many of the artists in Spirit have passed, and their artworks are a foundation for those of us who are here now).

But it’s worth noting that the politics that suffuse the room are not suffocating, nor do they act as justifications for poor work, as we see too often in contemporary Canadian “art.” When Thomas talked about Bruce King’s acrylic works, he directly stated that he enjoyed them greatly, and wished to share King’s fine paintings with others. The works are political, but also aesthetically engaging, and may – as I experienced – also remind viewers of the first time they saw an Odjig or Morrisseau, and were struck by its beauty.

The almost minimalist use of paint by Brascoupe (simple and sparse, more about symbols and edges that are very clean but then fade like dust, in 6 Roosters or Birds – Tree of Life) plays well off the glotty, textural surfaces of Bruce King. Two Crows or Sioux Country become abstracted and gooey as you stand in front of them, colour like paste and putty, but stepping back allows the scenes to coalesce and become small scenes that transcend their medium.

This show is a taste of what’s to come, curator Samuel Thomas promised, and in conversation he indicated that the breadth and depth of the Suzanne Rochon- Burnett Collection was almost intimidating. Many works needed to be framed for this show, and many were relocated from pride of place in living spaces where, to paraphrase Rochon -Burnett’s daughter, they eat breakfast or do day to day work “with” them. I won’t attempt to encapsulate Rochon – Burnett’s life and contributions to culture, as its done far better here. The quality of the work presented, and how Thomas indicated that each of these artists was a personal friend, and how their works and their larger historical roles also played out in Rochon – Burnett’s own life, offers an inspired intersection of art and life.

Conversely, it was a bit difficult to endure several of the speeches the night the exhibition opened (your intrepid #artcriticfromhell considered heckling them, but my mouth was often full of bison, ahem). Hearing the chair of Brock’s Board of Directors so heartily congratulate Brock on its support of cultural communities was galling hypocrisy, considering their incompetence / ignorance / arguably malevolence (edit as you like), with Martin Van Zon / Interkom and the AGN cabal, with Rodman Hall. At a wonderful symposium at the Mendel Art Gallery years ago, Dr. Len Findlay pointed out that universities are often willing and able manufacturers of alibis for the ideological state apparatus, as in governments and politicians; the latter, or variant nameless Brock administrators (like the ones who arbitrarily and anonymously cancelled the hiring of a new Rodman Director), are better at mimicking ethics, but still as poor (or uninterested) at actualizing them.

I mention this not to remount my soapbox, but to step outside the gallery, and to temper the hopefulness of the several days of Celebration of Nations with the reality of a stuttering, sputtering Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women. I know many who will say “residential schools weren’t so bad” despite never knowing anyone who went to one. I’ve offered to introduce some of this very sure, if very ignorant, throng to friends and acquaintances I met in my time out west that would offer first person accounts that not only challenge that assertion, but bulldoze it fully….sometimes they even say “yes” to this and change their minds. 

Leaving Awakening The Spirit (this is in the VISA until the end of September), there are two exhibitions at NAC (Niagara Artist Centre) that intersect with Spirit, and that further the dialogue from Celebration of Nations. We Aspire (An exhibit of work by Métis artists in Niagara) is in the Dennis Tourbin Members Gallery and features the works of Brian Kon, Sterling Kon, Amanda Pont-Shanks, and Julia Simone. This is only briefly on display, until the 22nd of September, and was supported by the Niagara Region Métis Council, as well as the PAC.

The statement: “Honouring the tradition of Métis dot art and bead work, We Aspire features work by four Métis visual artists living in Niagara. The custom of bead patterning was traditionally used by the Métis to adorn their clothes, equipment and animals.” Mixing the traditional with the contemporary, the words of Brian Kon are succinct: “The Métis were known as the ‘flower bead people’, my art is intended to honour the skills and artistry of my ancestors by using traditional and historic bead patterns as the inspiration for my work.”

NAC’s Dennis Tourbin space is a responsive one, often in (positive) flux, with many local artists using it as both an experimental arena, but it also, with its short exhibition spans and the excellent engagement with local artists and communities by NAC, offers immediate representations of Niagara.

There is a similarity of form in these works, but individual characteristics of the artists manifest here and there. The titles offer a personal touch: Brian Kon’s Grandmother’s Garden evokes a sense of family, with its not quite mirrored floral design; Amanda Pont-Shanks Rocks, delicately painted make you want to pick them up and hold them in your hand, and have a connection to those who held them before, and will hold them after; Sterling Kron’s After Batoche names a site – and a chapter – of Canadian history that, depending if you learned it in school or not, illustrates the contested histories of what was / what is / what might yet be Canada. Untitled, also by Kron is equally yet subtly political, as it offers a vibrant blue and white rendering of the Métis symbol that you may recognize from flags and other insignia of these peoples whom are too often ignored or forgotten when we talk about the Nations of Canada. Its the first work on the left gallery wall, and if you enter through that door, it will be what greets you as you begin looking at We Aspire. If you come from the other side, it will be the last work that you see as you leave NAC and step outside. Both of these are fitting for experiencing this show, and the history and ideas the artists encapsulate in their works.

But before you leave NAC, the back Showroom Gallery beckons you to visit the first programmed exhibition of Fall 2017 at the centre. You can read my preview of Where the Weather Happens, curated by Amy Malbeuf and Jessie Short, with works by Jason Baerg, Jaime Koebel and Sheri Nault arranged around the large gallery space, here. The two shows on display at NAC are, to use that metaphor again, chapters: Weather is the result of the curators’ research into “the diversity and skill of Métis artists working across Canada…Through this exhibition, the artists’ works are placed in conversation with each other, exploring the human relationship with the natural world. Each artist explores these relationships as an individual informed by their worldview as a Métis person.”

Baerg and Nault “face” each other, with a sculptural work by Nault suspended in the middle of the space. Koebel has works at the “front” and “back” of the gallery. Similar to how Awakening the Spirit presented the individual works of the many artists there as “wholes”, Weather also allows Baerg’s Ayaniskach Pimâcihowin / Time Journey (acrylic on laser cut canvas) to occupy the entire left wall. There’s pieces both fat and slim, solid and shredded, to create a “landscape” of symbols that might be eclipses or planets, like celestial calendar markings on a white wall.

Nault’s Entangled Bodies (3) is directly behind you, in the middle of the space, as you face the middle “segment” of Baerg’s Ayaniskach Pimâcihowin (he employs the natural breaks in the wall to “frame” his work). Bodies (3) – like Entangled Bodies (2) and Entangled Bodies (4) – is comprised of a mixture of organic materials, including wood (bark or log, depending on the piece), wax or beeswax, human hair and rope, though the last seems more as part of the installation of these objects, which hang either freely in space or just out from the right hand wall. But the shadows cast front and back, when combined with the gentle swaying of the delicate exposed roots of Bodies (3) give the work a span beyond its physical self, with the silhouettes stretching out into the room. Though smaller in size, Entangled Bodies (4), with pale waxen fingers either emerging like blooms from the tree bark, may be the strongest of Nault’s contributions to Where the Weather Happens. In the accompanying text from Malbeuf and Short, this work is alluded to with Nault “not claiming the place she now lives but letting it claim her.”

Before I go much further, here’s more from the curatorial text: “The troposphere is a layer of the earth’s atmosphere in which human beings exist, connecting the land to the perceived sky. It is the place where nearly all of the weather on earth happens. The works of Jason Baerg, Jaime Koebel and Sheri Nault activate the land and sky, and all that is within, through their intimate and delicate expression of deep connection to this space of energetic flux. Where The Weather Happens is an expression of the relationship and interactions between the land and sky as beings who live within this space.” (This hangs on the wall, in the gallery proper, ephemeral and soft, positioned so you might see it last, after walking in and among the art.)

The same language could be applied to the works of Norval Morrisseau or Daphne Odjig in Awakening The Spirit, and the often meditative yet ornate pieces in We Aspire. The materials in use by the three artists in Weather, however, are more demonstrative of the sentiments expressed, as with Koebel’s deer skin for her many drums that cover a wall in Awasisisoniyas: Family Allowance. Made from 2013 to 2017, they seem to await hands to retrieve them and begin to play them, to fully articulate them as they’re intended.

It was a hectic weekend, when all of these shows opened (I’ve not mentioned any of the talks, seminars or performances, or even the screenings, to hold my focus and your attention), and although two of the three are only up for brief periods, it serves all three well to be experienced in tandem. Whether that’s done in the manner I’ve chosen here, which might be described as chronological as to when they opened, or chronological in terms of the histories they present (Spirit’s artists are older, and several are deceased, while the artists in We Aspire are much younger, and the curators / artists in Weather are between) is entirely flexible, and a point on which I have no preference or suggestion. I remember an exhibition of work by Micah Lexier and a show he curated of influences upon his practice, at the College Gallery. His work was upstairs, not quite directly above the pieces by people like Eric Cameron, alluding to a sense of growth and change that, while not overt, had a subtle power in understanding both shows.

Awakening of the Spirit (Select Works from the Suzanne Rochon – Burnett Collection) is on display until September 30th in the VISA Gallery at the MIWSFPA, and We Aspire: (An exhibit of work by Métis artists in Niagara) can be seen at the Niagara Artist Centre (354 St. Paul, in downtown St. Catharines). That closes on the 22nd of September, but Where the Weather Happens will be on view until December of 2017.

There was a request to not photograph at events or in gallery spaces during Celebration of Nations, and the lack of images in this post reflects my respecting that. However, the Odjig image is from the PAC website, and in this article I attempted to have a wide variety of links regarding the artists. If you’re on FB, there is also an excellent panoramic view of the VISA space, with Awakening The Spirit here. 

 

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∞ Lightness by Adam CK Vollick

One of my favourite books about art is Camille Paglia’s Glittering Images: this is not solely for how her knowledge of art history surpasses that of most arts writers / critics, but also due to the format. She selected a variety of works from antiquity to present day, writing succinctly and yet very accessibly about why they are important to her, and were – are – relevant to many.

This exclusive focus is something I’ve imitated, as a form of flattery: and oftentimes when confronted with exhibitions that encompass several artists, or when you’re engaging with a show like ∞ Lightness by Adam CK Vollick, which is, of this writing, in the Dennis Tourbin Members Gallery at Niagara Artists Centre. 

He offers “four different interconnected bodies of work.” What held my attention on my visits to the space were the “Spacetime Paintings [which Vollick describes as ] impressionistic photographs [which are] made in the camera [and all are] Niagara specific landscapes from our beautiful region.” The book that was on display during the reception had names for the works (the ones on the wall are without labels) that sometimes revealed their specific site of origins, and offered titles. These aren’t crucial, but do offer nuance. A flower might be fire, or we might see that the local is more mysterious than we assumed. But specific place names aren’t crucial, as the landscapes have an evocative nature (no pun intended) that we can imagine ourselves being within…

In the gallery they’re mounted in shiny silver frames, and the twenty one pieces are small but have a vibrancy that invites closer examination; alternately, across the room they become bright exclamation points of colour that seize your eye and reel you in.

There are several larger pieces (three) above these and two larger ones on the other side of the gallery. Returning to the long wall in NAC there’s also three black and white images sitting below the main “line” of “landscapes.” The larger images, in an ironic manner, are less powerful than the smaller images (the colour and depth of quality is absent, almost diluted in their power compared to the works below them). 

Conversely, the three monochromatic pieces are wonderful in their subtle detail considering the limited palette at play, and merit crouching on the ground to experience ‘face to face.’ As they’re shot with infrared film they’re reversed: so the delicate lines of trees in one are fine white lines on a rich black background, seeming to oscillate forward and back. These three images are almost more windows than flat images: the one on the left depicts what might be mist, or similar atmospheric events (my prairie asserts itself, and I see borealis), and the middle one, the least “active” of the compositions, stretches on endlessly with quiet details here and there as your eye moves deeper into the landscape.

The long cinematic line (if you’re familiar with Vollick’s practice, you’ll understand how his practices influence each other, and how movement can be alluded to as effectively as it can be depicted directly) of colour images above these three, however, is the strength of the exhibition. Whether close up to works that are painterly in their detail (Vollick joked about making “blurry pictures” but the segments where his colours blur and meld are matched by a cleanliness that emphasises how these are captured moments of “space” and “time”) or across the room so a blotch of red, or yellow or blue / green shouts at you, these are the anchors of the space.

Before you consider I’m dismissing everything else in the space, I’ll cite a conversation I had with a fine local painter, who described the large drawn piece opposite the small space/time works as being reminiscent of Magritte in its form and symbols. I saw its sparseness and scratchy sketchy quality as being what the surrealist artist would scrawl when he wakes up in the night and wants to remember his dream to paint it in a more elaborate manner later. (This isn’t Balzarian projection: the piece is titled the dreamer.)

But it’s a more remote, still image: the Spacetime Paintings are alive, are moving, and suggest a memory, a lived experience that like many experiences might be a bit frayed at the edges, or like some memories may be a bit soft around the edges when we “recall” it. Memories are (perhaps) like breathe on water; there’s also that idea that photographs define memory more than a memory does. Vollick’s Spacetime Paintings suggest that universality, as well as the more personal invitation to interpret these sites he presents for us. 

All images are copyright of the artist, and many more of his images, as well as works in other media, can be seen at Vollick’s site. 

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AIH Studios in Welland

One of the results of how the GTA’s rental market is out of control is the flight of those who can’t afford the exorbitant extortion of the “market.” This is unpleasant (look at the cities across Canada that have lost large swathes of their innovative citizens due to this) but also has an interesting side effect (perhaps temporarily): the decision by individuals and groups to leave costly spaces means they find new ones and apply their energies there. I saw this when Saskatoon’s rental costs ballooned while wages stagnated (or dropped), and many of the cultural movers / shakers scattered to fairer sites: dwell on the past, lose an eye, forget the past, lose both eyes, as Solzhenitsyn said.

In my conversation with artists Tony Calzetta and Gabrielle de Montmollin about their Art Is Hell Studios (AIH Studios) in Welland, this initial motivation of leaving an unaffordable space in the Danforth areas of Toronto – and one bluntly unhealthy and prohibitive to creativity – was cited. That’s unsurprising, but to come to Welland – a municipality that most of us even in Niagara don’t associate with cultural innovation (though having the cheapest commercial rental spaces in Southern Ontario) – was the basis of AIH Studio. When I visited the combined gallery / studio / living space, the idea of an “art haven” came up; not solely for the spacious studios Calzetta and de Montmollin have, or the front slim gallery space that, with its large window, offers any passerby a tantalizing visual invitation to enter. Frankly, the back area, perfect for a gathering of artists – formal or otherwise – seems worlds away from the front street side, which bears more earmarks of a region trying to negotiate “revitalization,” perhaps hoping to imitate what’s happened in downtown STC.

The AIH Studio used to be the Hope Center in downtown Welland: and they’re not the only ones in the area with studios, who are connecting with the local officials and other invested parties in trying to enliven the area. Malcolm Gear has a wonderful space in Welland (and beautiful works for sale) and also offers classes as diverse as the media he works in (more on his art and ideas here). Michael Bedard and Janny Fraser both have studio spaces in the area, and this might mean that Welland is looking at that positive space when the artists move in and begin to change an area, before it turns into gentrification and displacement. This is a conversation – an argument, a contestation of space – that many cities and municipalities are having: and it’s not just in a sphere of visual culture. A local activist, in response to a conversation about the Garden City Food Co Op, talked about forming a downtown citizens’ council, to ensure voices that don’t equate “citizen” with “consumer” are heard…. But that’s not the case with AIH Studios: my motivation for highlighting this space can be traced back to a visit to Welland last year and walking by it’s front window, and seeing a large piece by Tony Calzetta which brought vibrancy to the street. Seeing more of his work in Grimsby, at the GPAG, and our resultant conversations about place and art – and then seeing the exciting, sometimes visceral and often evocative lens based work of de Montmollin that share some ideas (absurdity, narrative) with Calzetta’s pieces, offering a play between the two artists in the AIH gallery space – pushed the idea of bringing attention to AIH Studios. As of this writing, they’ve been there a year and a half: bluntly, there’s a cynicism and air of defeatism still at play when mentioning Welland, but this doesn’t seem fair, or may just be a hangover, like how STC’s downtown still bears scars of its less than savoury historical baggage. But besides AIH, or Bedard’s space behind the Bank of Nova Scotia, there’s also been the Black Lantern Experience (garnering some coverage in the Tribune for an event they did in the Seaway Mall) that are more experimental and fluid. This is a site that has the history of the Welland Murals, or the Canoe Art Project, too; in that respect, AIH can be seen as another step in challenging that ennui.

But enough local history wrapped in social commentary: visit the space, right now, and you’ll see work by Calzetta and de Montmollin, and formally, they’re contrasting. Calzetta’s works are massive, working with line and colour in a manner that, when he says he sees his work as drawing, not painting, it makes sense. Line and colour are clean tools for his imagery and symbolism (in his youth he was – like many of us – influenced by animation and cartoons). The large nature of his works was a factor in seeking a more amenable studio; his pieces originate as small doodles, small sketches, and though he makes notations about translating them into larger pieces, instinct is a more directing factor. There is a coyness that contradicts the directness of his images: I see pop cultural influences like Bill Sienkiewicz, and Tony commented that Jeet Heer read his works as rife with Holocaust imagery. All of his works are dystopic to me, suggesting that “these fragments / I have shored / against my ruins” (Eliot’s The Waste Land). A touchstone of his development as an artist was his interaction with an exhibition of Philip Guston’s paintings, as a student: it wasn’t so much an instantaneous “lightbulb” moment as a more gradual, permeating one. Essentially that Guston, an abstract expressionist who began to explore more illustrative imagery (notably in his Klan series), demonstrated the universality of symbols, and how easily a viewer can create a story around the works. His use of colour is restrained, and there’s a theatrical quality to his work: like a panel in a graphic novel (here’s where cartooning manifests in his aesthetic, both in execution and in the scene it offers to us, to tell a story around). A work on display evokes Harlan Ellison’s disturbing Star Trek episode “City on the Edge of Forever”: Calzetta slyly offered no definitive “meaning”, and de Montmollin said it reminded her more of a half fruit rendered abstractly. The piece is titled Bob Had A Good Ear For Visual Art; another on display is Burying Bones.

Montmollin’s works are very different: her process has encompassed black and white photography, both analog and digital lens work, often monochromatic but sometimes with tints and tones, and her most recent works are vividly full colour, with seductive vitality. If it seems my descriptor of Calzetta’s work was brief, my look at Montmollin’s wide practice will also be just a tease. Both Calzetta and de Montmollin have sites that are extensive in terms of images and statements. Visit these, as well as the physical space.

Her most striking works include her Crime Scene works and Carnevale at the Hotel of the Bridge of Sighs. The use of dolls and other objects as “actors” give the work a surreal quality and there’s a consideration to the images (as when she was using cut out “masks” to put on top of the dolls she used in various “scenes”, as Barbie is always smiling). Her past processes can appear erratic and instinctual (like Tony’s), as with images with extensive darkroom manipulations, painting and drawing on the photograph / contact print, reusing and repurposing parts of the process and intervening in the midst of it with other materials (we had an interesting conversation about the “remote” nature of some digital work versus the “hands on” nature of traditional film). There’s also an absurdity, a dark humour in Gabrielle’s images. They also have a cinematic quality: but more so in that you watch them, looking for that aspect that will trouble the seemingly normal nature of the whole (as with the two images that were on display in the window of AIH Studios when I visited), or that the works suggest a scene, a maquette for a larger story, and that we’re being given clues to a larger tale. Her words: “I am interested in telling stories, play and mystery.”

Both Calzetta and Montmollin are storytellers, in their art: Tony is looser, giving us rough components that we bring our own ideas to, whereas Gabrielle offers a bit more charged and loaded symbolism (her series Stephen Harper Hates Me has both a personal and very public level of engagement with viewers, even in the post Harper landscape…) AIH Studios is located at 179 East Main Street, in Welland: hours are by appointment, but you can contact them via their website (artishell.com). Like the GPAG, or Jordan Art Gallery or the new NAC artists studio space / shop on St. Paul in downtown STC, it suggests that this region doesn’t need an expensive construct (like the Art Gallery of Niagara fiasco) so much as a more acute awareness of the existing visual arts locales in the Niagara region.