A fellow arts writer has a bit of an
obsession with a statement made by a curator several years ago, that
she ‘doesn’t know what Art is’: the curator in question is
unimpressive, while often praised, within the Canadian overtly
academic trench, so depending where you stand, this frankness has
several ramifications. There’s definitely an element of incompetence
and politicization in Kitty Scott’s comment about ‘not knowing’:
alternately, I like to interpret it in a manner reminiscent of how
even a blind pig finds an acorn now and again. After all, anyone
familiar with the history of art knows that – like history, like
society – change is constant, and in an excellent anthology of art
writing stretching back centuries, Jeremy Tanner points out that many
art historians deny the relevance of works that have severe
sociological implications, just as many sociologists are bereft of
any knowledge of history, especially art history, which can be both
subversive and direct. Tanner posits they are more alike in their
blinkering than either would like to admit.
All of that is in response to art in gallery spaces. What happens when we’re engaging with public art, or art in the public sphere, as I like to term it? After all, when someone enters a gallery space, there’s a convention at play, regarding looking and engaging, that puts the onus, in many ways, on the ‘visitor.’ But when works emerge from that (too often) ‘white cube’, and occupy sites that intersect with many different communities, they (must) become something else. Several years ago, there was a kerfuffle regarding Keeley Haftner‘s Found Compressions. It was installed in a neighbourhood that had, on its own, engaged in an intense clean up and revitalization: placing a work made of ‘garbage’ without consulting residents or stakeholders within said area led to vitriol and vandalism.
However, other works have employed irony and challenge effectively: look at the number of installations that happened, that intelligently explored the historical narrative around the War of 1812 when Harper tried to direct public money to create monuments that favoured his simplistic and ideologically shuttered propaganda? Several across Canada looked at stories not already told, or ignored, or that Harpo neither intended nor wanted…
This brings us to the here and now, and downtown St. Catharines, where Lilly Otašević’s Curtain Call has just been raised on the side of the Performing Arts Centre (facing Carlisle Street, but easily seen as you walk up St. Paul, with NAC behind you to your left). Some background information, before we approach the multi-hued, massive work that ‘hangs’ a storey above the sidewalk: Curtain Call ‘was funded, in part, by a grant from the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Canada 150 program, through the Celebration of Nations/Célébration de nation project being led by the PAC…a portion of the PAC’s initial construction budget had been designated for a public art project, and this process has been ongoing for several years.” I’d inject that several cities across Canada often earmark financial (and construction) support for artworks to compliment their spaces. A notable one was in Saskatoon a few years ago, where the new police station, as part of its design and mandate, commissioned an installation out front as a reminder / warning regarding MMIWG (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls – do I have to explain that acronym, still? Oh, right, Andrew Scheer is making a run for PM, Kenney is back like a zombie parasite, so yes, yes, I do…). Connecting to this, Otašević’s “metal sculpture was created to look like a wampum belt, with colourful beads that follow a wavy shape along the wall” (an accompanying panel, and the full and final ‘setting’ of the piece should be completed, by the time you’re reading this). The shortlist from which Otašević was selected included five other finalists, by “a jury made up of local arts professionals and St. Catharines staff.”
You can see more of Otašević’s aesthetic and public works here at her site. Her practice is multi-faceted, and having been born and educated in Belgrade, she brings an interesting sensibility to public artworks (I may be extrapolating too much, but my interaction with the public artworks created by immigrants to Canada often display an awareness of history and its contested narratives that many here either deny or choose to ignore. Several artists I’ve worked with, or whose practice has helped shape my attitudes and expectations about art in the public space have been from Eastern Europe, and that’s a space that encapsulates ‘contested narratives’ like few others). Other public works: Crescendo can be seen in Burlington, Mobius in Toronto, and Unity is in Suzhou, Jiangsu, China.
Perhaps you remember Elizabeth Chitty’s OAAG Award Winning community art project at Rodman Hall that ‘grew’ a wampum belt on the fertile and lovely grounds there, working with both Indigenous groups here but also recent newcomers. Slightly before that, an exhibition – Reading the Talk, also at RHAC – featured a sardonic, and definitely caustic in its satire, ‘take’ on the wampum belt treaty by Vanessa Dion Fletcher. Too much ‘art in the public sphere’ is simply ‘plop art’ still: pieces ‘dropped’ into a public space that say nothing to, nor respect, nor help define or refine the history of those communities, whether local or national (we’ve all endured those horrid karaoke modernist blocks and shapes that seem to occupy a great deal of space, yet we can pass by daily and not remember ‘seeing’…).
Curtain Call is vibrant in colour, and I’ve already enjoyed it as the sun sets, and may make a point of viewing it as the sun rises and shimmers and reflects on the blues, oranges, yellows and indigo of the flowing, bending work: too often, public art is a horrid failure, where it’s not only lacking in aesthetic, but to steal a joke, actually is an anaesthetic to good taste. Otašević’s Curtain Call is both engaging visually and relevant in an historical, as well as contemporary, sense of place and space.
All images are courtesy City of St. Catharines, and copyright of the artist.
Like many of the artists whom I highlight in the ongoing artist
features here in The Sound, I first encountered Arnold McBay’s work in a
group exhibition when I was traipsing around Niagara. The Grimsby
Biannual is a juried show that often is diverse and shifted greatly in
the last two incarnations I’ve experienced. McBay has had works in both
of these, and there’s conceptual and formal aspects that appeared in the
thick, painterly, very symbolic but somewhat ‘pop’ work I saw nearly
four years ago, and the more subtle, less excessive but still very
minimalist in mark and motif in the most recent show. The GPAG Biannual of 2016 featured his work Glyph, with a clean black symbol on a chunky, almost plaster-like, white surface: the more recent juried exhibition included his For Kazimir, a more ‘rough’ work that was similar to many I saw when I visited his studio earlier in 2019.
Recently, McBay shared some of his work at the Rodman Hall 5 x 2 Visual Conversations at Mahtay Cafe and Lounge in downtown St. Catharines, and we continued our ongoing dialogue about his practice and the ideas that shape it. A phrase that I threw out that evening, that applies equally to the older works I’ve mentioned here, and to the newer, digital animations and ink and water works, is that often McBay ‘surrenders to the materials’ or ‘surrenders to the process.’
McBay’s website
offers a number of works from past and ongoing series: what I’ll be
focusing on here is newer work, both because that was what he was
presenting at the 5 x 2, but also because, as with most artists, the
work he’s making right now is most prescient in his mind.
His
words: “(O) is part of a continued examination of the border
between writing and drawing focusing on the active or generative
potential of writing…as the richly black ink flows and sprawls
through the water in each of these works it maps out its own path,
separate from my hand. Each (O) is a portrait of the natural
processes of its own making.”
The names echo this approach:
Wholeness, Lines, Scrawl, Zero in Multiple
or Zero in Partial. These suggest an almost mathematical basis
of their creation, with the wet-in-wet bamboo brush, pen and ink on
Yupo paper (a non porous substrate, like mylar, but aesthetically
appearing as clean white paper) being as much about recording or
transcribing as mark making. The delicate washes, the gentle or
sometimes abrupt ‘bleeds’ – like coral, organic and unpredictable,
perhaps uncontrollable – all have a zen like quality, and seeing
these details and finer intricacies is what made me initially
describe McBay’s aesthetic as ‘surrendering’ – or perhaps
submitting to the innate and unique qualities of – the material.
Several works in this series are titled Poem in three lines.
There’s a strong literary sense to what he’s doing (here, or in the
aforementioned Glyph): McBay has collaborated with people like Greg
Betts, and both are influenced by the concrete poetry works of bpNichol
(or one of his successors in the Canadian contemporary poetry / art /
performance / slam it all together and defy classification scene, bill bissett).
When I was still a teenager, I ‘read’ – or experienced is a better
word, both for Nichol and for McBay’s flowing cuneiforms or contemporary
hieroglyphs – Nichol’s Selected Organs (still one of my favourite ‘books’) and, more relevant to McBay’s artistic explorations, ABC: the Aleph Beth Book.
McBay also spoke of the meditative
quality at play: ‘giving up control of the process, the pleasure of
spontaneity’ and being ‘enthralled by the inherent surprises – both
‘good’ and ‘bad’ – in the process. In some ways these
works are more akin to writing than drawing, with beauty and
aesthetics as a secondary matter, or perhaps a proposed widening of
the idea of beauty.’ Interestingly, one of the best drawing
instructors I’ve ever had spoke of how one must loosen, and that one
of the dangers of learning how to draw well and responsively is that
your handwriting might become unintelligible, as you would ‘complete
the motion’ or ‘complete the shape’ instead of forcing yourself to
submit to the (perhaps) restrictive and boring ‘rules’ of cursive
writing. ‘I only set something in motion here.
Other than the base forms (circular and linear) all marks,
shapes, forms and textures are a result of the natural flow of the
ink into the water.’ (McBay)
He’s also created animations of these (O)s (you can see one here),
and it wasn’t until after he and I spoke last, and I let my head clear,
that I realized what they truly reminded me of, and how that only
expands his practice. In the movie Arrival (based on Ted Chiang‘s
wonderful ‘The Story of Your Life’), humanity experiences first contact
with aliens that are so physiologically different that communication
seems nigh impossible (they have eyes all around their cylindrical
‘torsos’, so ‘front’ and ‘back’ are – ahem – alien concepts to them, and
consider how much those ideas, as metaphor or ideological positions,
define our language and interactions…). But when the visitors begin
‘writing’, their ‘marks’ ebb and shift, are often circular in framework,
and flow and bleed and change, suggesting a variable multiplicity of
meaning. The aliens write their language in the moment, but also
sometimes ‘backwards to forwards’, not describing what is, or what was,
but – as is revealed in the story and film – what also will be.
After all, to bastardize Lewis
Carroll’s Red Queen, who claimed a word meant exactly what she wanted
it to mean, why should we use words and symbols that are static,
unchanging and stagnant, when the world is not? McBay’s (O)s
are already uncontrollable and responsive to stimuli unpredictable
and subtle, and in their repetition by the artist there is an
acknowledgement of how each is important and essential to that
moment. Then that moment is gone, and you make another, or set the
stage for another to make itself. Meaning is fluid, and (forgive me,
I must quote a post structuralist) is NOT a clear medium through
which meaning travels unmolested or unchanged.
Arnie McBay is a mixed-media artist working in drawing, sculpture
and installation and he teaches studio courses at the Marilyn I. Walker
School of Fine & Performing Arts at Brock University in St.
Catharines, Ontario. You can experience more of his work at his website.
The current exhibition at the Niagara
Pumphouse Art Centre is a contrasting collection of works, though
there are definitive conceptual and formal lines that can be drawn
between the twenty five artists on display. Before I offer some
impressions and responses to the diverse works, here’s the framework:
In celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Niagara
Pumphouse Arts Centre, we present the Walker Industries Art
Competition. This competition was open to emerging and
established artists anywhere in Canada. Twenty-five finalists were
selected by a jury of six renowned experts in the Canadian art field.
An exhibition of the finalists’ work will be on display from July 4 –
August 4 at the Niagara Pumphouse Arts Centre. During that month,
visitors to the Pumphouse will have an opportunity to vote for the
People’s Choice Award.
Youth, Lorena Ziraldo, image courtesy the artist’s website
There are names here that I hope you’re familiar with, as they’re
among some of the finer artists whose work I’ve experienced in Niagara.
On the whole, this exhibition is – to paraphrase a number of visitors
from the opening evening reception – two thirds very good work, and a
remaining third that is less impressive. Goff Farnsworth
has a small portrait work in the show, and there’s several other
portraiture works that display the malleability of that ‘medium.’ Lorena Ziraldo‘s Youth
is in the first of the two rooms that encompass this show, and her use
of oil paint is both expressive yet minimal (the bust portrait is not so
much illustrated as alluded to, in her brushstrokes, and the
monochromatic tones of the subject are only accentuated by the vibrant
green textured background), as is Emily Andrews‘ Nathanial.
The latter is more ‘realist’ than Ziraldo, but the scene (Nathanial
seems caught mid movement, his detailed shadow nearly in the centre of
the composition) is almost cinematic. Nestled between these works is the
aforementioned Farnsworth, one of his smaller paintings, an excerpt
from his ongoing portraits. As Ziraldo’s Youth looks at us, and Nathianal
dodges, Farnsworth’s figure (a portrait of Wayne Corliss) looks to the
side: three excellent paintings that in themselves, before you even step
into the second room of the show, exhibit the potential of portraiture
in the ‘hands’ of a good artist.
Nathanial, Emily Andrews, image courtesy the artist’s web site.Geoff Farnsworth, Wayne Corlis, image courtesy the artistSam Paonessa, Illumination, courtesy the artist’ web site
Painting is, unsurprisingly, more the rule than the exception here: but Julia Hepburn‘s Even Children Grow Older…. is
an eerie yet entertaining diorama: positioned in a corner, it seems to
stand alone, though the room it’s in is quite full with works by Erna da
Vries, Sandy Middleton, Janny Fraser and Sam Paonessa. Hepburn – like several of the artists here – can be found online here and I encourage you to visit her site. Her work is playful but (as someone who’s a fan of The Brothers Quay)
also occupies that space that automata or toys – or dolls – so often
skirt, of being slightly disturbing, or like a fairy tale (‘what big
teeth you have, grandma’) has a darker edge to it. Her words: In my
work, I attempt to reclaim the innocence and curiosity of childhood.
Each compartmentalized piece displays a single scene with virtually no
context. Viewers are encouraged to use their imaginations in order to
develop a narrative explaining the scene. The use of small, doll-sized
scenes, not only draws people in physically, but also makes the darker
imagery less threatening, permitting the viewer to assign a wide range
of moods to the work depending on their personal interpretation.
In the ‘field’ Hepburn presents, in a small box, a figure is upside
down, ‘her’ (making an assumption, perhaps, but ‘she’ seems to be
wearing a skirt – but that’s pooled around ‘her’ hips, with bare legs
matching the legs of the chair that ‘she’ sits upon, if you can say that
when its all ‘ass over teakettle’, ahem) head is ensconced in the
ground. ‘Her’ hand repeatedly, industriously ‘scoops’ dirt as though
consuming it (you can see this sculpture in motion here).
Although there’s many works in the show that brought me back to them,
the night of the opening reception, to look more rigorously (Middleton’s
Twilight Series #1 has the hazy, haunted tonality common to
many of her works, and the layering of the image makes it even more
ghostly. As Hepburn’s work alludes to ‘fairy tales’, perhaps the
unedited Brothers Grimm all bloody and fatal, so does Middleton’s Twilight
suggest haunted forests, scenes that are superficially tranquil like a
Caspar David Friedrich, but that are as ominous as they are ‘silent’),
Hepburn was the highlight, for me. Visit her site, especially if you’re a
fan of Tim Burton’s wondrous Nightmare Before Christmas or Graeme Patterson’s Woodrow works.
Several artists I cited earlier interrelate in interesting ways: Fraser offers a sculptural piece that has some affinity with Kristina Kirkwood‘s
sculptural assemblage (working with birch-bark), and they occupy
diagonal corners across from each other. In some ways, this show was
interesting to me, to expose me to new artists, and then to further
explore their practices with their sites and social media: Erna de Vries
is another finalist, here, whose industrially themed images, with a
restrained colour palette, merits attention. Wax, reclaimed copper,
photo transfer all are tools in her creation of an image that is
aesthetically pleasing, not just for those of us whom have a fancy for
the #rustbeltwonderland that is part of Niagara. More of her works can
be seen at here but her work in the show – installed near Hepburn – also employs a visual lure to offer a more disturbing ‘scene.’
This employment of landscape as a
teaser to narrative, to offer the elements so the viewer might create
a story, both from their own experiences but formed around the
artists’ works, is something seen in Middleton, Hepburn, and de
Vries. Even in the very straightforward winter scene by Paonessa, the
rendering of the snow with a multitudes of hues, pulls your eye into
the forest (and reminds me of a Thomson I saw recently, where the
snow is all blue and dirt and twilight), as de Vries’ rust, sky and
sea transported me back to my youth in Windsor, along the polluted
Detroit River….
The Walker Industries Art Competition, at the Niagara Pumphouse Art Centre in Niagara-on-the-Lake (247 Ricardo Street) is on display until the 4th of August. Their hours are Tuesday to Sunday, 11 AM to 4 PM: it is
an uneven show, and that will be clear when you go and see it, as many
of the works I mention here merit ‘slow art day’ attention, but others
make me wonder about their inclusion, and to paraphrase Ad Reinhardt,
the better works ask hard questions of the lesser ones, regarding their
inclusion.
When I told people I was leaving Saskatoon in the Summer of 2015 after nearly two decades in that cultural sphere, a colleague and friend, Professor Mona Holmlund, approached me again with the request to contribute a chapter to her anthology about “Visual Culture” in Saskatchewan. This was something she was doing, initially through the University of Saskatchewan, but she wanted more voices with greater variety and diversity, both in terms of class and race. She also wanted the viewpoint of someone like myself who had a foot in the non academic world, and also – as she pointed out to me – had published more than anyone, for longer, about that place’s visual culture (as well as with my nearly decade long radio show where I interviewed so many local and national artists or curators as they passed through Saskatoon).
I had declined when initially approached, as there was no money, and I am – still – not so interested to have my legitimacy exploited by academics and institutions.
But, since I was leaving Saskatoon, likely for good, and with mixed feelings, I agreed.
Over approximately the next two years, we went back and forth with many revisions. When it went to its ‘academic’ editors (if it’s happening it will be in partnership with McGill University Press. No small thing, I suppose), one of the two wanted my chapter removed. I’m “Chapter Four” in this anthology, which is a good position, in light of some of the other writers’ positions; early enough to help shape a reader’s understanding, and yet not offering a tone of authority or any homogeneous assertion, as a first or last might.
Mona told me about this, and I became even more tired and frustrated, as I was asked to be part of this due to the validity of my – often ‘outsider’ – voice in #YXE, and I told her I was toying with pulling the chapter. We talked, I left it hanging, and we’ve not been in touch since, but she has my tacit permission to include it. I made it clear I am exhausted, and frankly, in terms of Saskatoon, would prefer to ‘leave the dead to bury the dead.’
BUT I have often flirted with the idea of putting it online, at my site, and sharing it from there. As there’s no contract between Mona and I, no money, no remuneration, this is my right, entirely, and Mona had said she was fine with that, even if / when the book comes out.
It is somewhat dated, as it was ‘finished’ some time ago: but I offer it here, with only one proviso, that some things have changed in terms of my opinion of some of the people cited here. Unsurprisingly, that has been that some people I mention here, that I praise, I have now seen another side of them – or a side I was unwilling to ‘see’ – and considered revising the chapter to reflect that. However, I felt it was more important to preserve this as a moment, and to the integrity of the book chapter when / if it sees publication.
I often joke that as an arts critic / writer, I am responsive in the moment, but reserve the right to change my mind, or opinion, based on time and experience. Some of these opinions are the same: some are not.
Who cares? Why bother? The existential issue of writing about art in a small community (or how the Emperor has no clothes) begins below.
Feedback is welcome: as always, I will respond in kind, regarding respect or lack thereof.
B. Gazzola, July 2019
——————————————————————————————————–
The remnants of the Victoria Bridge in Saskatoon (July 2015).
I sometimes look back on #YXEArts with the affection of a lover that you hoped would improve themselves and be worthy of your affections and attentions: but like karaoke modernism, it was never as good as “you” thought … forgive me. Nostalgia makes my hyperbole self indulgent, and we forget our place when we leave it behind.
–B. Gazzola, A Confluence of Geographies
I’m not from here / I just live here / grew up somewhere far away / come here thinking I’d never stay long / I’d be going back soon someday / I’m not from here / but people tell me it’s not like it used to be / they say I should have been here / back about ten year / before it got ruined by folks like me
–James McMurtry
There’s
a kind of bookending, in starting this chapter with those two quotes.
The first is from a long piece published nearly a year following, but
still fresh from, my departure from Saskatoon; and James McMurtry’s
lyrics still have an unexpected resonance to me, even now, decades
after I first read them. They bracket this eulogy together with my
own words at the opposite end of my chronicle of a nearly two decade
relationship with Saskatoon’s visual arts community.
I
originally encountered McMurtry’s words in 1998 during my MFA at
the University of Saskatchewan, and the line “I’m not from here /
I just live here” became increasingly relevant as the sometimes
xenophobic nature of art in Saskatoon became clearer to me. From 1997
to 2015 it was my home: yet I was never part of it, if I am honest
about my own positioning and that of others related to me. Though I
can safely say that no one else has ever published as much about that
city’s art scene as I have done (and continue to do), I was always
“outside.” It was an insult sometimes hurled at me, and like most
painful assertions, the truth is what hurt. My dismissal of what I
saw as “karaoke modernism”i
or my expectations of that place only fostered this distance: now
that it’s literal, and I’ve left, I see it more clearly.
There
is a line from a book of poems by Allen Ginsberg (given to me by a
friend who moved to Saskatoon before me and helped facilitate my own
relocation there, before she escaped the Prairies): “i’m going
to try speaking some reckless words, and i want u to try to listen
recklessly!” Sometimes I felt that was my role, whether
incidental or intentional, in that site, too: and that informs why I
am no longer “there”. The last exhibition of my own work in
Saskatoon was very consciously titled the Prophet Series: for “a
prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his
own kin, and in his own house.”
After
I had completed both a BFA and BA in Art History at the University of
Windsor, I moved to Saskatoon to pursue an MFA (primarily in digital
imagery) at the University of Saskatchewan because the program there
had a strong emphasis on teaching. I arrived in Saskatoon having
worked at Artcite and the Art Gallery Windsor: the former in a
gallery / communications capacity, and the latter as part of a
research team. From the time I earned my MFA until 2010 I taught in
the department of Art and Art History at the University of
Saskatchewan, while also working at AKA Artist Run Centre (as
Artistic Coordinator), the University’s Kenderdine Art Gallery (as
gallery assistant, but primarily in the documentation / organization
of the University’s art collection), and a number of other cultural
spaces, over that dozen years. I served on the board of AKA Artist
Run centre, The Photographers Gallery and Video Verite (the two
merged to become PAVED Arts, of which I was a founding member), and I
was editorial chair of Blackflash
magazine for nearly five years. In this latter role, I helped
reorganize and professionalize aspects of the magazine, and fostered
an editorial committee and board that was less academic, less “safe,”
and more engaged.
And
I continued my art practice, including two exhibitions at PAVED Arts:
The
Performative Lens,
with Evergon, and the aforementioned Prophet works.
My
curatorial projects have been both historical and contemporary and
often about place.
Currently,
I’m collaborating with a colleague in London, U.K., over producing
an exhibition tentatively titled TPG
UK / SK,
which would sample from the collections of The Photographers Gallery
in Saskatoon (now in the collection of the Remai Modern) and
Photographers Gallery London, as both organizations share historical
markers of importance, despite their apparent distance.
However,
over the past dozen years, the focus of my energies has been on my
writing, primarily about visual arts. My critical writings have
appeared in national publications, but, germane to the current
discussion, I was the art critic with Planet
S Magazine
in Saskatoon for over a decade (2002 -2015). From 2006 to 2015, I
hosted / produced a radio show / podcast in Saskatoon titled The
A Word
on CFCR 90.5 FM,ii
which encompassed reviews and interviews with guests that were both
regional and national.
In
2011 I was named a “Civic Art Star” by the Saskatoon
StarPhoenix
(rather touching, as I often criticized both the quantity and quality
of their own visual arts coverage, and our ideologies were rarely in
agreement in the partisan Prairie landscape). However, in 2013, AKA
Artist Run and I parted ways, in a manner that reflects the ongoing
concerns of unprofessionalism and abuses of power that have degraded
too many artist run centres, and have often led to the closure of
such potentially important sites due to cronyism. Art critic RM
Vaughn notes “Canadian artists and intellectuals are feverishly
devoted to the concept of free speech — the concept, but not the
actual practice. Every time I have written something about art that
people decided not to agree with, there has followed a campaign by
artists and their pet writers to have me denounced, fired and then
flayed alive with a butter knife.”iii
I mention this as it colours my opinion of the site I’m discussing,
as much as my commitment to emerging artists was / is defined by my
years of teaching. The manner in which AKA’s board chose to break
our relationship made the fissures that would stress further and
deeper, and eventually break my relationship with Saskatoon /
YXEArts.
In
the summer of 2015 I returned to Ontario, and currently reside in St.
Catharines, ON (my previously cited “A Confluence of Geographies”,
from Hamilton
Arts & Letters,iv
offers an erudite summation of that departure and arrival). Since my
arrival I’ve continued to publish writings on visual arts: as well,
at CFBU 103.7 / cfbu.ca, I helped develop and facilitate a
contemporary news show, Niagara
Voices and Views,
exploring issues both cultural and social, and promoting voices not
always heard – or listened to – in the Niagara Region.
So,
now you “know” your unreliable narrator. Despite what I’ve just
pretentiously posited as my resumé to the task, it’s a daunting
and arguably futile endeavour to write about what it was like to be
the primary art critic / arts writer in Saskatoon for nearly two
decades. When I describe myself as such, I say this without (much)
arrogance, but due to the sheer volume of words I published, and that
I produced and hosted a radio show about visual arts for such an
extended period.
I
was involved with various organizations in the cultural sphere in
many ways, as I enumerated above. But the position I occupied
primarily was a critic and writer in the community, with one foot in
both the world of the visual arts but firmly grounded outside of it.
My articles with Planet
S Magazine,
which was more a music magazine with variant articles from a
predominantly left wing, social justice narrative, ensured I never
forgot that the pieces I published were read by those who wouldn’t
enter an art gallery at the point of a gun.
To
many, “galleries are frightening places, places of evaluation, of
judgement”:v
this applies to what’s in them, including the people who step into
those spaces. Not all are welcome, and many are all but prohibited,
whether by class or race or gender (I often return to this
conversation – or contention – when I speak about the telling
distinction of “public art” or “art in the public sphere”…)
But
just as my community at that time was multifaceted – or perhaps
contradictory – so was I.
Though
I taught at the U of S, in the Art department, for 12 years,
my
attitudes about art schools, and the “education” therein, is
similar to how I speak about Art:
as
a critic. This all played a role in how my voice matured in my time
in Saskatoon. My early optimism for that department was eroded when
an “external review” in the early 2000s became more about the
long past (and arguably irrelevant, to contemporary students)
mythology of Emma Lake (“I will not go to Emma Lake as an artist. I
might go to Emma Lake as an arsonist,” the artist and writer Lee
Henderson caustically averred).vi
It is now not only unsurprising, but could be seen as inevitable,
that my own experience would lead to me questioning that department
in the voice I found myself possessing, whether in Planet
S
or in Canadian
Art. I
often prodded them, as here, in an article for the Planet
listing upcoming exhibitions of note:
It’s
been more than a decade since the last faculty show by the U of S Art
Department, and according to them, “the opportunity to mount an
exhibition of new work by the studio faculty of the University of
Saskatchewan fills a gap in our history and reveals the diversity of
art produced in the department at the beginning of the twenty-first
century.” In fine academic fashion, some of the work is not new (or
diverse), but if nothing else, this is an opportunity to see work by
Mary Longman and Alison Norlen from their amazing solo shows of the
past year or so — and perhaps this will begin a new tradition of an
annual exhibition. Overall, I mention this show not so much because
of quality, but because who knows when a department head will try to
herd these cats again?vii
While
a sessional lecturer at the U of S and in an effort to offer the best
class I could I pushed involvement outside the academic spaces,
pointing out the necessity of seeking out a community and
opportunities elsewhere if the University of Saskatchewan would not
provide them. It is at this time that I was a founding board member
of PAVED Arts, offering digital media classes and equipment in a
variety of forms, stepping into a space the University, “my
university”, had chosen to ignore.
This
sentiment of making change, forcing change, creating dialogue for
change, perhaps had its impetus here, for me. This would be mirrored
in a piece I wrote for Planet
S
when Steeling
the Gaze
was at the Mendel Art Gallery: how could one speak honestly about the
institutional racism implicit, but being deconstructed, at the
National Gallery of Canada by co-curators Steve Loft and Andrea
Kunard while ignoring the concurrent complaints about the University
of Saskatchewan?
In
Saskatoon, we live in a city where the Department of Art and Art
History has been accused of being less than rigorous investigating
accusations of systematic racism, and that until a few years ago had
no tenured aboriginal faculty. If we head to City Hall, we hear
rumours of a hushed plan to cancel the Urban Aboriginal Grant,
something that PAVED (with artist / curator Aleyna Mae) used to
facilitate aboriginal youth creating amazing work, in image and
music. No, nothing to see here, move along please. Conversely, the
Mendel deserves props for hosting Gaze
at the same time our Prime Minister warrants contempt for trying to
reduce our history to the War of 1812 and hockey. But as Howard Zinn
said, “The memory of oppressed people… cannot be taken away, and
for such people, with such memories, revolt is always an inch below
the surface.”viii
My
naiveté fell away, and I saw more clearly, and found myself needing
to speak about these fractures between what is said / what is done.
To return to now, standing outside and far away from there, I can see
how my departure would be inevitable, and that a small community
clings to its self-serving mythologies as fiercely as any other
“larger” space might. I didn’t follow party lines but got
“distracted” by unpleasant realities.
My
old voice would have simply reiterated what the visual arts community
said, but louder and wider; now I see a larger sphere, a larger
theatre, with more to engage, and more to argue…with different
loyalties and different responsibilities. Or, to paraphrase a Doris
Lessing character, the party would have had to have me shot to
preserve unity if I kept that up. As I handed off the
responsibilities of covering visual arts on CFCR 90.5 FM to two new
people, whom would shape it into what they saw fit, I heard the words
of the Program Director. He was reminding them that you owe nothing
to any gallery, or organization, that you cover, but solely your
listeners.
Perhaps
it’s because I now am no longer “there” that I think it
possible to give some shape to my experience. Just as I look for
illumination about artworks in literature, I look for an identifiable
narrative there, too, to graft onto my time as a critic in Saskatoon.
Salman Rushdie, in The
Ground Beneath Her Feet,
proffers that “the
only people who see the whole picture…are the ones who step out of
the frame.” ix
I’d
argue that’s the role of the critic, in a visual arts community;
and it only becomes stronger, more crisply defined from a distance,
now, as I consider my time there, what I accomplished and where I
succeeded. And especially where I failed. Repeatedly. As I may be
continuing to do, here, with this. In the words of Doris Lessing, “I
don’t know why I still find it so hard to accept that words are
faulty and their very nature inaccurate.”x
In
the winter of 2012, I was invited to speak to a postgraduate class at
the University of Saskatchewan about the role I had “carved out”,
to quote their instructor, in the community, with my words. My
position, as the sole instructor in any new media area had been
eliminated in the latest / ongoing rounds of austerity the year
before; I had repeatedly pointed out, on air and in print, that you
could now get more education in digital imagery / editing / web
design at Aden Bowman high school in Saskatoon, and any respect for
the humanities as “practiced” at that university had been eroded.
I suspected several MFA students had asked for me to visit partly to
see what might happen, and what I might say: I was expected to “speak
recklessly”, I imagine.
The
teacher was Joan Borsa, a writer / curator / teacher whom I respect
greatly, and who very much facilitated her class incorporating
diverse, and potentially dangerous people (considering my repeated
criticisms of the University). Sometimes I have hope for higher
education, due to individuals like her.
Borsa
wanted me to speak about what I did, why I did it, and anything that
would inform both the MFA students and foster a worthwhile
discussion. This wasn’t the first time I was faced with speaking
about why I chose to begin writing about art, and the larger issues
that defined it in that community, but it was in many ways a crucial
one. I had attempted to articulate it before, but in a less critical
manner than I felt the students deserved.
At
my website, for example, I offered the following: that I began
writing about shows that merited attention (positive or negative) and
weren’t getting it elsewhere. Intelligent discourse about art is a
rarity, and in some places has atrophied, as it has been so long
since it thrived or was encouraged.
In
speaking to these students – some of whom were younger, some of whom
were my age – it was a rare and wonderful opportunity to speak
honestly and directly about why it’s important to talk about art, and
why it’s important to have voices that disagree, challenge and
antagonize, even. I also hoped – and I found it to be true – that I
might bring some healthy skepticism – some criticism, if you will –
to my own position in that community, and in being honest to these
students, hope that they might offer some engaged truths to me, too.
I might speak about how I saw my role: and perhaps they might be
comfortable enough to tell me how they saw me. There is a certain
doubt I bring to art writing, I admitted to these MFAs. It was a
cynical time, after all, as they were being confronted with the
unjust fact that now they might need a PhD to even hope for the
tenured dream. (An art education panel at AKA that I spoke at, in
2008, was almost comical when an art professor, safely ensconced in
tenure at the University of Regina, wistfully commented that the PhD
was “interesting.” When I asked if they and their cohorts would
be told to get one, or see their positions lost to those who did,
they seemed confused, like most with privilege react, to the affront
that they might lose it.)
I began by stating to that class how it is extremely trendy (and safely transgressive) to talk about how more Art is not necessarily a good thing, or a necessary thing. Even that bastion of consumerism, Canadian Art, which styles itself as “Canada’s most widely read art magazine”, and is (arguably) considered the flagship of art periodicals in this country, mentioned this in a past issue, without a trace of irony. There is undoubtedly quantity, but quality is a question. Even the vitriolic current debate about the use of the personal voice, the individual narrative, in criticism, is less of an issue for me than that the quality of writing be better, and that the points made are not so much subjective / objective as well expressed, and relevant to the conversation (I thank Earl Miller, an excellent curator / critic, for this illuminating dissection). After all, any historian with even the roughest understanding of feminism will understand that in many instances the pejorative labelling of “subjectivity” simply means it is not an “official” or “approved” position.
Because
writing about art, and art criticism, has multiplied exponentially in
tandem with art making, in these heady times I explored then, with
those students, and revisit now, a few ideas that have been
circulating in my mind about this “activity”, on both a personal
and a larger basis. Some of these ideas illustrate the failure of art
writing: others explore its necessity. Some of them had their genesis
in spaces where I was solely a witness, not a participating voice.
One
such moment occurred at a panel at AKA artist run to accompany
Heather Passmore’s solo exhibition, where the speakers were verbose
in evaluating notions of “gatekeepers” (The show was titled
this). Passmore’s work was an almost breathtakingly massive archive
of rejection letters from galleries, artist run centres and
universities, but also larger “rejection letters” she’d drawn
and “doodled” upon, now poster-sized ironic works of art.
This
panel was narcoleptic and unsatisfying, until it was broken by an
interjection by the then-associate curator at the Mendel Art Gallery
(which was at the time Saskatoon’s premiere public gallery and the
pre-cursor to the new Remai Modern). Curator and arts administrator
Jen Budney’s blunt assertion was that visual arts communities are
hypocrites. They may say they crave “criticality” but will
respond with affront, rage and (as demonstrated at that moment by
some present) belligerent ignorance at any suggestion of something
they don’t condone. I stifled my pleased laughter as I left the
room, but was thinking of Theodor Adorno’s idea that when
confronted with something genuinely different, truly pushing
boundaries, “most fall back on the shamelessly modern assertion
that they simply don’t understand.”xi
A
brief aside, that enlarges this anecdote: the loose title of this
confession (“Who cares? Why bother?”) comes courtesy of the late
critic Chester Pelkey, who in many ways acted as a mentor to me. He
was a rough one at times, an approach I suspect I merited – I was
often subject to a dissection of my writings prefaced with that same
challenging phrase. This was a common interrogation he shot at
“artists”, and his position as one of the significant critics of
photo-based art in Canada lent weight to that salvo. He was often the
only reason to read Border
Crossings, perhaps
the “second best” art magazine in Canada, after Canadian
Art.
I
also cite Pelkey’s “rudeness” to
indicate
how often the role of the critic is to cut through the fog of art:
the often arrogant assertions by “artists” that what they do is
incredibly ground-breaking, when it doesn’t appear so, from where
others stand. His bluntness is echoed in art critic Boris Groys’
warning regarding the “avant garde” and the true role it plays in
the social capital narrative. Groys’ words, from The
Total Art of Stalinism:
“These questions undoubtedly arise out of a rather naive and “rosy”
notion of art that gradually gained currency in twentieth- century
aesthetics. According to this view, art is an activity that is
independent of power and seeks to assert the autonomy of the
individual and the attendant virtues of individual freedom.
Historically, however, art that is universally regarded as good has
frequently served to embellish and glorify power.”xii
So
I’ll admit further arrogance: to me, the purpose of writing about
art is often to act as “interpreter”, to add nuance, but also
acting as one who points out that the emperor may be naked.
Nearly
everyone is familiar with this Hans Christian Anderson story. The
king promenades in an old set of clothes while declaring them
wonderfully new. All parrot agreement, until a small child speaks the
unpleasant truth, and the spell is broken (nobody says what happened
to the child, but we’ve already covered the “reward” for
insightful dissent…). But it’s amusing to consider an earlier
version. The king is sold a suit of fine clothing by con men whom
claim that only men who aren’t
the sons of the men they presume to be their fathers are unable to
see the finery…the serendipitous parallels regarding patrimony, or
providence and the notion of propriety in the Art world are almost
too amusing to resist.
A
distinction between art critics and art historians (as I occupy both
worlds) is that art historians rarely originate an idea, but rely on
what has come before them, and thus are more children in an
intellectual discourse always differing or depending upon their
elders…and sometimes display similar “difficulties” in
determining if something is there, or simply what you’re pretending
to see.
With
such a wide-ranging industry invested in greater production of art,
and expanded frameworks built up around it, we must remember that
critical looking, and critical enquiry, is needed to ensure we don’t
become masturbatory and self-seeking. Let me speak recklessly and ask
that you listen openly, here. Not all opinions are valid: informed
opinions are necessary. Let’s be even more heretical, shall we, now
that we’ve crossed a line? Informed rarely means academic. Informed
can
mean educated, but often times in “teaching spaces”, more
critical thoughts are prohibited than permitted. In his A
B C’s of Reading,
Ezra Pound ventures, “ANY general statement is like a cheque drawn
on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it. If Mr.
Rockefeller draws a cheque for a million dollars it is good. If I
draw one for a million it is a joke, a hoax, it has no value. If it
is taken seriously, the writing of it becomes a criminal act. The
same applies with cheques against knowledge. If Marconi says
something about ultra-short waves it MEANS something. Its meaning can
only be properly estimated by someone who KNOWS.exiii
Again,
I think, I expose my enjoyment of the role of “maverick” that I
was given once and still find comfortable. Curator / writer
Elizabeth Matheson christened me such, when she recruited me to be
part of the Strandline Curatorial Collective. Founded in 2016,
“Strandline is a group of professional independent curators who
research, organize and present contemporary visual art events in
Saskatchewan, including gallery exhibitions, symposia, and art
fairs.”xiv
I warned her that I don’t play well in collectives, and she assured
me that my “maverick style” was what they wanted in terms of my
participation. This was a positive, if brief, experience, as
Strandline seemed to have more in common with early artist run
centers, bringing together individuals with different skills and
interests to foster specific events, with more of an atmosphere of
collaborative non-hierarchical actions and dialogue.
Returning
to the Gatekeepers panel, I was silent on why I believe there’s so
little interest in writing about art outside the academic / artistic
field for “other” audiences, or, in conjunction with this, why
there is so little interest in those wide audiences in the insular
art “communities”, or why they dismiss them so out of hand. One
of the members of the audience asked at one point why I, as the
person in the room who had published the most of anyone about art,
was not on the panel. I simply smiled and refilled the coffee maker,
and got more cookies for those in attendance. Part of the reason for
my silence then, considering my obvious willingness to be so
forthright elsewhere, was that I was protesting the composition of
the panel, which seemed more about easy politics than genuine debate,
and it was easy to be silent there without any regret, or fear of
repercussions.
As
my aforementioned (perhaps inevitable) parting from AKA came about at
the hands of an AKAboard
member (one of whom openly admitted their motivation to “punish”
me for a review they disliked from years before), this also serves as
fine punctuation of Budney’s incisive points about welcome and
unwelcome – and thus punished – voices. But perhaps even more
distressing with that panel, and what may truly have fed my apathy is
that it was the same safe “conversation” with the safe same
“points” among the usual “groupthink.”
Indeed, at a roundtable years later at the Mendel Art Gallery, specifically talking about art writing within the university / academic / art magazine sphere, a glorified custodian of a university gallery asserted that he wouldn’t “dumb down” his incomprehensible gallery curatorial statements I responded that his assumptions of superiority were essentially flawed, if he was unable to eschew jargon for better communication. This smug willingness to have fewer people engage with the art – other than the usual suspects, whom would be there anyway – than abandon the “approved” language of the ivory tower reminds me that, “The whirlwind is in the thorn trees, and it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks”xv…or, as a past editor of Canadian Art told me, “Can’t you just write a review just like the ones in the magazine already?”
This
echoes, appropriately, how much of contemporary art is so
self-referential that any iconic signifiers, or any possibility for
an interaction with the viewer (as in cultural critic Jeanne
Randolph’s amenable object where the viewer posits more of the
meaning of the work than the creator of the same) isn’t just
impossible, but actively refuted. One must ask who is “gatekeeping”,
and who is on each side of the “gate”, or if anyone is trying to
“get in”, at all…
Alice
Gregory’s review of Basquiat:
The Unknown Notebooks
offers an elaboration of this abyss between the worlds of the
“artists” or the “artistic community” and those of us whom
are by choice or by circumstance external from it and speaking from
the outside in. Gregory, in reviewing the sketchbooks and such of
Basquiat, now long since martyred and sainted by the art world, wears
the robe of the writer in privileging words over image in attempting
to decode for the reader the importance of Basquiat. I’m unsure if
she does that, but she uses this as an example of what so many find
amiss with contemporary art: “…contemporary art, which for the
past century has often been the product of speech acts. I
am an artist because I say I am an artist. This is art because I say
it is.”xvi
That
incisive fragment is of value for two reasons: the opacity of the
“art object” and the insular, personal narrative behind it /
around it that’s unclear to any lacking the personal relationship
and intimacy of the same, being first. The other implied point is
that the jargon, the language of art, will define the piece, and it
is as impenetrable and smug as it is refuting of any criticism of the
entire milieu. The indictment regarding dissent, as articulated at
the Gatekeepers panel, is in play here, too. All interlocked.
This
may expose another bias of mine, in my favouring of “populist”
spaces that ask the difficult, perhaps even rude, question, that
you’ll never hear in an MFA Art Criticism program. But “populist”
isn’t my term for them. I appropriated it from an “academic”
who intended it as an insult, I believe, in response to one of my
reviews, regarding the heated debate in Saskatoon then over what
she’d call “public art” and what I call “art in the
public sphere.”xvii
My
insistence on privileging the public(s) in this framework, and the
dismissal of them by the artist with whom I spoke, illustrates
effectively our positions regarding “populism.” In my
experience, these “populist” spaces (manifest for me in Planet
S,
and in CFCR) were often liberating and rewarding. The audience was
wide, deep and genuinely diverse, as those who’ve stepped into the
unregulated waters of various media can understand. There’s no
preset canon: this possibility, this often pugnacious and combative
space for an exchange of ideas and thoughts was the best classroom I
ever had, for writing. That I published in nearly every issue over my
decade plus run with the Planet, whose priority under four editors
was never
visual arts, is a testament to a hunger for ideas and considered
expressions of the same, as well as a receptiveness to rigorous
looking, learning and even – especially – disagreement.
In
seizing the opportunity I’d been given to foster that quality of
dialogue amongst those graduate students in 2012, I selected three
past articles of mine for them to review, before we met. Among these,
I intentionally chose a piece I’d written about an exhibition by a
faculty member in their department, whose work was roundly praised by
the university and roundly criticised by the larger visual arts
community. I intentionally chose this as it would offer points of
contention and criticism for how artists position themselves, how the
community responds to that, and how communities should respond to it.
I
begin here, as I did then, with“Prom
Qualms,”xviii
which was my review of Becoming,
an exhibition by a tenured University of Saskatchewan faculty member;
an article that earned me praise and punishment. But it also helped
change the conversation about art in Saskatoon. Thus it acts as a
starting point, and is formative to the later articles that are its
companion signposts in this chapter, and for my time, in Saskatoon.
These are: my unexpected praise of Joni Mitchell’s Green
Flag Songxix
while situating it within a larger and needed debate about public
spaces and stakeholders, and my unwelcome positioning of Ruth
Cuthand’s Back
Talkin
spaces outside of the bloodless gallery walls, invoking and exposing
institutional racism, for Canadian
Art.xx
I
originally attended the artist’ talk for Becoming
secure in the knowledge I’d not be writing about the show, as I was
unimpressed with the work. Becoming
was this artist’s latest foray into portraiture, with past images
exploring the performative aspect of “dressing up”, whether in
costume or more historical dress. This exhibition focused upon “the
enduring cultural tradition” of the prom. There were a number of
large colour photographs of various teenage girls in prom dresses,
sometimes looking very adult, other times clowning with their
girlfriends in mimicry of a “best friends forever” yearbook
image. One wall also depicted “before” photos, of the girls not
“in costume”. There were also a several small video monitors,
simply looping photographing of the girls, and was edited so as to
incorporate images of the girls in their everyday garb. Shot in front
of school lockers, the only audio is the ambient talk between the
artist and her subjects. The only works that offered an interesting
fracture to the overall narrative of Becoming were four images of
discarded prom dresses, shot from above, puddled on the floor. These
were almost separate, along the back wall.
The
response by many attendees in the ensuing discussion post artist’s
talk made very clear why writing about it was necessary (Lee
Henderson, who was also in attendance, approached me after the
raucous conversation, and asked if I had changed my mind about
writing on the show, and encouraged me to do so, as the debate had
been affecting). Prom
Qualms
is, in many ways, a fine example of how critical writing is very
valid– if it’s done honestly, openly, and with a consideration
for the multiplicity of audience seeking a conversation that may
transcend the object and truly become, itself, “art in the public
realm”. Conversely, if a review of Becomingwas
an assignment for a class in the pedantic spaces of the contemporary
art school, the multiplicity / intersectionality of feminism may be
denied by a “teacher”… or the politics of queer, class and race
may be dismissed, as well. If this work had been presented in a
classroom environment, with all its ideological apparatus and
encumbrances, would anyone have been able to ask, as someone did,
“Where are all the fat girls?”
That
quote opened my review. Furthermore,
the
artist talk became one of the more lively exchanges of recent memory,
as my opening salvo indicated. A number of individuals emphasized
some other relevant points that this work speaks to, such as elitism,
class, and whether [the artist] is saying to the girls that “this
is the hoop you already know, from pop culture. Jump through it for
me.” Becoming
confronts us with the question as to whether this depiction of “prom”
or “grad” is just the overlaying of prefabricated consumer forms
under the guise of “individuality” and “self – definition”,
leading to no dissonance, and a snug, constricting fit within pre –
existing paradigms of performative, artificial femininity.xxi
Other
comments about the absence of high school “losers”, the
impoverished or less than confidently photogenic, were succinctly
stated (and I, like any good critic, stole this for my piece – with
appropriate credits, of course). Whether these were simply the
“alpha girls” – and some other very incisive points regarding the
exclusionary “default” nature of high school social strata – were
made by queer performance artist Cindy Baker. The comment about the
presentation of another social hoop simply exacerbating pre-existing
social pressures on teenage girls was raised by Joan Borsa. The late
art educator Peter Purdue injected amusement that this might be
“affirming” as he remembered when refuting constricting
“feminine” clothing was an auger of independence, and a staunchly
feminist artist was making work just next door in AKA that was
deconstructing the idea of “dress” of all its stricture and
structures.
I
often joked that a “group” wrote this review (Truly, I really
just stitched it together from the outrage and anger of those in
attendance at the talk.) In highlighting the fractures between how
the artist and the rest of us saw the work, my review compared
Becoming
to
its more successful predecessor in the PAVED gallery space, 21:
The
previous exhibition at PAVED, Elwood Jimmy’s
21,
also spoke about myths that are imposed upon one group of people by
another: but that show offered some genuine raw voices, that may
disconcert and insult us but that have an uncomfortable legitimacy.
Becoming
is too much like a photo spread in Teen Cosmo. There’s no real
answers [or questions] presented here, and the nostalgia is a little
too sentimental and sweet and cloying … I am unsure Becoming
has anything of genuine critical value to offer, or if it’s simply
another manifestation of “prom” mythology. Perhaps that is the
point.xxii
Sometimes
you speak with the wider communities, in their concerns: and
sometimes you speak, not so much against them, as trying to offer a
considered widening of the conversation. So, when Joni Mitchell
(arguably one of her generation’s finest songwriters, an icon of
music both in Canada and internationally; unlike many of her “boomer”
contemporaries, she’s continued to write, perform and win praise
for it) was granted a second
solo exhibition at the Mendel Art Gallery in 2009, many in the
community were contemptuous, amused or angry. Many dismissed it as a
publicity stunt, another mercenary means to an end. Understandably:
her first show Voices
(at the Mendel in 2000) was atrocious. Her self-portrait as Van Gogh
was representative: delusions of grandeur mixed with an amateur
quality only rivalled by her sense of entitlement. But, as I said to
then Mendel CEO / Director Gilles Hébert, who bears the brunt of
responsibility for that show, the publicity it garnered could not
have been obtained otherwise short of a deal with the Devil…and to
his credit, he laughed quite loudly at my audacity.
And,
as I touched upon repeatedly in the article in FUSE,
there are multiple publics that deserve to be engaged, and compromise
is the touchstone of public – and shared – spaces. Perhaps Voices
served to placate the politicians (both in city council or elsewhere)
when the Mendel turned around and co presented TRIBE’s solo
exhibition of Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptin’s An
Indian Act: An Indian Shooting the Indian Act.
This exhibition presented several of the accomplished artist’s
large format paintings, but pride of place was given to a rifle,
mounted and framed, and a video of Yuxweluptin using said rifle to
shoot a copy of the Indian Act – repeatedly. The perforated pages
were also mounted on the wall, like a carcass hanging on the wall.
His artist’s talk was notable for the declaration that he had no
time for “hate politics” disguised as “reform.” His words
were as accurate as his rifle shots, and just as intentional.
My
article on Green
Flag Song
was published in the now defunct FUSE
Magazine,
which fancied itself a bastion of social justice as well as art. I
was always amused at their disinterest in colonial issues in Canada,
but their obsession with the contested site of Palestine / Israel…I
couldn’t help but feel that this was how they manifested an
“academic” approach to these issues in art, as Palestine allowed
for a posturing, a pulpit, without the possibility – or pressure –
to enact meaningful, local change. Results, as they say about
academia, were not required or possible in choosing to “stand”
there. I mention this here not just to be critical, but to also
reflect back on the pragmatism that was at play in my review of Green
Flag Song.
As
I stated in that article, I was prepared to savage the show, the
gallery, and the curatorial offender who propagated this abuse of
“Art” in the cause of celebrity:
Assertions
that … giving her a solo show [at] the Mendel is pandering to
“philistines” at city hall or in government (who hold the purse
strings) and that this exhibition bastardizes the Mendel’s vision,
were made before the show as even mounted, and continue now, by some
who haven’t seen the work yet. I don’t excuse or spare myself
here. I was waiting, knives out, to savage this show. But after
seeing the work … I have come to begrudgingly admit that the work
is far better than I expected. I have come to understand that the
exhibition in the gallery is only the focus for a number of issues
that brought it there. These also continue to influence how this
community sees it.xxiii
In
seeing the work, in talking to then Mendel CEO / Director Vince Varga
and Chief Curator Dan Ring (now retired Emeritus), a more considered,
and less easily delineated, conversation took place. Who “owns” a
public space, who merits representation – and who doesn’t – and
what are our own ideological frameworks that define our reaction to
the same were all considered.
Some
of these are so ingrained as to be invisible (Mitchell was attacked
by some whom seemed to momentarily forgot their commitment to
feminism, or even their academic rhetoric of “inclusiveness” –
or perhaps the façade slipped, and the emperor was again nude, for a
rich moment…).
In
FUSE,
I dared to ask why Mitchell was a misuse of the space: the Mendel
(among many sites, both in Saskatoon and elsewhere) has had curators
just as shuttered by abhorrent nepotism that sees personal
relationships too often taint professional ones. The same side
gallery that Mitchell occupied had seen a parade of exhibitions by
artists of varying quality that seemed unfinished and unresolved, and
were far poorer in execution and concept than Mitchell’s socially
conscious and controversial observations on the (second) Iraq war.
Further: an abstract painter in Saskatoon lamented to me for a full
two hours about how the Remai Modern should have hired Director A
instead of Director B as she knew she’d get various shows with
Director B. This was not presented as opinion – or cronyism – so much
as an egregious slight of the “artistic community”. Is this any
less / more obscene than Mitchell’s “name recognition”?
As
I asked in my review of Flag:
Does one describe a pop star who paints as a “tourist,” but not tenured faculty who use the space to drop an unresolved and unengaging work? Is it “touristing” to re write Yeats [as Mitchell did], but not “touristing” to treat a solo show here – a much coveted opportunity, for many – as one’s right to drop a work that is unfinished and irrelevant, and then smugly invoke that magic postmodern word “process” as an escape hatch? Is it “touristing” to pretend to be an activist with one’s practice, citing all the appropriate names, and yet deny one’s privilege and power? xxiv
Or
am I to be censured, for speaking this? Perhaps, as Budney asserted
at the Gatekeepers panel, this is undesired and prohibited
criticality.
I
regret that I am not at ground zero (with the soon to be opened Remai
Modern) to further explore this very Canadian difficulty, the
dichotomy between the regional and the international. As Tanner noted
in The
Sociology of Art:
“The success of particular artists and art movements was attributed
not to the aesthetic properties and resonances of the works of art
but to the economic and political power of prominent gatekeepers in
the art world, able to confer or withhold the honorific label of art
and impose hierarchies of values which were shaped by economic rather
than aesthetic interests.” xxv
Even
though it’s now closed, in anticipation and preparation for the
Remai Modern, the politicized space that was the Mendel still casts a
shadow. Perhaps it exists more strongly now in the minds of many as
it has no physical space, or exhibitions on display, to interfere
with memories and affections. It was, to myself and many others, one
of Western Canada’s finest galleries. Their programming was often
visionary: in writing about the exhibition Modern
Visions,
marking a half century of the Mendel, I stated that
this
confrontational inclusiveness in Visions
is impressive, and a smart snapshot of the gallery’s history —
and by extension, Saskatoon’s history. The Mendel has changed
significantly over its half-century, defying the political pressures
that many civic galleries are often beholden to. Arthur Miller said
that, “an era can be said to end when its basic illusions are
exhausted,” but that can be a positive thing, and speak more about
a rich possibility replacing a dogmatic orthodoxy. Modern
Visions
acts more as a step forward than a nostalgic look backwards.xxvi
Which
brings me to my third and final excerpted review. I alluded to this
‘step forward’, when speaking of Ruth Cuthand’s work there, in her
retrospective Back
Talk;
I liked to quip that her work offended all the people it should, in
all the appropriate ways. Cuthand is an artist and educator whose
work stretches over several decades and various media, often chosen
to augment her ideas. Her most recent works are all about the crisis
of access to clean water in places like Attawapiskat but also her own
reserve (Little Pine), and bluntly all across the continent. Her work
has often depicted how “there is a third world in every first
world, and vice versa”.xxvii
Her practice is diverse: rough drawings, photo collage, video and
delicate beaded works on velvet. The latter are, in many ways, the
apex of Cuthand’s practice: rendering diseases that decimated
Indigenous populations, a biological “gift” of colonialism, in
round and colourful microscopic cross sections of diphtheria or
smallpox.
In
highlighting Cuthand’s paintings in a group show, I began with the
acerbic assertion that “it could also be that much art — and many
artists — are irrelevant to larger society. (Calm down — it’s a
hard truth, but a truth nonetheless).” xxviii
Her retrospective sampled multiple bodies of work (eight, in fact)
that illustrated the necessity of art to engage with its communities:
Back
Talk
filled several of the Mendel Art Gallery’s spaces, but the series
Misuse
is Abuse
(1990) stood out. The title is taken from the governmental stamp on
school supplies “magnanimously” distributed to residential-school
students; that genteel veneer is dispelled by the words and actions
of the so-called educators in Cuthand’s drawings. Several have long
nails and maws that suggest the children are to be eaten, not just
assimilated. One figure admonishes an Indian doll in a dunce cap
with: “Bad bad Indian, Commandment No. 1: Never disappoint a white
liberal.” Many of the large, crudely rendered pencil drawings
incorporate vulgar cliches; “All they need is discipline” and
“Nobody likes an Uppity Indian” are brutal. In response to
complaints about her work [when this was shown as part of her MFA
exhibition], Cuthand borrowed titles from the Group of Seven. The
“uppity Indian” has a new, supposedly inoffensive title: “January
Thaw, Edge of Town.” (Saskatoon has a notorious history of dumping
“uppity Indians” at the “edge of town” in winter.)xxix
Amusingly,
Canadian
Art’s
fact checker asked for proof of the
notorious
“Starlight Tours”, which I refer to in the “dumping” of that
last line: forwarding the Saskatchewan Government’s report on it
was dismissed as unacceptable (the
comment “You’ve
cited one example. Are there others?” indicated that the report was
most likely unread),
and so I decided to simply overwhelm them with multiple references,
from links to books to links to articles in papers that they’d be
familiar with (“legitimate” ones, perhaps), such as the Globe
and Mail.
Years later, when I’d write on an exhibition that was about the
experiences of residential school survivors, I’d refer to this
revealing “doubt”, this moment of ideological state apparatus at
play:
I’ve
been reading Boris Groys’ excellent book The
Art of Stalinism
lately. It’s fascinating, not just for its unvarnished look at a
much-misunderstood period in the history of art, but also for some of
the asides (often barbed) he makes about “Western” art history.
One of these is the idea that “real art” is somehow separate from
economy, class or the other strictures and structures of society. The
writing you’ll see in Canadian Art magazine is a good example of
this — but ignoring class just makes it very clear that the higher
the position you hold, the more you can’t ignore those “below”
you.xxx
My
departure from AKA, whose board circumvented their director (and
chair) at the urging of several board members with strong ties to the
art department, coincided with another issue I raised regarding
Indigenous / non Indigenous relations in the visual arts community,
and again touched upon Cuthand:
So:
back to the aforementioned hypocrisy, as another work of note here is
Nicole Paul’s Unwanted
Children of the Indian Residential Schools.
Paul samples text from artist Cathy Busby, specifically Busby’s
appropriation of the PM’s apology for residential schools. Some of
you may remember Busby’s Budget
Cuts
billboard that was on 20th St. several years ago, which has become a
touchstone (for me and many others) about how politicians are gleeful
liars. Budget
Cuts
listed all the aboriginal-focused programs eliminated by the Harper
government since the “apology.” Talk is cheap when the actions
that follow are the same, or worse. This raises another point: it’s
odd the Art Department is engaged in this project. If you’ve seen
the TransformUS report that came out of that area, you’ll note that
section 5.1, BFA honours program states, “Faculty Member awarded
SAB Lieutenant Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award.” That’s
obviously Ruth Cuthand, who last taught there in 2005 — as a
sessional, not faculty. Cuthand also expressed exasperation to me
about when she did apply for a tenure position at the U of S. There’s
no finer definition of institutional racism than passing off the work
of others as your own, while keeping those same individuals away from
genuine power.xxxi
Several
weeks later I was no longer employed at AKA “artist run”: two
years later I’d leave Saskatoon. Allow me to quote my preamble to a
review of Mary Longman’s impressive billboard project, Warrior
Woman,
that overlooked the gentrified (or displacing, edit as you will) site
of Riversdale, in Saskatoon:
I
was chatting recently with a fellow cultural worker (anonymously:
organisations that cite “critical dialogue” in their
mandate, like an art department or artist run centre, can be
exceptionally Stalinist and reactionary to dissent). We were
bemoaning the disparity in many artistic organisations between a
genuine engagement with a site, and fluctuating narratives of a place
that directly challenge comfortable, current ones, and the half assed
political glad-handing we usually see in these spaces.xxxii
I
was once accused of being an art writer who doesn’t write about art
but politics: I embraced the comment as an unintended compliment.
“There
is no ‘crisis’ in criticism. Rather, the traditional mandates of
art criticism are obsolete”.xxxiii
So,
what’s the point of critical writing, in a small community? I’m
not so arrogant to presume I speak for others: nor do I want that
responsibility. My time in cultural spaces, like universities, has
shown me that no one makes a better oppressor of thought than a
former revolutionary thinker…and that old joke about putting one’s
hand in bucket of water, pulling it out and the hole that is left is
how much you’ll be missed, is indisputable. Personally so, I now
know. Perhaps that is the aspect of “failure” as manifest here,
in this piece…At its best, it’s an offer of dialogue, sometimes
respectful, sometimes affirming, and other times very challenging –
of the artwork itself, or the ideological framework that the artist
espouses; a contribution to a contested and exciting dialogue.
I
like to think that I had a long-standing relationship with the
multifaceted “arts” community of Saskatoon, and built on our
shared history, and refreshed and rejuvenated old conversations with
new ones. Or, as demonstrated by my continuing, if reluctant,
involvement in YXE Arts issues, and larger, communities there, I
still feel the need to “again, widen the debate.”xxxiv
It’s
been said that many artists simply make the same piece over and over
again, refining and honing it to perfection. There is a similar theme
in my writing, and I’ll end on the idea that all my articles are
about history, site and place, and how history is often a
collaborative delusion, but that art is one of the things that can
cut through that, to speak “truth to power”. That phrase is
ragged and abused, but still valid. And other times, art helps
obscure, and then it’s the role of the critic to do the “cutting”.
I am deeply intrigued by sites of contested narratives, and the
conversations and arguments that are intrinsic to that.
As
to my time in Saskatoon, I might make a small joke in light of the
above thoughts about “pacing the cage”, from the last article I
wrote for Planet
S,
two week before I departed the prairies:
It’s
synchronicity that my final Planet
S
review, before my departure from Saskatoon, is about the play of
memory / fantasy, place / displace, remembrance and sadness.
It’s
been my privilege to write about art here for more than a decade with
Planet
S,
and perhaps this visual arts community, with its courage and
cowardice, its integrity and ignorance, has appreciated having a
critic in residence. Or not. Best not to look back — look at what
happened to Lot’s wife. I love you with all my heart, Saskatoon,
and I hate you with an intensity that frightens. Oh, did you really
think I would begin to lie to you now, when I’m leaving? Not bloody
likely. Kinana’skomitina’wa’w, ki’htwa’m, ka-wa’p(a)mit(i)na’n,
Saskatoon.xxxv
Selected
Bibliography
All of the articles I cite in this piece are available online, either in html or PDF format, and I recommend that they be read in tandem with this piece. There is a selected bibliography below, as well. Some links to facilitate this are as follows:
“A
Confluence of Geographies”,
Hamilton Arts & Letters
(focused on Finding City 2015, specifically Monique Motut-Firth’s
residency in Saskatoon and Elizabeth Chitty’s Confluence Field Trips
in St.Catharines, 2015 – 2016)
2015
Ave
Atque Vale: Hail Tribe, Farewell Mendel,
Hamilton
Arts & Letters
“Last
Picture Show: Amalie Atkins”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
“The
Fifth World: Tribe”,
Magenta
Magazine,
Toronto
“Perfect
Goodbye: Modern Visions at the Mendel”,
Planet
S Magazine
“Modern
Visions”,
Magenta
Magazine,
Toronto
“Tammi
Campbell & Kara Uzelmen ‘concerning certain events’”,
Galleries
West Magazine
“In
The Making”,
Magenta
Magazine,
Toronto
“New
Voices in a New Place”,
Ominocity,
Saskatoon
“Sympathetic
Magic”,
Magenta
Magazine,
Toronto
“Stronger
Than Stone: some thoughts and ideas”,
CARFAC SK Newsletter
“Faith,
Fraud & Formalism: ReWilding Modernity at the Mendel”,
Hamilton
Arts & Letters
2014
“Modern
Women: Who’s Afraid of Orange, Purple and Green?”,
Magenta
Magazine
“Patrick
Traer: A Survey”,
Galleries
West Magazine
“Public
Perusal: Mary Longman”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
“Looking
Back, Moving Forward”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
2013
“Rebellion
and Revolution: Les Automatistes & Shaping SK”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
“Lost
in Translation: Susan Shantz”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
“Beautiful
Mercy: Eli Bornstein”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
“Digital
History: Buffy Sainte-Marie”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
“Come
Home”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
“Ladies
in the Lead”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
“‘Perfect’
People: Janet Werner”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
“Resistance
is not Futile”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
“Dark
Coffee: Barbara Reimer”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
2012
“Every
Prophet in Their House: Beneath a Petroliferous Moon”,
Hamilton
Arts &
Letters
“History
Repeating”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
“Suitable
for Framing”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
“The
Real World: StreetGraphix”,
Planet
S Magazine,
Saskatoon
2011
“Ruth
Cuthand: BackTalk”,
Canadian
Art Magazine,
Toronto
“Habitaptation:
Future Shocks”,
Canadian
Art Magazine,
Toronto
“Ten
Cautionary Tales: Joseph Anderson”,
Hamilton
Arts & Letters
2010
“Grid
Roads and Genocide: The World is not Flat”,
FUSE
Magazine,
Toronto
“How
I learned to stop worry…”(catalogue
essay),
Shifts,
University of Saskatchewan
2009
“Culture,
Community and Audience: Joni Mitchell’s Green Flag Song”,
FUSE
Magazine,
Toronto
i
I invite those intrigued by my term “karaoke modernism” to read
my piece “Faith, Fraud & Formalism: ReWilding Modernity at the
Mendel,” Hamilton
Arts & Letters,
2014-15.
ii
cfcr.ca (some past episodes are available online at bartgazzola.com)
iii
Vaughan, “Never read the comments: notes from 25 years of art
criticism,” CBC,
March 31, 2016
iv
Gazzola, “A Confluence of Geographies,”
Hamilton Arts & Letters,
2015/16
xvi Alice Gregory, “New Art,” Harper’s Magazine, August 2015
xvii
This is an idea taken from Dr. Cameron Cartiere, from the Street
Meet Public Art Festival Panel, 2015. She graciously encouraged my
theft and usage of the term.
xviii Gazzola, “Prom Qualms,” Planet S Magazine, 2007
xix
Gazzola, “Culture, Community and Audience: Joni Mitchell’s Green
Flag Song,” FUSE
Magazine, July 1,
2009
xx Gazzola, “Review: Ruth Cuthand, “BackTalk,’” Canadian Art Magazine, September 15, 2011
xxi
Gazzola, “Prom Qualms,”
Planet S Magazine,
2007
xxxii
Gazzola, “Public Discourse,”
Planet S Magazine,
September 4, 2014
xxxiii
Sofia Leiby and Jason
Lazarus, in “Speculations on Digital Arts Media’s Future(s),”
by Susanna Schouweiler, May 25, 2015
xxxiv
From my recent online comments to Mitch Speed’s “Does the Right
Hand Cover for the Left?: The Case of the Remai Modern and Its
Errant Board,”
MOMUS, 2016.
xxxv
Bart Gazzola, “Last Picture Show: Amalie Atkins,” Planet
S Magazine, July 23,
2015
Bibliography
Adorno, Theodor. Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damage Life. Translated by E.F.N. Jephcott. New York: Verso 1951
Atwood, Margaret. Cat’s Eye. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1988
Gazzola, Bart. “Time for Talk.” Planet S Magazine, May 5, 2011. http://old.planetsmag.com/story.php?id=443
—
“Review: Ruth
Cuthand,‘BackTalk’.”
Canadian Art Magazine,
September 15, 2011.
http://canadianart.ca/reviews/ruth-cuthand-mendel/.
—
“Looking Back, Moving
Forward.” Planet
S Magazine, February
20, 2013. http://old.planetsmag.com/story.php?id=1501
—
“Public Discourse.”
Planet S Magazine,
September 4, 2014. http://old.planetsmag.com/story.php?id=1680
—
“A Confluence of
Geographies.”
Hamilton Arts & Letters,
2015-16,
http://samizdatpress.typepad.com/hal_magazine_issue_eight2/a-confluence-of-geographies-by-bart-gazzola-1.html
—
“Faith, Fraud &
Formalism: ReWilding Modernity at the Mendel.”
Hamilton Arts &
Letters, 2014-15.
http://samizdatpress.typepad.com/halmagazine-issue-seven-2/faith-fraud-and-formalism-rewilding-modernity-by-bart-gazzola-1.html
—
“Fall Arts Guide: Bart
Gazzola’s Top Five Most
Anticipated Fall Art Exhibits.” Planet
S, September 21,
2011. http://old.planetsmag.com/story.php?id=199
—
“Prom Qualms”. Originally published in Planet
S Magazine, 2007.
Will be available on the author’s website, http://bartgazzola.com/
—
“Resistance is not
Futile.” Planet
S Magazine, February
7, 2013. http://old.planetsmag.com/story.php?id=1104
—
“Culture, Community and
Audience: Joni Mitchell’s Green Flag Song.”
FUSE
Magazine, July 1,
2009. http://fusemagazine.org/2009/06/fuse-summer-2009
—
“Review: Ruth
Cuthand,“BackTalk.’”
Canadian Art Magazine,
September 15, 2011.
http://canadianart.ca/reviews/ruth-cuthand-mendel/
Cash, Johnny, vocal performance of “The Man Comes Around,” by Johnny Cash, American IV: The Man Comes Around, American Records/Universal, 2002
Gregory, Alice. “New Art.” Harper’s Magazine, August 2015. http://harpers.org/archive/2015/08/new-art-2/
Groys, Boris. The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant- Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship and Beyond. Translated by Charles Rougle. New York: Verso 2011
Henderson, Lee. A Regional Declaration of Evangelical Criticality, 2008. http://booster.blogspot.ca/2008/06/regional-declaration-of-evangelical.html
Lessing, Doris. The Golden Notebook, Toronto: Harper Perennial Classics 2008
Matheson, Elizabeth. “Overview”, Strandline Curatorial Collective Inc. https://www.facebook.com/pg/Strandline-Curatorial-Collective-Inc-112293048837522/about/?ref=page_internal
Pound, Ezra. ABC of Reading. New York: New Directions Publishing 2010
Rushdie, Salman. The Ground Beneath Her Feet. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf 1999
Schouweiler, Susannah.“Speculations on Digital Arts Media’s Future(s).” Mn Artists. May 25, 2015. http://www.mnartists.org/article/speculations-digital-arts-medias-futures?page=1
Tanner, Jeremy. “Sociology, Aesthetic Form and the Specificity of Art.” In Sociology of Art: A Reader, edited by Jeremy Tanner, 207-215. New York: Routledge, 2003
Trinh, T. Minh-Ha. “Of Other Peoples: Beyond the Salvage Paradigm.” In Discussions in Contemporary Culture, edited by Hal Foster, 121-141. Washington: Bay Press 1987
Vaughan, R.M. “Never read the comments: notes from 25 years of art criticism,” CBC, March 31, 2016. http://www.cbc.ca/arts/never-read-the-comments-notes-from-25- years-of-art-criticism-1.3514616
