Reviews
On Charles Campbell and the Underrepresentation of Caribbean Art in Canada
The Jamaica-born, Victoria-based artist has shown at the Brooklyn Museum and Pérez Art Museum Miami—but only recently had his first Vancouver solo show
On Charles Campbell and the Underrepresentation of Caribbean Art in Canada
The Jamaica-born, Victoria-based artist has shown at the Brooklyn Museum and Pérez Art Museum Miami—but only recently had his first Vancouver solo show
Jon Rafman: Mapping Google
Jon Rafman’s work enjoys a deservedly high profile at this year’s Contact Festival. As Saelan Twerdy observes in this review, Rafman’s stunning, and often funny, Google Street View scenes demonstrate how the Internet is making everything public, from information to intimacy.
Luke Painter: The Ornamentalist
Melding William Morris-style ornamentation with more contemporary concerns, artist Luke Painter detours around dry academicism for something more vibrant and visceral. Mariam Nader reviews his current Toronto show at LE Gallery, finding depth in decoration.
Abbas Akhavan: Up, Down and In-Between
In this review, writer and artist Joni Murphy considers Abbas Akhavan’s current solo show in Montreal, which activates a variety of themes—war and art, destruction and nation building, human and animal—with a distinctively light touch.
Public: Big Ambitions
As one of the primary exhibitions for Contact 2012, “Public: Collective Identity | Occupied Spaces” is ambitious. Charlene K. Lau observes that the two-venue show mirrors the fractures of contemporary life: public and private, visible and invisible, place and non-place.
Judging Books by their Covers: Reading Surfaces
Is it possible to track the demise of a medium based on its increasing prevalence in art galleries? If so, the physical book is well on its way, as indicated by several recent exhibitions. In this review, David Balzer studies one such show on now in Montreal.
Angela Grossmann: Flesh for Fantasy
For journalist Danielle Egan, Angela Grossmann’s collages conjure Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Here, Egan describes Grossmann’s current Vancouver show and examines how her figures highlight the wondrous in contemporary womanhood.
Kesu’: Doug Cranmer, Reluctant Master
A hereditary chief and renowned Kwakwaka'wakw carver, the late Doug Cranmer was a master artist who preferred to refer to himself as a “doodler” and “whittler.” Here, Susan Walker reviews his Vancouver survey, "Kesu'," which means “wealth being carved.”
Tessar Sebastian Lo & Mark DeLong: Twice Removed
Currently on at Cooper Cole Gallery in Toronto is an exhibition that juxtaposes two young Canadian artists of distinctly different practices—one more emotional and illustrative, the other more conceptual and abstract. Mariam Nader reviews.
Karin Bubaš
An air of mystery enveloped the images in Karin Bubaš’s exhibition “Colour Field,” which appeared at Monte Clark Gallery in Vancouver in the summer of 2011. In this review from our Winter 2012 issue, Rachel Rosenfield Lafo considers how Bubaš’s pictures provide an interplay between painting and photography.
General Idea
The mythology of General Idea hovered in a haze around the top floors of the Art Gallery of Ontario throughout “Haute Culture: General Idea, A Retrospective 1969–1994.” In this review from our Winter 2012 issue, Ashley Johnson reflects on the global legacy of this Canadian collective.