Artist Mickalene Thomas / photo Lamont Hamilton
Leading artists, directors and producers will appear live for conversation over the next four days at the Reel Artists Film Festival in Toronto. Here are the events not to be missed:
• New York’s Mickalene Thomas—recently featured at the Brooklyn Museum and in W Magazine—chats with Deirdre Logue, director/curator of Toronto’s Feminist Art Gallery, on Sunday at 3 p.m. The talk accompanies a screening of a film Thomas recently made about her greatest muse—her mother.
• Mexico’s Mario Garcia Torres talks about his film Tea, commissioned by and shown at Documenta 13, with Toronto artist Luis Jacob on Saturday at 7 p.m. Tea documents Torres’s journey to the legendary One Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, which was run by Alighiero Boetti in the 1970s. Torres has exhibited at the Museo Reina Sofia, the Stedelijk Museum and the Venice Biennale.
• Ramallah artist and art educator Khaled Hourani, whose film Picasso in Palestine was also featured at Documenta 13, is arts director of the International Academy of Art Palestine. He will Skype with Art Gallery of Ontario executive director of curatorial affairs Elizabeth Smith after a screening of the film at 9 p.m. tonight.
• Recently selected as a finalist at the 2013 SXSW Interactive Awards, Tate’s online exhibition “The Gallery of Lost Art” focuses on an unusual topic—artworks that no longer exist. UK-based Canadian filmmaker Susan Doyon produced and directed this online exhibition, and she joins Canadian Art Foundation executive director Ann Webb in conversation on Sunday at 1 p.m. to discuss the project and some of its related documentaries.
• When Polaroid announced it would be ending its production of instant film in 2008, there was a wide outcry among aficionados of the medium. Their saga is documented in the new film TIME ZERO: The Last Year of Polaroid Film, which will close RAFF 2013. A conversation with director Grant Hamilton will follow the screening at 5 p.m. on Sunday.
The Reel Artists Film Festival continues to February 24 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. For complete details visit canadianart.ca/raff.
