To And From: Alan Brandoli @ Toronto School of Art Gallery, May 28 – June 6th
Preparator, archival inkjet print, 50x 73 inches, 2010
Alan Brandoli’s exhibition “To and From” on display in the Toronto School of Art Gallery and building lobby until June 6th includes several large scale photographs and a street front video projection that pose questions about how personal and institutionalized accumulations of history perpetuate certain ideologically driven memories that conflate our individual subjectivity with artificial social constructs.
The three larger panoramic photographs taken in Toronto’s Royal York Hotel present the establishment’s venerable spaces as backdrops that lend authority and theatrical flair to corporate conferences, group pep talks and various social events. In this sense culture, whether in the form of modern Canadian paintings, blank projection screens, or colonial décor is positioned as the legitimizing staging device for commerce and public rituals.
One of the photographs displays a painterly composition depicting a decorator working on a palette of colour, fabric and materials in front of a painting of a colonial treaty ceremony. There seems to be an ironic parallel between the choreographed imperialist painting and the preparator’s fastidious concern for historical continuity. The photograph’s composition and lighting also underscore a self conscious eye for westernized pictorial conventions and seems to raise considerations about the cultural content behind such image construction.
To and From, digital video projection, 74×106 inches, 2010
In the front display window a male figure repeats a virtual walk to and from a vanishing point while ignoring the human activity that surrounds him as he makes his way through a sun washed park. Again there seems to be a concern for the operations of pictorial space here.
Asked by Brandoli to focus on the specifics of his own future without any affectation of acting, the anonymous walker in the projection moves from a distant point towards the viewer until he reaches the virtual edge of the picture plane to stand on the brink of the window’s ledge and fix his gaze on the camera and, thereby the viewer for several minutes before turning and re-enacting the walk over and over again on the digital loop.
This seemingly natural and literal act of walking is portrayed as a condition which is complicated by the artificial setting within the park along with the presence of a palpable psychological component enacted through the figure’s fixed gaze and his disconcerting inattention to his surroundings. Various associations emerge while viewing the work including the relationship between virtual space and the subjective space of consciousness to our own, street level reality as the male figure’s gaze seems to press against the conventional boundaries of the display window.
Brandoli also cites the immanent G20 Summit, the precarious financial markets and the recent conflicts in Gaza, as events that indirectly informed the work as it was made during TSA’s Independent Spring Residency Program.
Guest Artist Lecture: NADJA SAYEJ
Come to the TORONTO SCHOOL OF ART for
A critic’s talk by the Queen of Sass from
ArtStars*
N A D J A S A Y E J
6:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 9
410 Adelaide St. West, 3rd Floor
pay what you can + cash bar
ArtStars* host Nadja Sayej
Tired of ArtSpeak* pyramids and post-modern mummies? Join the club.There are 7 Unsolved Mysteries of the Art World and ArtStars* unveils them all this summer.
The ArtStars* Odyssey is a new world tour that will bluster through the map to expose what is obsolete in the art world and why you should stay tuned for the Toronto vlog you love to hate.
Stick around after for an ArtStars* pop quiz with prizes! How hardcore a fan are you?
Nadja Sayej is against pretentious ArtSpeak* as well as long and complicated bios. She is the host of ArtStars* – “TMZ for the art scene” – a legendary You Tube reality TV show which has garnered a cult following for her Gonzo, balls-out approach to the white box. Nadja has been called “Jeannie Beker of the art world,” by Eye Weekly, “a gonzo skewering of sanctified art pretense” by the Toronto Star and “center stage in Toronto” by Art in America.
A pioneer of the internet TV revolution, Nadja has stuck the ArtStars* mic in the famous faces of Douglas Coupland, Bruce La Bruce, Peaches, Robert Gober and even got naked for Richard Kern (but didn’t get paid for it). Redefining the role of the art critic, her reporting and criticism has blazed through the pages of the Globe and Mail and The New York Times, C magazine, artUS and Border Crossings but still can’t find post-modernism in the dictionary. Hungry for more? You’d better be: http://artstarstv.com
UPCOMING LECTURES
Swintak Wednesday, June 16th at 6:30 p.m. www.swintakswintak.com
Guy Maddin Fall 2010
Toronto School of Art
410 Adelaide St. West, 3rd Floor
416.504.7910 info@tsa-art.ca
Organized by Camilla Singh for the Toronto School of Art
idomyownstunts.org
Drink & Draw at TSA!
TSA’s third Drink and Draw event will be happening on Saturday, June 12th, 2010 at 7:00pm in Studio 2.
This is an event hosted by the TSA student council and will be a good opportunity to get to know the TSA community.
GUEST ARTIST LECTURE SERIES: Alex McLeod
Come to the TORONTO SCHOOL OF ART
for an artist talk by candyman of the apocalypse
A L E X M c L E O D
6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 19th
at the TSA, 410 Adelaide St. West, 3rd Floor
pay what you can + cash bar
The Toronto School of Art (TSA) is pleased to welcome Alex McLeod to our studios on Wednesday, May 19th, at 6:30 p.m. to talk about his work.
Alex McLeod constructs hyper-realistic 3D environments filled with crystalline mountains, fiery lakes, and rotund clouds, all rendered in a sickly sweet and gooey candy-colored palette. Recalling the wide-open vistas of Romantic landscape painting while at the same time staging otherworldly dystopias, McLeod’s CGI prints act as hybrid spaces that imply an almost infinite recombination of the past and present, the real and virtual.
Beneath their seductively polished surfaces, of glimmering fortresses and floating geometric abstractions, lies a haunting stillness that comes forth in the aftermath of cataclysmic events. The cause of destruction remains unknown in these depopulated spaces – there are no people in these images, however much human traces remain in the rickety railways and empty fortresses. And yet, from the twilight of devastation shown in these strange dioramas lies possibilities for hope and rebirth in our own digital milieu through the artist’s new approaches to concepts as varied as ecological responsibility and the shared intersections between photography and painting.
Alex McLeod lives and works in Toronto, Canada. Recent exhibitions include the solo exhibition Imperial Lands at ROJO Artspace Barcelona; participation in Empire of Dreams at MOCCA; and Estates of the Splendorous and Secret held in conjunction with the 2010 01SJ Biennial.
Eat some ice cream while you check out his website! www.alxclub.com
UPCOMING LECTURES:
Nadja Sayej Wednesday, June 9th at 6:30 p.m. www.artstarstv.com
Swintak Wednesday, June 16th at 6:30 p.m.
TORONTO SCHOOL OF ART 410 Adelaide Street West, 3rd Floor
(416) 504-7910 info@tsa-art.ca
Organized by Camilla Singh for the Toronto School of Art.
GUEST ARTIST LECTURE SERIES: Steve Laurie
Come to the Toronto School of Art
for an artist talk by hot rod grease monkey
S T E V E L A U R I E
6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 28th
410 Adelaide St. West, 3rd Floor
pay what you can + cash bar
The Toronto School of Art (TSA) is pleased to welcome Steve Laurie to our studios on Wednesday, April 28th, at 6:30 p.m. to talk about his work.
‘My interdisciplinary studio practice consists of designing and fabricating homebrew prototype machines, handheld tools and site-specific image-based installation projects. Considered by some people as “hyper-masculine” or examples of “boy art”, my work thoughtfully glimpses at the unfolding aspects of masculinity through the visual cues of working class consciousness, cultural truisms, prototypes and customs. I employ traditions of performance art, kinetic sculpture and mark making to consider how actions/processes such as burning rubber, engine revving and stereo thumping are used to communicate a sense of working-class kinship and residency. These everyday subversions are pared down in my work by building and demonstrating stylish petrol fired machines that generate tire smoke and sound through the output of torque, friction, heat, vibration and engine exhaust. The materials in my work reference Princess Auto and Canadian Tire as a means to concede to a type of lowbrow consumer glut that is bred from a vision of ‘ultimate’ performance and a yearning to tune and tweak. From a personal connection to a blue-collar lifestyle my artwork hints towards pastime activities like customization, modification and maintenance as insightful moments of spatial production and cultural expression. ’ – Steve Laurie
Wednesday, May 19th at 6:30 p.m. www.alxclub.com
Organized by Camilla Singh for the Toronto School of Art.
idomyownstunts.com
TSA OPENHOUSE + GRADUATION 2010!!
TSA SPRING OPEN HOUSE &
GRADUATION 2010
April 15 – 17, 2010
Please join us for the opening reception on
April 15th, 2010, from 7 to 10 pm
Open house hours: Thurs. – Sat, Noon – 5pm
Launch Projects Gallery Fine Art Diploma and Digital Art Lab Certificate Grads continue at Launch Projects until April 25, 2010
Gallery Hours: Wed. – Sun. noon-5pm
Guest Artist Lecture Series
Presents
Kent Monkman
March 3, 2010 at 6: 30 – 8:30pm
Toronto School of Art, 3rd Floor, Studio 1
410 Adelaide Street West
(pay what you can)
Clouds in the Canyon 30” x 40” — 2008 acrylic on canvas
Kent Monkman is a Canadian artist of Cree ancestry who works with a variety of mediums, including painting, film/video, performance, and installation. He has had solo exhibitions at numerous Canadian museums including the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and the Art Gallery of Hamilton. He has participated in various international group exhibitions including: “We come in peace…” Histories of the Americas, at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, and The American West, at Compton Verney, in Warwickshire, England.
Monkman has created site specific performances at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, The Royal Ontario Museum, and at Compton Verney, and has also made super 8 versions of these performances which he calls “Colonial Art Space Interventions.” His award-winning short film and video works have been screened at various national and international festivals, including the 2007 and 2008Berlinale, and the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.
His work is represented in numerous public and private collections including the National Gallery of Canada, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Museum London, The Glenbow Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, The Mackenzie Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Simthsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. He is represented by Bailey Fine Arts, Toronto, and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK.
TSA @ The Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books
Tucked neatly into the upper-most floors of the Lillian H. Smith branch of the Toronto Public Library is a place where our childhood friends hang out. From Cinderella to Ali Baba, Snow White to the Little Prince, they are at home in the Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books. If you think of libraries primarily as a place where people go to find things to read, the Osborne Collection will change your mind.
Comprising of over 80,000 (yes, there’re that many zeroes) items, the Osborne Collection includes over 5,000 items of original artwork, an array of games, valuable literary archives, and abundance of ephemera, not to mention children’s books ranging from medieval manuscripts (copied by scribes and illustrated by hand on vellum!) to modern day Canadian publications just off the press.
The best thing about all this: it’s a public facility. You don’t need to be a scholar of children’s literature, or have a letter of reference certifying your worthiness to consult its stacks; all that is required is that you register by filling out a reader’s card and agree to abide by materials-handling guidelines to protect the collection.
Recently a group of students from the Toronto School of Art were given an opportunity to tap into this incredible resource. Leslie McGrath, the department head of the Osborne Collection conducted for us a one-hour tour on the history of illustration. In that time we traveled from the Middle Ages to the present day in a journey that spanned continents and cultures: literature, history and art came together in a lively parade of material under her knowledgeable guidance.
Starting from the aforementioned medieval manuscript (Aesop’s Fables, 14th century, written in Latin on vellum), we were shown woodcuts and engravings, including an original wood engraving by Thomas Bewick on a block of boxwood (from a publication of 1802 ); a facsimile of The Butterfly’s Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast (originally published 1807) by William Roscoe, with engravings after William Mulready; an original Randolph Caldecott wood block for Babes in the Wood, ( from the publication ca. 1879 ) an Arts & Crafts (and socialist) take on Cinderella, as illustrated by Walter Crane (first published 1873); a sumptuously illustrated copy of Queen Victoria’s coffee-table sized book In Fairyland, by Allingham, with illustrations by Richard Doyle ( 1871); illustrations by Ludmila Zeman from her Gilgamesh books; a plasticine and found-art collage by Barbara Reid from The Subway Mouse (2003) and outsize collage by Bushra Junaid for Nana’s Cold Days by Adwoa Badoe (2002 ); and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as well as Through the Looking-Glass, with illustrations by Toronto’s own George Walker, where the former volume tinkles with music when opened while the latter (for obvious reasons) is a full-scale chess-board (both by Cheshire Cat Press, 1988 and 1998 respectively). This list is by no means exhaustive. My personal favourite? A board game entitled Paths of Life (J. H. Cotterell, ca. 1835), the precursor to Snakes and Ladders, where players start out at “Parental Care Hall” can go down either the path of righteousness or of debauchery. Landmarks along the right way include “Discreet County” and “Happy Old Age Hall,” as contrasted with “Misery Square,” “Agony Whirlpool” and the “Bottomless Pit.” I eagerly await its re-release.
Typically, children’s books have always been more exuberant than their grown-up counterparts. Like kids at a family gathering, they liven things up. Even if children’s literature or book history is not your niche, the Osborne Collection remains an invaluable resource for graphic designers, illustrators, printmakers, bookbinders, collage artists, typographers and of course, your inner child. If for no other reason than to become reacquainted with yourself, age 10, drop in for their exhibitions and talks, which are held regularly throughout the year. Believe me, the Osborne Collection will delight and surprise you, free of charge. Heed this warning though: visitors may very well come away with a renewed desire for creativity, adventure, and fun.
For further reading, check out:
Prints: Art and Techniques by Susan Lambert, and English Illustrated Books for Children, By Margaret C. Maloney.
What: The Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books.
Where: The Lillian H. Smith branch, Toronto Public Library, 239 College Street, just east of Spadina (look for griffins flanking the entrance to the library).
When: Mondays to Fridays, 10-6; Saturdays 9-5.
Phone: 416-393-7753
Web: http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/uni_spe_osb_index.jsp
Upcoming Talks Thursday, April 29th, 8 p.m., at the Osborne Collection
The 7th Annual Albert Lahmer Memorial Lecture
Bringing it Home: A second-generation Canadian children’s author and book editor shares collected wisdom from the publishing trade and explains why every child’s bookshelf needs a few titles that make adults squirm. Hadley Dyer is an award-winning children’s book author, freelance editor, and instructor in the publishing program at Ryerson University. She has also worked as a bookseller, publicist, reviewer, and library coordinator of the Canadian Children’s Book Centre. Admission is Free.
** For upcoming talks check out: www.torontopubliclibrary.ca > collections > Osborne > events & exhibits * Class visits and Group Tours: Teachers and instructors are welcome to contact the Osborne Collection to arrange group visits, subject to space and scheduling. Classes starting at grade 4+ may enjoy exhibits and talks, while high school, college and university-level students may be given subject presentations on Osborne material. I am told this year class visit are limited, because of a major cataloguing initiative, but a full schedule should resume next autumn.
School’s back!
Winter term is an exciting time for TSA. We’re gearing up for a few happenings this term: April Open House & 2010 Graduation, Student Council events, and of course, awesome shows at
Launch Projects Gallery! There are a few noticeable changes at the TSA office this term: Stephanie Cormier our Student Events Coordinator is currently on maternity leave, Amanda White, Administrative Assistant, has moved on to greater ventures. The latest additions to the office are Jenny Santos and Lise Sorokopud. You may recognize Jenny as the administrator from our Launch Projects Gallery, and Lise recently joined our small team as an administrative assistant.
*****
Last term, you may have noticed refreshments served in the Student Lounge. Angela Hong, our current Student Council Coordinator has been hosting Tea & Cakes for students for the past year, and will continue to do so this term, so please drop by the student lounge every week (either Wednesdays or Thursdays, we usually announce and promote) and enjoy the snacks and company. The student council will also host a History of Illustration Tour of the Osbourne Collection at the Lillian H. Smith branch of Toronto Public Library later this month on Thursday, 28th January, 2 pm. We are hoping to get at least a group of 10 together for the tour. For details please contact Angela at magellan18@gmail.com
That’s it for now, enjoy your classes and take care!
