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As the Toronto International Art Fair gears up for its seventh edition this November, it does so as a now-familiar marker on the art world’s cultural calendar, one that has built a sense of national community over the years. When the doors open for the Preview on November 9th and to the general public on November 10th, galleries from St. John’s to Vancouver, Montreal to Calgary—as well as some international galleries of note—will lay out under the bright lights of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre what represents the only real national gathering of current Canadian art practice. |
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Pan, Zoom, Tilt, Talk and Expand – Richard Rhodes
As the Toronto International Art Fair gears up for its seventh edition this November, it does so as a now-familiar marker on the art world’s cultural calendar, one that has built a sense of national community over the years. When the doors open for the Preview on November 9th and to the general public on November 10th, galleries from St. John’s to Vancouver, Montreal to Calgary—as well as some international galleries of note—will lay out under the bright lights of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre what represents the only real national gathering of current Canadian art practice. Elsewhere, national prize programs and touring exhibitions address the scene, but only at TIAF do all the players gather for business and pleasure and the latest in topical information. TIAF is the big tent on the Canadian art-world horizon—with each year it finds new ways to link contemporary art with its public.
TIAF’s showcase for galleries representing the work of young, emerging artists worldwide uncovers new and groundbreaking contemporary art. Once again it is expected to be a focal point of both collecting and curatorial interest at the fair. The thirteen participating galleries will give visitors a view from the cutting edges of current art practices. “Solo Spaces” also returns with its unique series of installations by individual artists.
This year, The News at Five, organized by Canadian Art editor Richard Rhodes, looks at how varying exhibition formats can set the terms for engagement with art. “Survey, Solo, Set Piece” is a series of daily exhibitions following differing formats, each of which raises unique terms of reference for contemporary art.
“Survey,” scheduled for the Opening Night Preview and Friday, November 10th, offers a comprehensive look at the Toronto films of the Canadian artist Mark Lewis. Now living in England, Lewis has built an international reputation with his short film works, which bring the formal vocabularies of film alongside the pictorial traditions of painting. Represented by Monte Clark Gallery, Lewis has also shown at Villa Arson in Nice and Kunsthalle Bern, as well as at the Berlin Biennial and the Tate Triennial. Despite his international credentials, Lewis has set many of his films in Canadian locations. “Airport,” “Off Leash,” “Queensway: Pan and Zoom,” “Downtown: Tilt, Zoom and Pan” and the just-completed “Spadina: Reverse Dolly, Zoom, Nude” engage with the city of Toronto as a modern backdrop for micro-narrative events that reveal experiential patterns in a structured film framework. Looped for projection in The News at Five space, they are accompanied by a selection of his location photographs.
“Solo,” which will be installed Saturday afternoon, November 11th, gathers recent works by the Toronto photographer Lisa Klapstock, who is represented by Jessica Bradley Art and Projects. Klapstock’s Threshold photos and a sampling from her new series, “Depiction,” anchor an installation that presents the artist’s ongoing investigation of urban space and its intersection with photographic seeing. Klapstock photographs unlikely material in Toronto laneways and front yards and transforms it into pictures that prompt meditations on the nature of time and perception. State-of-the-art digital presentation is involved in elevating passing sights into conceptual markers.
“Set Piece,” the third and final exhibition of the series, will be installed on Sunday afternoon, November 12th, with works by the Quebec artist Martin Bourdeau and the BC artist Robert Youds. Bourdeau, represented by Galerie Roger Bellemare, is a painter best known for treading the dividing line between representational art and abstraction. In recent years he has made pastel works of St. Lawrence River farmland in which stark horizon lines divide sky and water into abstract compositions that connect with long-standing transcendental themes in art.
Robert Youds, in contrast, constructs paintings in the form of three-dimensional light boxes that are lit from within with amorphous, glowing lights. They are paintings in a conceptual tradition that stands distinctly apart from Bourdeau’s. Their pairing in “Set Piece” provides an opportunity to consider a shared interest in illumination that overrides stylistic categories.
Salon Indien is the name of the hall in Paris where the first public film screenings—using the Lumières’ Cinématographe, the world’s first movie projector—were held in 1895. Fifty-six years earlier at Egyptian Hall in London, George Catlin launched his Indian Gallery, exhibiting—along with hundreds of his paintings and Native American paraphernalia—a full-scale Crow teepee. Kent Monkman draws inspiration from these two events for his transformation of a teepee into a turn-of- the-century movie theatre, Salon Indien, in which he will screen his super-eight film “Group of Seven Inches.” With the help of his alter ego, Miss Chief Share Eagle Testickle, Monkman digs into history, excavating missing narratives from the period of film’s invention and the Romantic paintings of the 19th century.
T (for talk) at Three is a new feature at TIAF 2006, featuring live interviews with artists, gallerists and critics about the work they do and its place in the world of contemporary art. T at Three will offer insight into the making and meaning of the art brought to TIAF by galleries from across Canada and around the world. Each session will be introduced by Meeka Walsh, editor of Border Crossings and the conversations will be conducted by Robert Enright, the magazine’s senior contributing editor. T at Three will take place on Saturday and Sunday at 15:00 pm onsite at TIAF. Participants will be announced during the fair.
The last decade has seen significant expansion in the market for contemporary art, with a consequent rise in prices. At the same time, the concept of the museum “blockbuster” has entered the field of contemporary art as museums struggle to meet their operating costs. Many commentators suggest that these and other factors are leading to a sense of uniformity in the presentation of contemporary art. Against this backdrop, private collectors and foundations are playing an ever more significant role in determining the public face of contemporary art.
Power Talks 2006 is an informative program of talks developed by Gregory Burke, Director of The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, who considers these issues with the help of prominent figures from the international art world who speak to the interrelated themes of Institutional Futures and The Collector as Curator.
