There is a surge of restoration work for Mosques and churches in Istanbul. Thanks to big tourism, it's a global phenomenon that all famous, iconic buildings are undergoing such rejuvenation. Meanwhile it is not guaranteed that tourists can see the monument in its entirety. It is either blocked up here, or covered up there. We met this canvas at the courtyard before the entrance to the Blue Mosque. It is large in scale, realistic and surrealistic at the same time. Adding interest to the graphical facade are the numerous small cut openings. Maybe the holes are cut deliberately to let air go through. Or is it out of precaution so people won't bump into it? It might be a bit more convincible to think about it as an idea of revealing and concealing - bringing it all the more, attention.
]]>Gladstone Hotel
January 17-20, 2019
In its sixteenth years, Come Up to My Room - the Alternative Design Exhibition created and produced by Gladstone Hotel occupies all four floors of the building. I must admit I haven't seen the exhibition since I last wrote about it in 2006. I had two impressions then, which lasted up to this day. One, Bruno Billio's room and the pillars of books piling up all the way to the ceiling. Second, I met the elevator operator Hank Young, who is also known as Hank the cowboy. He died in 2009 at the age of 68.
Today I still find Bruno Billio's studio at room 209. Billio has been the resident artist at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto for the past 16 years. For his 16th CUTMR he has transformed it into a living room magically lit, and furniture outlined with neon lights. It feels flat, 2-D and unreal. Like walking into an animation or a video game. Coupled with loud music beats it really has created some excitement. He called it TRON209.
With or without Hank, there is no one now to operate the elevator, and visitors are encouraged to climb the stairs, to discover artwork between the floors. There are not a lot I can remember. The ones that still occupy some of my brain space are captured in these pictures.
TRON209 Bruno Billio
Penumbra by Chromatic Aberration | Studio 206
Becky Lauzon (glass artist), Johnny Cann (light artist) and Michael Rennick (mixed media artist).
Penumbra by Chromatic Aberration | Studio 206
Combining their craft, they seek to create narrative through shadow, interaction and sculpture.
(Femmes of Fire) always surviving, by Natalie King | 2nd floor hallway
These beautiful figures certainly possess strong influence from Fiona Smyth. Natalie King, with mixed indigenous and European ancestry, centred through a queer lens to share a multitude of queer identity stories.
Eastern Bloc (Collapse) by Georgina Lee Walker & Youri Makovski | Studio 204
I am quite fascinated by their creation of fabricated ‘carpets’. They are based on original rugs, from Iran or Europe, altered and reproduced by machine. The material is made of latex.
Eastern Bloc (Collapse) by Georgina Lee Walker & Youri Makovski | Studio 204
Water Bed by Ilze Godlevskis | 3rd floor North Corridor
A soft sculpture reminiscing the dream world of water, confined in a plexiglass bed frame. A dynamic design through artisanal making methods and textile arts.
Our Desires Fail Us - JP King, Sean Martindale
Human/Nature: Meditations on Material Culture, Integrated Design Program, Haliburton School of Art + Design, Fleming College | 4th Floor
Murals of photographic images of plastic wastes and garbage. Horrifically grandiose.
Burning Wolf - Chris Bahry
Human/Nature: Meditations on Material Culture, Integrated Design Program,
Haliburton School of Art + Design, Fleming College | 4th Floor
Cabinet Fantastique: Ghost City by Sonia Gemmiti + Christy Stoeten | Public Space 2nd floor
A multidisciplinary art installation - a theatrical production using mini set pieces and holographic technology. This piece is created to salute Toronto’s lost architectural heritage.
Fraktur by [R]ed[U]x Lab | Studio 206
Created by a collective of designers, Fraktur explores expansion and contraction and how they can make a static room feel alive.
Anthropocene
Art Gallery of Ontario
August 25, 2018 - January 6, 2019
January waved goodbye to Anthropocene, the culmination of an ambitious, four-year-long collaboration by the artists and filmmakers Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas De Pencier. We were there four days ago, and pleasantly surprised to find crowds lining up, something you will only find, say in MOMA at New York City.
Anthropocene, a proposed epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on the Earth's geology and ecosystems (Wikipedia). It could have been a more stunning and reflective exhibition, had it not been the crowds and the constant movement of people. It made it hard to stand at the right distance of an almost 'in situ' image to fully realize its impact, and to give respect. We should visit the exhibition earlier, during one of its more idled days two months ago.
Burtynsky scanned the world we rarely see, its human habitats especially its wounds induced by humans, in a scale that is awe-inspiring and unprecedented. Certainly we have existing satellite images of the world, but never presented in such precise language and intricate manoeuvring. Together with the video work by Baichwal and De Pencier, Anthropocene delivers a much stronger and clearer sense of purpose: do something or lose this world.
If you are still wondering where the meeting point between photography and painting lies, here you might find a good example. Look in detail the coal mining in Wyoming, with snow sprinklings on the terraced mine field highlighting strips of soil being mined, it could have been mistaken for an etching, had one not known it at first as a photograph. Look even closer at the lower left corner, where a road is snaking up to the north, different shades of brown seem to be melting into each other. In another photograph, Morenci Mine #2, a scene of the copper extracting process surfacing marble-like colours leached heavy metals. From a distance, everything so golden and extravagant, pops up at once like the interior of a baroque palace, an anthropocene Renaissance. Only upon close examination the truth reveals. The next photograph, Phosphor Tailing #5 resembles a silvery impression of a big flat flower. But the most spectacular capture is the image of Uralkali Potash Mine #4. One would have to rub his eyes twice to believe these are not two gigantic coral fossils in the work site but Man-made, versus nature at its best. How can we not hail the masterpieces of man and machinery partnered to make marks on our earth in the name of progress? Industrialists and entrepreneurs proudly hang these works of art in their conference rooms - for aesthetic pleasure and educational functionality.
There is enormous effort and financial liability in keeping projects like Anthropocene going. But thanks to this accomplished project, all of us can now bear witness to our deeds. While struck by the utter beauty these photographs apparently carry, underneath lies another layer of inevitable lose and fear. It feels almost like looking at a love/hate self-portrait of our naked selves, thinking, "how many more of these bite marks can the body endure?". Shall we just happily take in what Sylvia Plath said in her Lady Lazarus, "Dying / Is an art, like everything else."
January 7, 2019