Happy Holidays!

I wish all my readers happy holidays and a wonderful new year. I am sure it will be an exciting one!

A Little Something

At the Mlacak Centre, Kanata: Kanata Civic Art Gallery (KCAG)

Kanata Civic Art Gallery's smalls show "A Little Something" takes place on on Saturday. Just in time for Christmas!
I actually couldn't see the works which will be on display on Saturday, but my photos will give you an impression of works by Kanata artists showing there:

Facts:
Kanata Civic Art Gallery's "A Little Something"
December 13th, 2014, 10 am – 4 pm
Mlacak Centre, Kanata
https://www.facebook.com/KanataGallery?_fb_noscript=1

Tis the season...

Herrnhut Star - a typical German Christmas decoration. Isn't it beautiful!?

...to go Christmas shopping. Here are a couple of great exhibitions and events in December which provide a wonderful opportunity to buy unique, creative gifts:


Open House at The Rectory Art House tonight!
December 3rd 2014, 5:00pm
http://saintbrigidscentre.com/events/event/open-house-rectory-art-house/

Studio Sixtysix
Under $500 Holiday Show and Fundraiser
Featuring : Gallery and Guest Artists
Painting, Sculpture, Photography, Printmaking, Jewellery, Objects
Runs Nov. 27 - Jan. 2014
http://www.studiosixtysix.ca/Exhibitions.html

Cube Gallery: Great BIG smalls X
Welcome to Cube’s tenth annual Christmas show of small works with BIG heart!
December 2nd, 2014 to January 4th, 2015
http://cubegallery.ca/exhibitions/2014_12_02_great_big_smalls_x

Carp X-mas Market
December 5-6, 2014, Friday 3 to 8 p.m., and Saturday 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
http://www.carpfarmersmarket.com/calendar/calendar.htm

Joy - Kanata Civic Art Gallery Exhibition
November 24h - Jan 2015
http://www.kanatagallery.ca/Kanata_Civic_Art_Gallery/Exhibitions_%26_Events.html

The Ottawa School of Art Holiday art show and sale
The Ottawa School of Art – Downtown & Orleans Campus Galleries present their 30th Annual Holiday Fundraising Art Sale. The exhibition features a wide range of original, unique and affordable works of art created by the students, instructors and alumni of the School in a wide variety of media, sizes and prices.
Works will be on display from: November 27 – December 14, 2014.
http://artottawa.ca/event/holiday-art-sale/

Artists' books @ the National Gallery

National Gallery of Canada

Interested in artists' books? Curious what the Library and Archives at the National Gallery of Canada hold? It's not only the most extensive collection of visual literature in Canada with its 250,000 documents, including books, exhibition catalogues, bound periodicals, microforms, documentation files, study photographs, institutional archives and private papers. It's such a wonderful space for studies, with wide windows, where you can just sit and for example admire the amazing sculpture “100 Foot Line” (2010) by Roxy Paine.

Roxy Paine: 100 Foot Line, 2010, behind the National Gallery of Canada

The NGC has invited some guest speakers to present some of the interesting library holdings: Corinn Gerber (Director of Art Metropole, Toronto), Jonathan Shaughnessy (Associate Curator, Contemporary Art, NGC), Ming Tiampo (Associate Professor, Art History, Carleton University) and Adam Welch (Associate Curator, Modern Canadian Art, NGC) have selected two to three artists’ books from the collection, and will talk about them next Thursday. That may be a wonderful opportunity to get in insight in the library and in rather unknown artists' books...

Facts:
NGC
Library and Archives Reading Room
Thursday 27 November 6:00 – 7:00 PM
For further information, please contact Peter Trepanier (613-990-0587)

In English, with bilingual question period to follow. The selected books will be available for consultation in the Reading Room.

Nuit Blanche 2014 @ The Rectory a big success

Art installations at The Rectory Art House attracted a huge audience during Nuit Blanche last Saturday. Participating artists Karen Bailey, Lori Victor, and Karen Rasmussen dealt with this years’s theme “Bypass” in entirely different ways:

Karen Bailey with "Passage", Nuit Blanche 2014, at The Rectory Art House.

Karen Bailey's “Passage” was an installation of a wonderful painting depicting a gravedigger at her mother's funeral. Once again, Bailey focused on people behind the scenes as in her previous series like "Cut" (2005-2007), or "Are you being served?"(2004-2005). Visitors were encouraged to place down flowers underneath the shrine, while a white Madonna (which belongs to the office at The Rectory by the way) watched them graciously. Bailey's work “bypasses more traditional forms of grieving” and reflects on her personal loss.

"Cut-Outs" by Lori Victor at The Rectory Art House.

Lori Victor engages in discussions with visitors about her installation "Cut-Outs" during Ottawa's Nuit Blanche 2014.

Lori Victor's installation instead was political: Her “Cut-Outs” at the second floor showed strings of more than 4,000 cut-out figures of an Ottawa Citizen article reporting that over 4,000 aboriginal children died in residential schools. A powerful, meaningful installation that led to interesting and controversial discussions all night long. Victor's second installation “Ottawa's Kitimat” refers to the pipeline through Ottawa carrying tar sand bitumen from Alberta.

Lori Victor's "Ottawa's Kitimat"

Karen Rasmussen's “Closing Time?”, an installation of chairs, stools, books, and clocks focused on personal challenges. Her installation is according to the artist “a decision-making chamber for considering changes we face and for figuring out our next move. A chance to bypass the usual anxiety of change, forego meds and psychotherapy, and take art instead.” What a great approach!

Karen Rasmussen's "Closing Time?" at Nuit Blanche 2014.

A wonderful addition to the art at The Rectory were the Ottawa Storytellers. They told enlightening, thoughtful, serious, sad, and sometimes even humorous tales in response to the paintings and installations.

Ottawa Storyteller before Karen Bailey's "Passage" during Nuit Blanche.

Ottawa Storyteller before Karen Bailey's "Passage" during Nuit Blanche.

Artists' websites:
http://www.karenbailey.ca/
http://lorivictor.com/
Karen Rasmussen: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.138248893037302.1073741834.121343688061156&type=1&_fb_noscript=1

A.Y. Jackson and Otto Dix – Art influenced by the First World War

The Canadian War Museum, Ottawa

“Transformations. A.Y. Jackson and Otto Dix – Art shaped by War” is the current special exhibition at the Canadian War Museum, Ottawa. I finally had a chance to visit that excellent show.

The exhibition sheds light on the artistic development of Canadian painter A.Y. Jackson (1882–1974), and German painter Otto Dix (1891-1969). These important 20th century artists are somewhat comparable, since both witnessed the First World War as soldiers. And the experiences they made had later a huge influence on their art. The War Museum's focus lies in particular on their landscapes, even though Dix is rather known for his critical and provoking depiction of the Weimar Society and the 1st World War, and turned to landscapes only later in life. Jackson instead is widely known for his Canadian landscapes.

The exhibition shows the parallel development of Jackson and Dix in five sections: Early Years (1882-1914), First World War (1914-1918), Post-War (1919-1932), Nazi Germany and the Second World War (1933-1945), and Later Years (1946-1974). To me it was very interesting to see how Dix' early landscapes were influence by Post-Impressionism (e.g. Van Gogh) and the Romantic tradition, in particular Caspar David Friedrich. Spending a couple of years in Dresden myself, I can imagine how Dix, who did grow up close by, was influence by that tradition since it is visible everywhere (very good collection at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden BTW). But Dix was also influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche's writings, and Futurist and Apocalyptic Art what the exhibition demonstrates. That's compared to Jackson on the other side of the room (very good set-up for an exhibition to demonstrate the similarities of the two artists, in which the exhibition rooms are divided with Jackson on the right, and Dix on the left side), shedding light on Jackson's travels to Europe and his interest in the Canadian landscape after his return 1912. The exhibition also makes clear what impact his European studies had on his later landscape paintings.

Main focus of the exhibition is of course the enrolment of both artists in the First World War as soldiers and how they became witnesses of destruction and atrocities. Both created landscape art during and after the war which reflects their experiences of the conflict. Dix and Jackson were both soldiers, and Jackson, after wounded in 1916, became an official war artist in 1917.

Both express brutal destructiveness of the war in their landscapes, but do that very, very differently: Dix showed the brutal reality with gruel paintings as well as drawings of death, mutilated and rotting corpses, while Jackson shows the destructiveness in an indirect way by painting shattered trees in an rather Impressionist style. His landscapes were still beautiful, even though they show battlefields of the First World War! Dix' intentions were therefore different from Jackson's – even if his landscapes play an important compositional role in his major works like “The War” (1932), the depiction of death and atrocities is the main focus of his post-war works. His paintings and prints of German soldiers as victims led to under the Nazis to the defamation of his works as “degenerated” art, and forced Dix to an “inner exile” after the Nazis had him sacked from his post as an art teacher at the Dresden Academy of Art.

On the other hand, in the Canadian part of the exhibition, we see how Jackson was one leading founder of the Group of Seven in 1920, and how his landscapes were strongly influenced by his experiences in the First World War. The exhibition demonstrates why his landscape art is widely accepted as an expression of Canadian Identity. It's a fascinating show about two entirely different artists whose works and lives were shaped by their experiences of war.

Furthermore, I had a chance to visit at the other remarkable exhibition at the War Museum “Witness - Canadian Art of the First World War”. It shows how Canadians depicted their First World War experiences in art, both at home and overseas. One painting in particular stroked me: “The Sunken Road” by Frederick Varley (1919). While working as an artist for the Canadian War Records Department Varley witnessed combat on the front lines. He depicted what war was really like, in clearly showing destruction and cruelties, like corpses lying on a abandoned battlefield. I found that much more analogous to Dix' work than Jackson's which never shows the brutality of the war directly. But maybe that's one of the intentions of the “Transformations”-exhibition: How witnessing a war can impact Oeuvres and lives in totally different ways ...

Both exhibitions were extended until September 26th, 2014.

Canadian War Museum, Ottawa. Unfortunately, it's not allowed to take photos inside the exhibition.

Facts:
Transformations – A. Y. Jackson and Otto Dix
Canadian War Museum
April 10, 2014 - September 26, 2014 (extended!)
http://www.warmuseum.ca/transformations/

Chantal Gervais receives Karsh Award

Last week I mentioned the prestigious Karsh Award by the City of Ottawa. Today was announced that photographer Chantal Gervais is the winner!

The Jury statement emphasizes Chantal Gervais' focus on the human body, it's fragility and issues of self-conception and self-reference.

An excerpt of the Jury Statement from the City of Ottawa website:

“For two decades, Chantal Gervais has focused on the frailty of the human body. By means of her photographs and her videos, she investigates, with sensitivity, the marks left by accidents, illness and aging. The prospect of death lurks as a subtext in her images. Anchored in contemporary concerns, her work searches for identities as referenced through her own body.

Her aesthetic choices have sublime aspects that arouse paradoxical feelings of attraction and repulsion. She accomplishes this through fragmentation of the body, isolation against a black background, the ambiguity of the role of the skin, and references to écorché. She often presents her works as polyptychs or large prints. In her recent works, she has abandoned the camera obscura and turned to the flatbed scanner and magnetic resonance imaging, pushing the photographic boundaries.”


The award will be presented on September 12, 2014 at the Karsh-Masson Gallery.

The Gallery, located at City Hall, will host an exhibition of her artwork from September 12 to October 19, 2014.

Facts:
http://ottawa.ca/en/residents/arts-culture-and-community/arts-theatre-music/karsh-award

Karsh Award will be announced next week

Excited! The Karsh Award 2014 will be announced on September 3rd - for "an outstanding work in a photo-based medium". I'll keep you posted!

The award will be presented on Friday, September 12, 2014 at the Karsh-Masson Gallery (at Ottawa City Hall now) in conjunction with an exhibition of the artist’s work.

Link:  http://ottawa.ca/en/residents/arts-culture-and-community/arts-theatre-music/karsh-award

 

Past laureates

Year	Laureate
2012	Rosalie Favell
2010	Tony Fouhse
2008	Jeffrey Thomas
2006	Robert Bourdeau
2005	Justin Wonnacott
2003	Lorraine Gilbert

Gustave Doré at NGC is not a crowd-puller (unfortunately!)

I am sorry to hear that the Gustave Doré exhibit at the National Gallery is struggling to attract visitors. I'm sure it's a wonderful, enlightening show. But of course it's hard to reach the same numbers like the van Gogh exhibition...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/national-gallery-s-gustave-dor%C3%A9-exhibit-struggling-1.2715952

Link to the exhibition at the NGC:
http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/exhibitions/upcoming/details/gustave-dore-1832-1883-master-of-imagination-7011

Art on the Grass - Carp

At the Carp Farmers' Market

I'm always pleasantly surprised how local arts and crafts thrive in rural communities. On my recent visit to the Carp Farmers' Market, I've discovered not only a great variety of fruits, vegetables and backed goods, but also amazing crafts. In the market halls I've found pottery, jewellery, sewed and knitted textiles, wood crafts and even photographs and fiber art. It's really worth a visit!

Carp Farmers' Market

And on August 16th, the fairgrounds in the village of Carp host “Art on the Grass”: A Show & sale of fine art and handmade crafts. Organized by the West Carleton Arts Society, it's a wonderful opportunity to see works (and demonstrations!) by local artists and craftspeople. That sounds terrific!


Facts:

Art on the Grass
Carp Fairgrounds
August 16, 2014, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.
http://www.westcarletonartssociety.ca/art-on-the-grass.html

Carp Farmer's Market:
Every Saturday in Summer
http://www.carpfarmersmarket.com/

Controversial Exhibit at Karsh Masson Gallery

Entrance to Rehab Nazzal's "Invisible" at Karsh Masson Gallery, Ottawa

The current exhibition at Ottawa City Hall by Palestinian artist Rehab Nazzal has recently caused controversy. The art exhibit, titled “Invisible,” includes images of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, among other art pieces that portray the West Bank and Gaza.

Some pictures of the exhibit at Karsh Masson Gallery, now located in City Hall:

Exhibition view of Rehab Nazzal's "Invisible" at Karsh Masson Gallery, Ottawa

Exhibition view of Rehab Nazzal's "Invisible" at Karsh Masson Gallery, Ottawa

Rehab Nazzal's "Invisible" at Karsh Masson Gallery, Ottawa, Poster

More about the controversy about the exhibition:
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/palestinian-artist-rehab-nazzal-talks-to-crowd-about-controversial-exhibit-artistic-freedom

Facts:
Rehab Nazzal: Invisible
Karsh Masson Gallery
May 9 to June 22, 2014
http://ottawa.ca/en/residents/arts-culture-and-community/arts-theatre-music/rehab-nazzal

Art in Odd Spaces

Invitation of the RIA House Tour, 2014. The photo shows: Lynda Hall, Attic Stairs.

A basement, a guest room, a storage room, an attic, a lavatory or a staircase... all these “odd spaces” host art installations during the RIA House Tour next weekend. Research in Art (RIA) has been a hub for discussion about the state of contemporary art here in Ottawa for a while now, and the house tour proves how exciting the Ottawa art scene actually is.

The invitation mentions strange features of these spaces like a secret staircase and a hidden door. Behind them you will find unexpected works of six well-known Ottawa artists:

Gail Bourgeois, Vera Greenwood, Dipna Horra, Deborah Margo, Stephanie Nadeau and Svetlana Swinimer.

The works – in video, sound, drawing, and sculpture – refer to the history and present use (or non-use) of these odd spaces. The tour may be an amazing opportunity to explore art with a unique approach. I hope I will still get a spot, since all participants have to register in advance!

Facts:
May 3rd, 2014, 1-5 p.m.
May 10th, 2014, 1-5 p.m.
Please register at researchinart.ria@gmail.com
This is Tangent # 6 in conjunction with Deborah Margo’s Salt and Paper project. For more information on RIA, the Salt and Paper Project and its Tangents, visit: http://researchinartottawa.wordpress.com/

Kanata Artists Studio Tour

Save the date: Next weekend is the Kanata Artists Studio Tour!

10 artists of the Kanata area and 2 guest artists open their homes and studios to the public (for the 23rd time already, isn't that great!).

Facts:

May 2-4, 2014
Various locations in Kanata
Link: http://www.kanataartists.com

Polke and Richter...

Invitation to the polke/richter exhibition at the SKD, Dresden; copyright Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

...I wish I could go!

Facts: 
State Art Collections Dresden, Germany
polke/richter - documentation of an exhibition
April 8 - June 1st, 2014
http://www.skd.museum/en/special-exhibitions/polkerichter/index.html

Accolade connects art and audience

Accolade website, http://artsaccolade.ca

Where art, artists and the audience connect: a new microsite of the AOE Arts Council features works by and information about their members. But that's not all. Accolade promises to show “innovation, imagination and art in all its forms in our dynamic city. You will be able to discover artists, enjoy their work, find arts instruction and support the arts.” Accolade aims to be a forum not only for professional artists, but also for recreational, community-based, and emerging artistic expressions.

That sounds great! Check it out under the link: http://artsaccolade.ca/

Triage: An Artist in Kandahar

© copyright Karen Bailey, all rights reserved

Recently, Picasso's 1949 book illustrations for “Carmen” came to my mind. They are quite amazing – showing scenes from the novella by Prosper Mérimée (later adapted into the famous opera) with wonderful portraits of Carmen and of course Picasso's characteristic minotaur. A wonderful book.

It's also a great example for interdisciplinary 'cross-fertilization' of visual arts and literature. Now I encountered a project that went the opposite way, so to speak: first were the paintings and than the literature. The School of Music poets responsed to “Triage: An Artist in Kandahar”, an exhibition of paintings by artist Karen Bailey. Karen Bailey's astonishing paintings which she created when she was a volunteer appointed military artist with the Canadian Military Forces at the Role 3 Hospital, Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan, were the starting point for a group of Australian poets. Their aim is to “explore the relationship between poetry, music and other art forms by providing a wide variety of rich artistic experiences”. Now the impressive poems about Bailey's paintings were published online and in print.

Karen Bailey's Artist Statement:

Poets and painters share a similar history in documenting war. Without the efforts of artists the human story of war would never be memorialised; for generations poets have written about the effects of conflict, history books are filled with images depicting war.

The poems here are moving, the compassion shown is palpable. It’s as if each poet was with me during my experiences in Kandahar. You have been able to put into words what I can only say with paint. I feel privileged to be part of this collaboration with the poets of Canberra, Australia.

Karen Bailey, December 2013


Facts:
Link to the publication: http://sompoets.wordpress.com/projects/response-to-triage/
Link to Karen Bailey: http://www.karenbailey.ca/

“Chase” - New Public Art in Kanata

"Chase" on the roof of the entrance of Richcraft Recreation Center, Innovation Drive, Ottawa

During my recent visit of the newly opened Richcraft recreation complex in Kanata North, I encountered an interesting piece of Ottawa's public art. Anna Williams' and Erin Robertson's bronze sculptures “Chase” depict a fox chasing a ball in over the roof and in front of the the entrance of the rec complex. They are financed through the City of Ottawa and a good fit for that center – because they joyfully combine playing and exercise.

The fox eventually catches the ball...

The life-size fox, captured in seven poses, runs after a small red ball across the roof of the entrance, then down to the pavement and off into the nearby woods while eventually catching the ball. I bet children will have fun with these public artworks – the newly opened Richcraft recreation complex is a good site for art like that!

http://ottawa.ca/en/residents/arts-culture-and-community/arts-theatre-music/richcraft-recreation-complex-kanata

... and he runs off with it. Sculpture by Anna Williams and Erin Robertson

Welcome to Berlin, Wolfgang Tillmans!

After 23 years in London, German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans moved back to Germany. He has just made Berlin his new home, and also opened his gallery “Between Bridges” there. Actually, the gallery also moved from London (where it started in 2006 as a non-profit exhibition space in the ground floor of Tillmans' studio) to Berlin. Tillmans won the Turner Prize in 2000 – the first photographer ever to receive that award. He's known for his observing photographs of everyday objects and situations, and in particular his very personal portraits (lately also for amazing abstract photographic works).

See:
http://www.morgenpost.de/kultur/berlin-kultur/article123801110/Starfotograf-Wolfgang-Tillmans-zieht-von-London-nach-Berlin.html

Artist's Website: http://tillmans.co.uk/

Home built digital cameras? Yes!

That sounds pretty interesting: Experimental Digital photography created using home built digital cameras. Abstract portraits and bodyscapes by Ralph Nevins are now on view at the Atrium Gallery – and the opening reception is actually today!

Facts:
Slitscan: Photography by Ralph Nevins
Atrium Gallery, Ben Franklin Place, 101 Centrepointe Drive
January 10 to February 12, 2014
OPENING RECEPTION: TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2014 (6-8PM)

Ralph Nevins' Homepage where you can see more of his impressive 'Slitscans': http://ralph.ca/?page_id=425