Tag Archives: Preview: The Gallery Guide

Vancouver’s (Canada) Rennie Collection negotiates its first group exhibition

The first ever group show at the Rennie Collection (The Wing Sang Building, 51 East Pender Street, Vancouver, BC V6A 1S9) ends tomorrow,, Oct. 5, 2013. Luckily, there are still a few spots left in the scheduled 1 – 2:30 pm tour (as of Oct. 4, 2013 at 11:30 am PDT).

Le Cannibale (parody, consumption and institutional critique) (2008) Courtesy: Rennie Collection

Le Cannibale (parody, consumption and institutional critique) (2008) Courtesy: Rennie Collection

Coincidentally (or not), Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery is offering an exhibition (Sept. 13 – Nov. 3, 2013) of Mike Nelson’s work, one of the featured artists in the Rennie Collection’s current group show.

Here’s more from the Rennie Collections July (?), 2013 press release,

Rennie Collection is pleased to present an exhibition of works by a selection of internationally renowned artists: Pablo Bronstein, Aaron Curry, Andrew Grassie, Louise Lawler, Mike Nelson, Roman Ondak and Ian Wallace.

While all of these artists have their own distinctly unique styles and practices, the exhibit creates a unifying dialogue surrounding a conceptual questioning of the museum as an entity and ideas regarding space and movement. These works, pertaining to or involving centers of artistic presentation such as museums or galleries, have been dubbed in the canon of art history as “institutional critique”.

In Six Affordable Neo-Georgian Futures for the Metropolitan Museum (2009), Pablo Bronstein (b. 1977) focuses on the architectural side of institutional technique. His interests lie in how architecture has the ability to intervene in personal identity and inform our movements, behaviours and social customs. Using pen and ink on paper and adopting the styles of various architects and movements, his invented monuments become plausible inventions, both paying homage to and critiquing the emblems of civil engineering.

The critical eye of Aaron Curry (b. 1972) may not at first glance be decipherable. The Monad Has Wheels (Wooden Knight) (2010) is one of the slotted-together plywood sculptures for which Curry is well known. Its surfaces, covered in the same wallpaper pattern that also covers the exhibition room walls and thus camouflaged ineffectually against its background, raises questions and meditates formally on preconceived notions of flatness and volume. Curry draws attention to the symbiosis between gallery space and art itself.

There is a rhythm to Andrew Grassie’s (b. 1966) work that plays on the public and private lives of works of art as they exist in a collection. In his series of small paintings entitled New Hang, Grassie challenges the roles of both artist and anthropologist, personally selecting and installing works from the Tate collection to photograph and subsequently paint as his subjects. His technically complex method of working results in an imagery, such as in Tate: New Hang 10 (2004-05), that questions the very essence of the exhibition.

Louise Lawler’s (b. 1947) delicate photographs subtly mediate on the many different lives of an artwork. Whether displayed on a gallery wall such as One Mondrian: At the Art Institute of Chicago (1982) or resting peacefully amongst a cornucopia of items as in Objects (1984), the meaning of each artwork is refreshed and expanded through each different location. Lawler’s unique perspective allows us to share in the secret life of art, altering and enriching the viewer’s experience.

Mike Nelson’s (b. 1967) Le Cannibale (parody, consumption and institutional critique) (2008) is a burial ground of damaged plinths which serve as a reminder of an exhibition long-since past. The plinths are created from destroyed walls comprising of another artwork that Nelson exhibited at the Hayward Gallery, London in 2008. As Nelson states, “When something is physically broken, we do not forget about it. We are reminded of the memories associated with it”. His work speaks to the ultimate temporality and artifice of the gallery or museum space.

Where the viewers detached in Lawler’s work, Slovakian artist Roman Ondák (b. 1966) utilizes the gallery visitor as a key component. Shown for the first time in Canada, Measuring the Universe (2007) is an interactive piece previously exhibited at Tate Liverpool and MoMA, NY. Over the course of the exhibition, attendants mark visitors’ heights, first names, and dates of the measurements on the gallery walls. The mark making becomes the measure of man. By inviting people to actively participate, Ondák creates a work of art from a prosaic everyday behavior while questioning the roles of art objects and spectators, production and reception.

Ian Wallace (b. 1950) works in a space occupied by both painting and photography, highlighting the discourse between the two mediums. Using abstract painting as a grounding for the photographic image, Wallace presents us with an intersection of images and histories that prompt a reconsideration of how viewers view works of art. In the Museum (Peter Halley Series III) (1989) references aesthetic and social issues through the exchange systems of the studio, the museum and the street.

Now for my impressions of the show. Ondák’s piece which is the first one to be encountered seems to function as a map at least as much as it functions as a set of measurements. In some places names are obscured as multiple names have been written over top of one another while others stand out (toddlers don’t have much competition for wall space).

From Ondák’s piece, visitors proceed upstairs to a room dominated by Mike Nelson’s Le Cannibale. Navigating my way through the room where Nelson’s installation is located was at first intriguing and then weirdly oppressive in what seemed an increasingly apocalyptic environment the longer I stood there.

The next installation and piece was a like a visit to another planet. Given the red colour on the walls and on Aaron Curry’s device/sculpture ‘The Monad Has Wheels (Wooden Knight) (2010)’, the other planet is Mars and they’re having a serious rain storm (grey droplets on the red background which covered the walls and the device). Our guide, Jon (?), had completely different take on this installation and so may you.

Ian Wallace has a single piece (a photograph of the space between two paintings on a gallery wall) in a room shared with Andrew Grassie’s work (two small paintings, executed in tempera, of gallery exhibitions). In their own ways, both artists seems be asking the viewer to re-examine the gallery space and asking the questions, ‘How and what do we see?’

I’m sorry to say I don’t have a strong impression of Louise Lawler’s work and I think that’s partly because our guide, Jon, didn’t discuss it on the tour; i”m not sure why. Forgetfulness? Maybe the pieces weren’t fully assembled? (Other than this blip, Jon was probably the most successful guide (of the ones I’ve experience) at engaging the tour audience and that is difficult to do.)

The basement, which usually signals the end of the tour, featured fantasy architectural drawings (Six Affordable Neo-Georgian Futures for the Metropolitan Museum [2009]) by Pablo Bronstein. The artist developed drawings which could provide a base for a new museum. In the fantasy world where I sometimes live, I’m going to pretend the curator chose the basement in an hommage to Gaston Bachelard and his book ‘The Poetics of Space’ where he celebrated and explored the meaning,  in a very French and philosophical way, of various spaces, including basements and attics) within building structures.

If you do get a chance to see the show, I’d be happy to see your comments about it.

One final and unrelated bit: I wrote an article about visual artists and marketing for the September/October 2013 issue of Preview: The Gallery Guide (which covers British Columbia, Alberta, Washington state, and Oregon). I concentrated mostly on promotion and pricing.

News about Canadian Science Policy Conference 2013 and Science Borealis logo contest

The Canadian Science Policy Conference 2013 organizers have announced their preliminary programme and early  registration for the 2013 (5th annual) conference, from an Aug. 8, 2013 announcement,

The 5th Canadian Science Policy Conference

Registration is Now Open and Panels are announced below.

After 5 years, the Canadian Science Policy Conference (CSPC) is returning to Toronto to host an expanded, diversified, richer science policy conference. The conference offers a unique platform for stakeholders to connect at the national level, to exchange ideas on key issues in science, technology, and innovation policy, and to craft a future based on strong, dynamic, and innovative policy-making for the benefit of all Canadians.

CSPC 2013 Highlights:

  • 400+ participants
  • 3 pre-conference workshop symposiums (Science Policy Nuts and Bolts, Science Diplomacy & Science and Technology Communication)
  • Inauguration of the Awards of Excellence in Science Policy – a first in Canada
  • Double the number of sessions from last year, now up to 30
  • Diversified panel sessions maximizing panelist-participant interactions

….

We are pleased to announce 25 panels across CSPC 2013’s five themes: international trade and diplomacy, private sector innovation, communicating science, graduate studies and training, and emerging issues in Canadian science policy.

Asian Science and Technology Strategies and Process – Implications for Canada

Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

The evolving science and technology landscape for development in the South and the models and opportunities for science diplomacy

International Development Research Centre

The world in 2020: Three questions for internationalized science

UK Science & Innovation Network

The complexity of driving the bio-economy: Genomics, Canada’s natural resources and private-public collaborations

Genome Canada
Canada’s Commercialization Challenge

Schroeder & Schroeder Inc

Inspiring Excellence – Engaging students in meaningful science experiences

Let’s Talk Science
The Solitudes: Government science, the Media, and Those who help them Interact: Can we ever get along under today’s rules of engagement?

Canadian Science Writers’ Association

Journalists are from Mars; scientists are from Venus. Will they ever be on the same planet?

Maclean’s/Medical Post/MIT

Who are the innovators in Canada and what do we know about the individuals who drive innovation?

THECIS

Evaluating large-scale S&T initiatives: A case study on the complexity of capturing and disseminating meaningful outcome and impacts data

Genome Canada 

Science Funding Mechanisms

Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute
Science blogging in Canada: Making use of a valuable resource [emphasis mine]

Science Communications Canada
Training the next generation of scientists – who are they and what will they do?

Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars and The Black Hole Blog
Is a PhD Really a Waste of Time?

University of Toronto
Is Canada able to meet its needs for research and innovation on northern issues, given that it does not have graduate programs situated in the three Canadian territories?

Government of Yukon
Strategies to Enhance Productivity of Knowledge Workers

Strategy First Consulting (SFC) 

Ocean Research and Policy

Ocean Networks Canada 

Canadian Innovation: Understanding the role of IR&D

The Council of Canadian Academies

Big data: solutions for the big problems faced by modern societies

British Consulate General Toronto 

More details about the program will be posted on our website shortly. The titles of six more panels will also be announced at this time.

I have a little inside scoop about the panel on science blogging.  One of the panelists (I believe she proposed the presentation) is Sarah Boon of the Watershed Moments blog who has also been one of the prime movers behind the Science Borealis initiative.

I last wrote about Science Borealiis (blogging science from Canadian perspectives) and its logo contest in a June 14, 2013 posting, which mentioned the other prime movers behind this science aggregator/hub/community along with details about the contest. For anyone interested in making a submission, the contest deadline was extended to Aug. 15, 2013.

Recently, we (I’m involved too) announced the contest jurors,

The logos will be judged by

  • Raymond K. Nakamura, science blogger (Vancouver’s Science World blog), web comic artist, and science exhibition content developer (http://raymondsbrain.com/)
  • Janice Whitehead, owner and publisher of Preview: The Gallery Guide, a visual arts publication that is distributed through Alberta, BC, Washington state, and Oregon (http://www.preview-art.com/)

There are prizes,

  • Prizes will be awarded to 3 finalists chosen by the Science Borealis team. Prizes will be awarded as follows.
    • Winners:
    • Personal subscription to any NRC Research Press journal (published by Canadian Science Publishing), plus a $50 amazon gift card and a laptop bag
    • Runners Up:
    • {Prizes provided by Genome Alberta and Canadian Science Publishing}
  • Finalists will be announced via Science Borealis social media channels
  • Finalists’ designs will not be revealed publicly
  • The winning design and designer will be announced via Science Borealis social media channels
  • The winning designer will be recognized on the Science Borealis website with a link to his/her site if applicable

Good luck to all and, should you be attending the Canadian Science Policy Conference, please don’t miss the science blogging panel.