Roving Eye: Doris Salcedo at Tate Modern - The Show I Wish I had Seen

Today's posting is the first example of the Craig Scott Gallery Daily Blog drawing readers' attention to great artists who have no associations with the gallery (however much I wish they did!). My friend, Ana Maria Bejarano, first drew my attention to Doris Salcedo, and I have since followed her work online with fascination. Salcedo is from Colombia (where she lives, in Bogotá) and much of her work explores memory and the dark side of humanity at the intersection of sculpture, assemblage and (that catch-all) installation. But, of all the works I wish I had had a chance to see was her recently-ended Shibboleth exhibition in the huge Turbine Hall at London's Tate Modern. According to the Tate, it is is the first work to intervene directly in the fabric of the Turbine Hall. Says the Tate,

Rather than fill this iconic space with a conventional sculpture or installation, Salcedo has created a subterranean chasm that stretches the length of the Turbine Hall. The concrete walls of the crevice are ruptured by a steel mesh fence, creating a tension between these elements that resist yet depend on one another. By making the floor the principal focus of her project, Salcedo dramatically shifts our perception of the Turbine Hall’s architecture, subtly subverting its claims to monumentality and grandeur. Shibboleth asks questions about the interaction of sculpture and space, about architecture and the values it enshrines, and about the shaky ideological foundations on which Western notions of modernity are built.

Below is a still photo showing one perspective of the Shibboleth floor. Your guess is as good as mine how she accomplished this monumental feat -- and convinced the Tate to allow this kind of work (or did they have to convince her?). If you click on the video and images tabs on the Tate's splash page for the Salcedo exhibition, I hope you will experience the same sense of awe and appreciation I have each time I visit this page. I can only imagine what experiencing the work in person would have been like, as the exhibition closed April 6.

Whence "an address to remember"?

Our young blog has attracted its first question. A correspondent asks about the context of the 'blurb' quotation included at the top of the blog: "An address to remember." - Lyne Boily, Host of Radio-Canada's Les arts et les autres.

Well, during Julie Tremblay's Reflections exhibition in May, Radio-Canada (the French arm of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) did a long review of the show on a weekly radio show called Les arts et les autres. The segment (both an English-language transcript and a link to the audio of the show) -- called "The sculptures of Julie Tremblay" -- can be accessed from a News page on the Craig Scott Gallery general website by clicking HERE.

In the transcript, you can see at the start of the discussion chain that Lyne Boily says a couple of interesting things about the gallery in general:

Lyne Boily: In Toronto, there are the ‘official’ places where galleries are grouped but when we open our eyes wide, and look in corners and hidden places, there are others who have some extremely interesting propositions on offer. This is the case of Craig Scott Gallery, located at 95 Berkeley, which is currently presenting the quite fascinating work of the Québécoise Julie Tremblay. Marjorie Murphy was attracted by the siren-chanting of her mermaids.

And, in closing the exhibition review:

LB: Well you give us the desire to go dance with them. Reflections, of Julie Tremblay. It is presented until June 1st so there is no time to waste. There are only two weeks left now. And it is at Craig Scott Gallery, located at 95 Berkeley. And I think that this is an address to remember as there are often interesting and pertinent offerings there. Thank you very much, Marjorie Murphy.

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The photo at the start of this posting is an in situ shot of Tremblay's Reflections No 5, 7, and 8. Below is a close-up of the recycled industrial sheet metal she creates her works from: look closely and you might be able to guess what the metal has been used for, before being cast off.


Coming soon: a report on an exciting new project for Tremblay in Europe, involving the creation of 23 new works.

Rogers TV Video of Raymond Waters' Values exhibition

Everything in its own time. Raymond Waters' seven-week Values exhibition in January-February of this year generated enormous interest, including (for Toronto) extensive critical notice in the media. But only recently did Mass Art Guide / MAG (which featured Waters' on its February cover) finally receive from Rogers TV the video of a "Toronto Living" segment on the exhibition that aired several times during the exhibition.

Most people will not have seen the show when it aired -- indeed, we didn't -- so you may now be interested to see the video now at the following MAG page: Raymond Waters at Craig Scott Gallery (video). An earlier audio interview with Waters can be listened to at: Raymond Waters at Craig Scott Gallery (audio) .

I have included images of three works from the show in this post. There is first of all (above) "King Kong (1933), 16mm," created from all five reels of the original King Kong movie and over 500 LED lights; the work is over 9 feet long, 5 feet high and almost 1 foot thick.

The second image (below) is of "You Are Either With Us or Against Us" created from a shredded and then reconstituted black and white American flag. I also reproduce "New Orleans (August 2005)", another flag work acquired by a Texas art collector who has, we are reliably informed, the largest and most significant collection of US-flag-related artworks.

By the way, why was the show called Values, you may ask? Read the overview essay in the show's catalogue here: "Foreword: The Art of American Values."

Stay tuned for news on an exciting new series of conceptual paintings recently begun by Waters in a fascinating new medium.

Feature Story on Christian McLeod on Magazine Stands Now

A Quebec-based art magazine called Magazinart, on the scene there for 20 years, has just hit the stands with its summer issue. In the bilingual tradition of this magazine, key articles appear in both French and English in two parts of the magazine. And so it is that we are happy to report that an article by John Norris and Noel Meyer has been included both in English - "Landscapes in Modern Time", pp 116-118 -- and in French -- "Paysages des temps modernes", pp 68-70. Some nine images are repduced, including three that will be in McLeod's next show at Craig Scott Gallery -- Further Unmanned Strategies, which opens October 30. These are the 48" x 96" "The Conversation" (upper right), the 66" x 66" "Charing Cross" (below), and the title piece for the show, the 60 x 48" "Further Unmanned Strategies" (below right).

We will link in a later post to the full text of the article, which is heavily composed around an interview with McLeod in which he offers (insightful) insights about his work. I reproduce one paragraph below that helps orient the newcomer to McLeod's work:

Like many artists his style is difficult to pin down, certainly abstract, but also at times representational and loaded with both political and aesthetic content. "I think it is an extension of the abstract impressionists but it has gone further than that. I am also heavily influenced by David Milne, the Canadian painter, his whites and his sense of landscape."

In terms of McLeod's interactions with art and artists that have come before him, he is quoted as saying:

"I really try to look at art and its history and see where things have come from and try not to live just looking at my own art."

Amen to that. On the Craig Scott Gallery website, in a mini-essay, I also comment on this quality of McLeod's work:

Christian McLeod is a painter who is completely secure in his own skin, not duped by art-world fetishizing of the new and confusing of the new with the important. He is aware of his forebearers, including a particular call on his soul of both the Canadian landscape tradition, the Canadian (perhaps primarily Québécois) abstract tradition, and also Aboriginal traditions. In any given work, he may be in conversation with Canadian artistic ancestors like a Riopelle (e.g. Transformer”), a Borduas (so brilliantly echoed while arguably being surpassed in McLeod’s “Particles” series paintings), a Thompson, a Morriseau, or a Jackson. But his influences cannot but be – and are – global: as noted by [Gary Michael] Dault, one can in some pieces discern echoes of New York or Paris ‘School’ adherents like Gorky, de Kooning, Pollock, da Silva or de Stael; or, for that matter, discern the spirit of van Gogh (e.g. Burning Studio) or of ancient cave paintings (as commented on by Martin Mills in relation to the work Breaking Apart).

The magazine article also references new figurative work by McLeod, notably Warholian portraits of Tommy Douglas. The triptych "Tommy Clement Douglas" is currently on display at the gallery. More on this body of work in a future post.

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If interested in knowing more about McLeod's work, have a look at Gary Michael Dault's essay on McLeod's work written for the Craig Scott Gallery catalogue during McLeod's Ascending Language exhibition of June 2007. You can read that essay at: HERE. From there you can link to McLeod's Artist's Page and the Exhibition Page for that show.

Magically realist - Maleonn alongside Colville in South Korea

Public Art, now one of the leading art magazines in South Korea, has recently come out with its May 2008 issue on the theme of SURREALISM and Maleonn is one of seven artists who are the focus of a 10-page editorial feature text-and-images essay, “Magic Realism,” on the global art scene. Alongside three reproduced images of Maleonn’s work are five images of Michael Parkes, two images by Vladimir Kush, two images by George Tooker, one image each by Patricia van Lubeck and Peter Blume, and four images by hyperrealist Canadian artist Alex Colville.

Although we tend to prefer the terms "fantastical" or "fabulist" to describe much of Maleonn’s body of work (as indeed noted by the Public Art editorial with its article byline, “Looking for fantasy in daily life, feeling the marvelous in reality…the world of ‘magic realism’”), Maleonn’s work is also most definitely connected to the “surreal” art tradition. The works selected for commentary in the editorial and as examples of Maleonn’s work are at p. 60 “Shanghai Boys No 10 (Dancing With Eyes Shut)” (the same work chosen for full-page reproduction by Enroute magazine in spring 2006; image to the right); “Unforgivable Children No 1 (Love)” at p. 61; and “Portrait of Mephisto No 5” at p 62 (image below). (“Magic Realism,”, Public Art (South Korea), Issue 20 (May 2008), pp 56-65. )

Incidentally, readers may be interested to learn that “Portrait of Mephisto No 5” was refused by the Paris-based International Herald Tribune for use in a booked Craig Scott Gallery ad in an art advertising section of the IHT. The gallery cancelled the booking, not without noting to IHT the irony of Western corporate (media, no less) censorship of a boundary-pushing Chinese artist.

Gord Smith in summer issue of MAG

As regulars at the gallery will know, I firmly believe that Gord Smith "is unquestionably one of the great sculptors of post-war Canada." (quoting myself on Gord's artist's page). From his first welded bronze work completed at age 21 for the Frazer-Hickson Library in Montreal, he had completed 37 commissions by the mid-1980s and seen his work acquired by major institutional and private collectors. He may be best known for the “Canada Screen” work commissioned by the Government of Canada for the Canadian Pavillion at Expo ’67 (seen just below); this Cor-Ten steel work measured 110 feet by 12 feet, and won him Second Prize for the entire Expo ’67 in the Monuments and Fountains category.

This past year, he took on two new large-scale commissions in a new medium that he has been working with for the past half-dozen years, wooden dowels. Each is now in buildings owned by the Atria Development Corporation. To the left is Smith's life-size "Inspiratrice", currently being exhibited at the gallery.

For its summer (July & August) issue, MAG/Mass Art Guide gave Smith's dowel work its cover and feature editorial essay, which is well worth a look.

Alongside a special display of some eight dowel pieces at the gallery, we also have a cross-section of figurative works in metal by Gord as part of our Go Figure Summer Salon. To the left is one work from his fantastic "Nuclear" series of 1961-63: "A People."

Launching the CSg Blog - Note from Craig Scott

My gallery, Craig Scott Gallery (or, CSg), had its first show in April 2006 and is thus now just over two years old. The gallery arrived on the Toronto art scene "out of nowhere" (as one of Toronto's leading auctioneers put it recently) and have already carved a respected niche for ourselves as one of Toronto's most exciting galleries. Of course it is near-impossible to prove this claim, but we are of course happy to believe the dozens of clients and other observers who tell us this. In any case, people who regularly visit our website and receive our 'literature' on shows and artists have commented now and then that they like the way the gallery writes about our artists, their work, and art generally. For some time, some have been encouraging us to start blogging, including podcasting, to let more people know about us -- or, more accurately, about our artists -- and more generally to share snippets on the art world that others might be interested in. Some friends of the gallery also say that they would like to know about new works as they arrive and are posted on the Craig Scott Gallery website, but that, when one goes to the gallery website, it is not easy to know whether one has seen works that are new since the last visit -- especially since new works may often be posted at the end of the existing images for a given artist.

So, now that we have turned two, the time seems right to add this blog to our current Internet presence. While we do already have a News section on our website, it isn't really designed for frequent, informal posting of information and thoughts on the gallery -- let alone my random thoughts on art and the art world. That said, I may indeed link to News posts on the gallery website, where there may be fuller information. I am very much looking forward to the flexibility and freedom of the blog format.

Note that, through the months of July and August 2008, we will mix three kinds of posts: 'backfills' that refer back to recent or otherwise significant past news about artists or the gallery (this, we hope, will be of special interest to those who do not yet know about the gallery); current news and announcements as they occur; and random thoughts about art-related things.

By the way, for those of you who have yet to hear about, let alone visit, the gallery, it is located in downtown eastside Toronto. More specifically, it is part of the East King East district known for its design-furniture stores, and is three blocks north of the Distillery. Canadian Stage (a great theatre) is south of us on Berkeley and the Church on Berkeley (one of the great music events halls in Toronto) just north.

Just a couple more overview things to finish off this first post. The aim of my gallery is to introduce exceptional artists from around the world to North America and, at the same time, to represent emerging and under-recognized Canadian artists with great potential to generate excitement beyond Canada’s borders. We have a regular schedule of exhibitions of eight to ten solo or two-person shows per year. Works in a broad range of media and styles are exhibited.

As for me, Craig Scott, the gallery is, to use a cliché, a labour of love. It has to be, as I am also kept pretty busy on other fronts, notably as Professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University. Here is my faculty profile page at Osgoode.