Alison Norlen,Untitled, mixed media on paper, 2004. Collection of the artist, photo: Kim Clarke. Courtesy of MOCCA.
Gary M. Dault's review (scroll down) of the big drawing show—Just My Imagination at MOCCA—is testament to the fact that one person's point of view is not enough when it comes to art, however qualified that person may be. What he describes as spotty, convenient, and massively glum, I would describe as ambitious, surprising, and open-ended. Drawing as a tool is essential to most art practices. In recent years there's been a wealth of smallish self-effacing drawing, a la Royal Art Lodge. This show is full of great big wall-sized drawings that stretch beyond themselves. Established, canonical draw-ers like John Scott sit in visual dialogue with youngsters like Raphaëlle de Groot. Artists who draw, like Michelle Gay, Ed Pien, and Alison Norlen are allowed to shine.
Alison Norlen's panoramic dark blue landscape is the first thing you see upon entering, a spooky, bleak northern setting with sad fantasy roller coaster shimmering in the dim light. Dault complained that the trees in Norlen's background were "poorly rendered," willfully missing the point by reducing this invented, evocative environment to some kind of technical exercise. Ed Pien's light blue wall caught my eye next. An anthropomorphised water spout spins demonically in the centre of the work, while watery figures float and swim in angsty suspension around the vortex. (Ed Pien also has a totally stunning piece on display at York Quay Centre right now, a massive cut-out black paper silhouette of life-sized male figures perched in the laboriously intricate branches of a spreading tree.)
Anna Torma, Draw me a car (detail), hand embroidery on linen with silk threads, 2004. Collection of the artist, photo: Kim Clarke.
Courtesy of MOCCA.
I won't describe everything. Two more highlights for me were Sheila Butler and Anna Torma. Butler is a smart feminist with Nancy Spero-type chutzpa and iconic linear narrative. Spanning the two walls of a corner, penciled lettering tells of a dream in which a sinister man is chasing her. She can't tell if he is trying to pull her down or boost her up, and in the end she realises she is afraid of levitation, scared to go too high, and equally scared of not going high enough. Household items dot the scene, gloves with faces, a kitchen sponge with painted teeth, hands reaching out from every direction. If I had to pick a 'best-in-show,' I must confess that Anna Torma's embroidered wall hangings blew me and Von Bark away, especially the piece titled (I think) "Draw me a Monster." Kids images of fire breathing dinosaurs are rendered in vibrant coloured thread, combined in a jam-packed composition with other items like technical console dials, math sums, landscapes and bits of text describing ancient life on the planet earth from a child's perspective. Like most quilts and weavings, the image reads as an overall density, yet the pattern is based on art composition, a zine-like crammed in chaos that nestles into order and colour when you take a step or two back. Torma is obviously extremely sophisticated, both in her conception and her execution, and Dault's inane dismissal the work—he says the use of kids drawing is "minor-league procedural affectation" says more about him that it does about her. But, as I mentioned, Dault is just one guy, and in this case I think his point of view is off the mark.
An ambitious drawing is a compositional balancing act, all areas of the surface must hold their own, the space must breath and yet retain tension, the marks but be varied and yet cohere. The same criteria apply to an ambitiously curated drawing show. In my opinion Kim Moodie and David Merritt have succeeded in creating an engaged art space full of connections and potential.
NOTE: Entering this show feels great. One reason is MOCCA itself. The gallery is big, with high ceilings and white walls and concrete floors, but unlike, say, Chelsea or Ydessa Hendeles, it is open to the street and the staff are welcoming. Unlike say, the AGO or the Power Plant, MOCCA is both easy to get to and free (suggested donation). North York's loss is Queen Street's gain, and each time I go there I feel like some weird weight has been lifted and I breath a happy sigh. This feeling will pass soon enough, and I'll be full of complaints and expectations, but til then I plan to enjoy the new MOCCA as much as I can.
I'm glad you've brought up the subject of the Globe review. I was howling with laughter at the writer's prescience in regards to the predictability of the artworks (the work that still crated and unavailable for his viewing.) The mind's eye is enough when you have THE GIFT.
Yup, the moment we see the bubble wrap, we can just say: Same old, same old and a tad spotty in places too.
The thing that caught my eye in GMD’s Globe review is the photograph of Simon Frank painting a painting of a tree with a tree. Before "an intrepid gathering of onlookers" (was it dangerous?). It really cracked me up. At first glance I thought it was violent, but maybe not. Muscular, and kinetic, determined, but not necessarily violent. Although the background forest (on the Niagara Escarpment) suggests a kind of up-yours-David-Milne move. Whatever, a funny funny picture.
Got me wondering what else would work. Painting a shrimp with a shrimp? That’d just degenerate into stamp pad art. A dog would be excellent. A live one, small and hairy. What about a camel? Never mind taking the hair, and rendering it down and tapering it into a clamp on a wooden handle, just use the whole freaking camel. Like playing a voilin with a horse.
re: "playing a violin with a horse" (tail or mane)... Von Bark says, "it can be done."
"Yup, the moment we see the bubble wrap, we can just say: Same old, same old and a tad spotty in places too." L.M. is referring to the following bits from GMD's review: "Ed Pien's big watery drawing is probably classic Ed Pien (it wasn't unpacked yet when I saw the show) and that is a good thing -- but predictable. Ditto the delicate, socially-conscious pastels by Stephen Andrews: nice, but business-as-usual. John Scott's work -- which also wasn't yet available for viewing, but is bound to be strong and violently assured -- is a merely inevitable choice for a show about big drawing."
Haven't seen the show yet. But I already have a question. Could it be that GMD's remarks reflect less his response to the show's still unbubblewrapped artwork than to the show's other bubblewrap - its ART PR?
If curators Moody and Merritt are, as they say presenting " recent work in the expanded field of contemporary drawing in Canada" then he may well be justified in finding works by Ed Pien, John Scott, Stephen Andrews and Cathy Daly - (no offense, all are fine artists) unsurprising, in fact, somewhat predictable inclusions in a drawing show. You yourself called John Scott's work canonic. Imagine if you got a press release in the mail for this show and you barely recognised a single name on the bill? That would be intriguing and not only that - surprising.
I myself find the PR for the show discombobulated. It commences from the negative position that drawing is perceived as a somehow "misplaced" and overlooked discipline , seen as largely preparatory in relation to the others. Moody and Merrit claim their show "...brings together 14 artists whose practice reflects a rigorous and sustained engagement with drawing’s broad ranging resources. No longer placed at the edges of traditional media categories, this work assumes an understanding of drawing as an ambitious and self-sufficient practice – one that appears to thrive in an environment less bound to disciplinary divides." The thing is drawing has never been bound to any given discipline because it's visualizing power is known to artist's of all disciplines from filmakers to, architects to Roadsworth. This relationship to culture represents exactly drawing's "broad ranging resources" - the need to visualize.
The idea it's somehow new for the artists to "restrict themselves to working exclusively with drawing’s traditional means" is paradoxical because drawing, traditionally is already, the most malleable, eraseable, workable, transportable, reproduceable of the visual technologies. The idea of presenting artists "adopting traditional process-orientation to produce works that elude media definition altogether" seems a bit lame. Just think about Rennaissance tapestries for one example. Somehow I doubt I'll be seeing anything as complex in this show despite these claims. I can't wait to go see.
It's no excuse for GMD's not looking at the work in the show, but I just wonder if he doesn't have a point - if the PR isn't just not quite up to snuff.
There should be a NOT here:
The idea it's somehow new for the artists NOT to "restrict themselves to working exclusively with drawing’s traditional means" is paradoxical because drawing, traditionally is already, the most malleable, eraseable, workable, transportable, reproduceable of the visual technologies.
Obviously simpleposie's rhetoric is also somewhat discombobulated today.
I agree the PR is overblown. But the show isn't overblown, as opposed to, say, "The Big Show" which didn't really deliver much of anything except that nice Angela Leach painting. How important is the PR? I tend to ignore it most of the time.
In this case, I think what GMD missed was not those particular works, which he probably can predict fairly accurately, but the overall experience of the hung show, which does play out some of the tensions of drawing cross-talk in really nice ways. I look forward to hearing what you think of it!
Like Sal, I rarely notice the show PR, I usually dismiss it as the curator's own private Idaho. Even if I accept j's proposition that the PR is the problem for the reviewer, I'm still puzzled as to what the rush to publish was about. What was the emergency that forced the writer whip out the X-ray specs? Is the show closing on Friday? Or is the Globe going under next week? (and we thought the National Post was the daily that was in trouble)
L.M. you're funny!
It's true! The whole balls-up is probably because somebody decided the story had to coincide with the opening. blech.
So what would be your guess for a decision like that? The reviewer or the Saturday arts editor? (this is idle curiosity on my part, I'm amused rather than outraged. My highest standard for art reviews is that those who produce them not be as lazy as me.)
...could be either, or both.
The thing about PR is that while you may claim not to notice, GMD's review got everyone talking about the show. There is, as we know, no bad PR because even if the critic is negative the review is noted and the show seen. Only because I'm feeling bitchy and also because of the wide discussion about this drawing show (before it hit Toronto) I would like to point out that 'the drawing show' that I curated two years ago, which met with total silence in Toronto, also included Alison Norlen, Candice Tarnowski (neither of whom had shown in Toronto before that), Michelle Gay, as well as Sara Hartland-Rowe, Sandra Rechico and Kate Wilson. As well, there were six Dutch artists in the exhibition. Since GMD or anyone else did not either see the show or consider it worthy of PR that drawing show was never discussed in any paper, publication, blog or other discussion (and, as I note above, there seems to be an endless drawing interest these days). So I suppose it doesn't matter what the critic says, writes, sees or does not see, the main thing being to get the message out, which he did. Welcome to the art world and the Toronto art scene.
No doubt, GMD is one of the gatekeepers. He writes for a national paper! When I said I normally don't pay much attention to PR, I meant PR literally. Press releases, as distinct from both reviews and curatorial essays, are often pretty much gobbeldy gook when it comes to content. Art PR is usually only good for telling us who, when, where.
Lots of really great art shows never get any press, and when they do its the exception, not the rule, but I actually agree that its weird nobody wrote about that drawing show you curated at York Quay gallery...it was big!
There is an excellent, thoughtful review of Just My Imagination by Jennifer McMackon here.
your not sorry fuck head.
|
Alison Norlen,Untitled, mixed media on paper, 2004. Collection of the artist, photo: Kim Clarke. Courtesy of MOCCA.
Gary M. Dault's review (scroll down) of the big drawing show—Just My Imagination at MOCCA—is testament to the fact that one person's point of view is not enough when it comes to art, however qualified that person may be. What he describes as spotty, convenient, and massively glum, I would describe as ambitious, surprising, and open-ended. Drawing as a tool is essential to most art practices. In recent years there's been a wealth of smallish self-effacing drawing, a la Royal Art Lodge. This show is full of great big wall-sized drawings that stretch beyond themselves. Established, canonical draw-ers like John Scott sit in visual dialogue with youngsters like Raphaëlle de Groot. Artists who draw, like Michelle Gay, Ed Pien, and Alison Norlen are allowed to shine.
Alison Norlen's panoramic dark blue landscape is the first thing you see upon entering, a spooky, bleak northern setting with sad fantasy roller coaster shimmering in the dim light. Dault complained that the trees in Norlen's background were "poorly rendered," willfully missing the point by reducing this invented, evocative environment to some kind of technical exercise. Ed Pien's light blue wall caught my eye next. An anthropomorphised water spout spins demonically in the centre of the work, while watery figures float and swim in angsty suspension around the vortex. (Ed Pien also has a totally stunning piece on display at York Quay Centre right now, a massive cut-out black paper silhouette of life-sized male figures perched in the laboriously intricate branches of a spreading tree.)
Anna Torma, Draw me a car (detail), hand embroidery on linen with silk threads, 2004. Collection of the artist, photo: Kim Clarke.
Courtesy of MOCCA.
I won't describe everything. Two more highlights for me were Sheila Butler and Anna Torma. Butler is a smart feminist with Nancy Spero-type chutzpa and iconic linear narrative. Spanning the two walls of a corner, penciled lettering tells of a dream in which a sinister man is chasing her. She can't tell if he is trying to pull her down or boost her up, and in the end she realises she is afraid of levitation, scared to go too high, and equally scared of not going high enough. Household items dot the scene, gloves with faces, a kitchen sponge with painted teeth, hands reaching out from every direction. If I had to pick a 'best-in-show,' I must confess that Anna Torma's embroidered wall hangings blew me and Von Bark away, especially the piece titled (I think) "Draw me a Monster." Kids images of fire breathing dinosaurs are rendered in vibrant coloured thread, combined in a jam-packed composition with other items like technical console dials, math sums, landscapes and bits of text describing ancient life on the planet earth from a child's perspective. Like most quilts and weavings, the image reads as an overall density, yet the pattern is based on art composition, a zine-like crammed in chaos that nestles into order and colour when you take a step or two back. Torma is obviously extremely sophisticated, both in her conception and her execution, and Dault's inane dismissal the work—he says the use of kids drawing is "minor-league procedural affectation" says more about him that it does about her. But, as I mentioned, Dault is just one guy, and in this case I think his point of view is off the mark.
An ambitious drawing is a compositional balancing act, all areas of the surface must hold their own, the space must breath and yet retain tension, the marks but be varied and yet cohere. The same criteria apply to an ambitiously curated drawing show. In my opinion Kim Moodie and David Merritt have succeeded in creating an engaged art space full of connections and potential.
NOTE: Entering this show feels great. One reason is MOCCA itself. The gallery is big, with high ceilings and white walls and concrete floors, but unlike, say, Chelsea or Ydessa Hendeles, it is open to the street and the staff are welcoming. Unlike say, the AGO or the Power Plant, MOCCA is both easy to get to and free (suggested donation). North York's loss is Queen Street's gain, and each time I go there I feel like some weird weight has been lifted and I breath a happy sigh. This feeling will pass soon enough, and I'll be full of complaints and expectations, but til then I plan to enjoy the new MOCCA as much as I can.
- sally mckay 7-17-2005 11:54 pm
I'm glad you've brought up the subject of the Globe review. I was howling with laughter at the writer's prescience in regards to the predictability of the artworks (the work that still crated and unavailable for his viewing.) The mind's eye is enough when you have THE GIFT.
Yup, the moment we see the bubble wrap, we can just say: Same old, same old and a tad spotty in places too.
- L.M. 7-18-2005 12:43 am
The thing that caught my eye in GMD’s Globe review is the photograph of Simon Frank painting a painting of a tree with a tree. Before "an intrepid gathering of onlookers" (was it dangerous?). It really cracked me up. At first glance I thought it was violent, but maybe not. Muscular, and kinetic, determined, but not necessarily violent. Although the background forest (on the Niagara Escarpment) suggests a kind of up-yours-David-Milne move. Whatever, a funny funny picture.
Got me wondering what else would work. Painting a shrimp with a shrimp? That’d just degenerate into stamp pad art. A dog would be excellent. A live one, small and hairy. What about a camel? Never mind taking the hair, and rendering it down and tapering it into a clamp on a wooden handle, just use the whole freaking camel. Like playing a voilin with a horse.
- M.Jean 7-18-2005 4:34 am
re: "playing a violin with a horse" (tail or mane)... Von Bark says, "it can be done."
- sally mckay 7-18-2005 5:16 am
"Yup, the moment we see the bubble wrap, we can just say: Same old, same old and a tad spotty in places too." L.M. is referring to the following bits from GMD's review: "Ed Pien's big watery drawing is probably classic Ed Pien (it wasn't unpacked yet when I saw the show) and that is a good thing -- but predictable. Ditto the delicate, socially-conscious pastels by Stephen Andrews: nice, but business-as-usual. John Scott's work -- which also wasn't yet available for viewing, but is bound to be strong and violently assured -- is a merely inevitable choice for a show about big drawing."
- sally mckay 7-19-2005 1:20 am
Haven't seen the show yet. But I already have a question. Could it be that GMD's remarks reflect less his response to the show's still unbubblewrapped artwork than to the show's other bubblewrap - its ART PR?
If curators Moody and Merritt are, as they say presenting " recent work in the expanded field of contemporary drawing in Canada" then he may well be justified in finding works by Ed Pien, John Scott, Stephen Andrews and Cathy Daly - (no offense, all are fine artists) unsurprising, in fact, somewhat predictable inclusions in a drawing show. You yourself called John Scott's work canonic. Imagine if you got a press release in the mail for this show and you barely recognised a single name on the bill? That would be intriguing and not only that - surprising.
I myself find the PR for the show discombobulated. It commences from the negative position that drawing is perceived as a somehow "misplaced" and overlooked discipline , seen as largely preparatory in relation to the others. Moody and Merrit claim their show "...brings together 14 artists whose practice reflects a rigorous and sustained engagement with drawing’s broad ranging resources. No longer placed at the edges of traditional media categories, this work assumes an understanding of drawing as an ambitious and self-sufficient practice – one that appears to thrive in an environment less bound to disciplinary divides." The thing is drawing has never been bound to any given discipline because it's visualizing power is known to artist's of all disciplines from filmakers to, architects to Roadsworth. This relationship to culture represents exactly drawing's "broad ranging resources" - the need to visualize.
The idea it's somehow new for the artists to "restrict themselves to working exclusively with drawing’s traditional means" is paradoxical because drawing, traditionally is already, the most malleable, eraseable, workable, transportable, reproduceable of the visual technologies. The idea of presenting artists "adopting traditional process-orientation to produce works that elude media definition altogether" seems a bit lame. Just think about Rennaissance tapestries for one example. Somehow I doubt I'll be seeing anything as complex in this show despite these claims. I can't wait to go see.
It's no excuse for GMD's not looking at the work in the show, but I just wonder if he doesn't have a point - if the PR isn't just not quite up to snuff.
- J at simpleposie (guest) 7-19-2005 7:57 pm
There should be a NOT here:
The idea it's somehow new for the artists NOT to "restrict themselves to working exclusively with drawing’s traditional means" is paradoxical because drawing, traditionally is already, the most malleable, eraseable, workable, transportable, reproduceable of the visual technologies.
Obviously simpleposie's rhetoric is also somewhat discombobulated today.
- J at simpleposie (guest) 7-19-2005 8:17 pm
I agree the PR is overblown. But the show isn't overblown, as opposed to, say, "The Big Show" which didn't really deliver much of anything except that nice Angela Leach painting. How important is the PR? I tend to ignore it most of the time.
In this case, I think what GMD missed was not those particular works, which he probably can predict fairly accurately, but the overall experience of the hung show, which does play out some of the tensions of drawing cross-talk in really nice ways. I look forward to hearing what you think of it!
- sally mckay 7-20-2005 2:38 am
Like Sal, I rarely notice the show PR, I usually dismiss it as the curator's own private Idaho. Even if I accept j's proposition that the PR is the problem for the reviewer, I'm still puzzled as to what the rush to publish was about. What was the emergency that forced the writer whip out the X-ray specs? Is the show closing on Friday? Or is the Globe going under next week? (and we thought the National Post was the daily that was in trouble)
- L.M. 7-20-2005 8:21 am
L.M. you're funny!
- J at simpleposie (guest) 7-20-2005 5:22 pm
It's true! The whole balls-up is probably because somebody decided the story had to coincide with the opening. blech.
- sally mckay 7-20-2005 6:54 pm
So what would be your guess for a decision like that? The reviewer or the Saturday arts editor? (this is idle curiosity on my part, I'm amused rather than outraged. My highest standard for art reviews is that those who produce them not be as lazy as me.)
- L.M. 7-20-2005 7:57 pm
...could be either, or both.
- sally mckay 7-20-2005 9:44 pm
The thing about PR is that while you may claim not to notice, GMD's review got everyone talking about the show. There is, as we know, no bad PR because even if the critic is negative the review is noted and the show seen. Only because I'm feeling bitchy and also because of the wide discussion about this drawing show (before it hit Toronto) I would like to point out that 'the drawing show' that I curated two years ago, which met with total silence in Toronto, also included Alison Norlen, Candice Tarnowski (neither of whom had shown in Toronto before that), Michelle Gay, as well as Sara Hartland-Rowe, Sandra Rechico and Kate Wilson. As well, there were six Dutch artists in the exhibition. Since GMD or anyone else did not either see the show or consider it worthy of PR that drawing show was never discussed in any paper, publication, blog or other discussion (and, as I note above, there seems to be an endless drawing interest these days). So I suppose it doesn't matter what the critic says, writes, sees or does not see, the main thing being to get the message out, which he did. Welcome to the art world and the Toronto art scene.
- C.G. (guest) 7-29-2005 7:10 pm
No doubt, GMD is one of the gatekeepers. He writes for a national paper! When I said I normally don't pay much attention to PR, I meant PR literally. Press releases, as distinct from both reviews and curatorial essays, are often pretty much gobbeldy gook when it comes to content. Art PR is usually only good for telling us who, when, where.
Lots of really great art shows never get any press, and when they do its the exception, not the rule, but I actually agree that its weird nobody wrote about that drawing show you curated at York Quay gallery...it was big!
- sally mckay 8-02-2005 12:31 am
There is an excellent, thoughtful review of Just My Imagination by Jennifer McMackon here.
- sally mckay 8-02-2005 7:06 am
your not sorry fuck head.
- bill 5-22-2007 1:48 pm