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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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Guest Top Ten
Do you have your own 2003 top ten art list to post? email it to me at smblog@sympatico.ca and I'll post it here. Or click on the comment link below and post it yourself.
Von Bark's Top Ten Aesthetic Events of 2003 (links by SM)
- Royal Art Lodge & Guy Maddin double-header at Harbourfront: The R.A.L. pretty well defined the "throw tons of small stuff against the wall and let the viewer sort it out" concept, which is a concept I like alot. And I have also noticed several shows this year at Katherine Mulherin's various gallerys which reflect this approach, and I enjoyed all of them, also alot. The R.A.L. reaffirm that despite any imperfect experiences we may have had in the past, the process of collaboration is still an inherently holy one.
As for Guy Maddin, well, the guy is just a f*cking genius. He knows how to build an idea which is tons stranger than anything I could possibly imagine, and then proceed to execute it in an even more astonishingly inconceivable manner. Every time I see one of his movies, I think: "He couldn't possibly top this". Then he does.
- Scott Carruthers 'Oroborous' at KM-Bus: SC is my main man, in my personal opinion the most under-rated artist on my street, although we note that Hive Magazine recently gave him a well-deserved rave review. He fuses together the past, the present, & the future in a brutal short-circuit, and the sparks fly.
- Fabienne Lasserre at Luft: Now this is right up my alley: interpretations of Classic Hellenic Mythology, rendered in vivid wacky bent Miro-esque pop-art styles, using colour schemes which alternate between subtle understatment and jarring glare. Cool.
- Tyler Clarke Burke at Sis Boom Bah: the design mastermind behind the 'Three-Gut' look continues lots of interesting experiments lately. Keep looking.
- Some Owls at Zsa-Zsa: I walked by the window a couple of days ago, and it was full of freakin' Owls! If you know Andrew Harwood, call him up and ask him to look at my web-page: Amazing and Important Owl Facts You Should Know. Then convince him to print it out and staple it to the wall. I probably should ask him myself, but I don't really know him that well and I feel a bit shy. Maybe I will get around to asking him... by the time the show closes. (note: if you look in the window of Tern Art Supplies beside the doorway, you will see a really cool small Teutonic Owl affixed there).
- The Man Without a Past, a fine Finn Film by Aki Karismaki: For some reason which is not known, I did not get out to watch very many movies this year, but this one I did see, and the profound understatement of it haunted me for days afterward. I think one of Aki's main themes here is: Compassion is not expressed in words, but in actions. The characters seem mostly incapable of communicating through language, but that's okay, because they DO care, and that is the important thing. One of Aki's sub-themes suggests that The Salvation Army might be more than just a mundane religious/charity organization, but actually a sort of divine art-cult inspired by American Rockabilly. Now that is a fascinating idea.
- Freeshow Seymour screening at the Gladstone: charming short films and animations which get the balance right: it IS okay be both funny and sad! My favourite is 'Patterns'; & if you see C.Ziedler ask her if the audio was meant to fade out before the end; John Porter told me that he thinks it is intentional.
- Toronto Politics: After decades of stagnation and confusion, the government in the city where I live began flirting with the concept of Democracy. What a novelty.
- The Langley Schools Music Project: the charming and erudite David Wisdom, broadcasting from the West Coast for CBC, is one of the few disc jockeys to have a distinctive effect on my music listening habits. He turned me on to this brilliant stuff. Okay, it was from 1976-1977, but I heard it in 2003. "Angels love enthusiasm far more than perfection".
- 'The Prague Visitor' by Number 11 Theatre: an imaginative summoning of the spirit of Franz Kafka, which perfectly compresses literature, history, theatrics, gymnastics, dance, puppetry, and cooly efficient minimalist special effects into an adorably digestible experience. I love these guys and gals. I do not get out to see live theatre much, but we also enjoyed Neccessary Angel's reading of Euripides' 'Bacchae' (where the beseiged King Penthius tries in vain to hold back the tide of Dionysian rapture sweeping his realm, and perhaps inadvertantly but most sublimely communicates that tragicomic sense of wounded pride and humiliation which 'The Kids in the Hall' were so good at conveying).
Unfortunately, for me the biggest Art-Story this year was a tragedy: A dead pigeon was found in the park, and Lola' Magazine folded. It is not just that hardly a week goes by when I still see something interesting and say to myself: "That would make a good shotgu-...oh.", it is also that I have linked the development of my creative identity along with the evolution of the pigeon, and the loss has shook me personally. But we move on. I also really miss Catherine Osborne's politely crafted replies to my often daft story proposals. Maybe someday, I might post some rough drafts of the ideas which didn't fly, for a good laugh. And if you hold your breath waiting... you might turn blue.
(& speaking of local magazines, what the heck is going on with Exclaim!? Are their editors high or just retarded? First they git rid of their comix section, then they git rid of 'BlaB'. Maybe they think that if they remove all the fun stuff, then people might take them more seriously as a voice of critical culture. I think that people will just think that they are more boring). Von Bark 2003
Do you have your own 2003 top ten art list to post? email it to me at smblog@sympatico.ca and I'll post it here. Or click on the comment link below and post it yourself.
Joe McKay's top ten
- Matt Freedman's show in Greenpoint where he collaborated with 5 different artists on five different pieces - oddly better than the sum of it's parts (a different show curated by Matt Freedman, Mary Ceruti and Sina Najafi is here)
- Anne McGuire video where she recreated Wegman with men for dogs
- Kristin Lucas at FACT in Liverpool - crazy weird collaboration installation
- Bjørn Melhus' video screening at MOMA's Gramercy theatre - everything's good, check him out
- Cory Arcangel's Guitar solo / powerpoint presentation at Smack Mellon
- Documentation of Miss mouse performances In Toronto and London
- Eddo Stern's video of screwing around in video games, Postmasters Gallery
- James Casebere's photos at Sean Kelly - big and beautiful
- AAAAh I can't think of two more
I've decided to copy art blogger Tyler Green and do my own 2003 top ten art list(s).
Sally McKay's top ten
- Raphael Lozano-Hemmer presenting Relational Architecture at digifest
- Jim Munroe's Trip to Liberty City
- Harun Farocki's lecture Bombs Which Take Pictures, presented by the (CMCE) at OISE/UT, and Images Festival in Toronto (many many thanks to Lana Lin for turning me onto Farocki)
- Joe McKay's Colour Game in the Outpost show at Smack Mellon gallery in Brooklyn
- Anja Harteros' aria, "Porgi amor" in Scene I, Act II of Marriage of Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera on October 10th.
- Kelly Mark's Hiccup
- dr. doo peforming live drums with video at North Six in Williamsburg
- Sergio Prego's video in the show The Real Royal Trip at PS1 in Queens
- The guy smoking through his pumpkin head, and the black guy with the white death head make-up, and the funky-chunky roller skater at New York City's Halloween Critical Mass (with many thanks to Times Up! for making it so fun).
- Andrew J. Paterson's performance night by Pleasuredome in Toronto.
image from Sergio Prego's intense video at PS1. Stolen from here.
Do you have your own 2003 top ten art list to post? email it to me at smblog@sympatico.ca and I'll post it here. Or click on the comment link below and post it yourself.
I missed Canzine this year, due to being out of the country. Luckily, the independent art and writing (maga) zine Kiss Machine has nice quicktime documentation of their Secret Room, here, at the Inflatable Museum. People were invited to write their secrets on balloons and leave them behind, the tender silly things slowly jamming up the airspace over the course of the day. It's a typical Kiss Machine project: open and welcoming with just a peppering of genuine risk. "Come on and join us out here on the end of this limb!"
I really love Kiss Machine because lots of the writing is really good, and nearly all of it is unpretentious. Sometimes I'm faced with poems and stories I think are dreadful, but I never find it oppressive, I just read on. Everyone is mixed up together, veterans and greenhorns alike. I trust editors Emily Pohl-Weary and Paola Poletto to choose stuff on it's merit and not it's social clout. There is often something in there by Paul Hong, whose short fiction I find delightful, or Jon Sasaki who is still, somehow, slipping under the radar. There's lots of art reproduced, but a sane lid is kept on the DIY production values, and now that the infamous mattb is doing the design, it all falls into place very nicely indeed.
Damn! Just heard that Alliance Atlantis, who bought out Salter St. Films in 2001, are closing up shop on their small budget projects. Yeesh, after all that raving I've just been doing. Having just closed down an independent Canadian art magazine myself, I find this news further disheartening. You'd think in a country full of kooks we'd find more ways to fiscally support the oddball art phenomena that we love. Damn again. Guess we'll always have the beer commercials for cultural identity. Har har grizzly bears and curling.
A friend in New York asked me why I "like things from Nova Scotia." I was puzzled until I realized the source of the question was the Trailer Park Boys. I started trying to describe Canadian east-coast humour, which led me to Codco (of Salter Street Films)...and then I promptly gave up, cause there's no explaining those guys. (For the record - yes I know they were from Newfoundland) So in lieu of a description, here's some holiday transcription (scene 4 from "Would You Like to Smell My Pocket Crumbs?", 1975, as published in The Plays of Codco):
Tommy Common Christmas Special
The Characters:
Tommy Common
Friends
Singers
Kid 1
Kid 2
Announcer
The Queen
Mother
Father
Children
The Setting
Stage setting for a CBC Christmas special. Feeling of "old fashioned Christmas," fake snow on singers' shoulders, etc. Singers stroll back and forth across stage singing Christmas carols, providing a bridge between sketches.
Tommy Common: (Singing)
Sleigh bells ring, are ya listening?
In the lane, snow is glistening...
(He speaks to the audience)
Oh, hi! Well, it's Christmas time again. And well everyone seems to be getting into the spirit. Especially my good friend Dean Martin. Ha ha ha! What could be nicer than to have your best friends come and visit you on Christmas Eve. Sit around the yule fire and sing Christmas carols. Oh, here are my best friends now.
(Friends enter in a tight bunch, making exaggerated happy gestures, but emitting no sound.) (He calls to them.) Hi friends! Come on in! Come on in! Through the door. Come on in! Yes, Christmas is holly and ivy and all good things. Welcome. (Friends begin to laugh and shout as if volume has suddenly been turned on. They attack Tommy, beat him senseless, and exit, still laughing and shouting.)
(Enter strolling singers, linked arm in arm).
Singers: In the meadow we can build a snowman
And pretend that he is Parsons Brown.
He'll say are you married, we'll say...
Two Male Singers: (Arms linked and appearing effeminate. They speak.) Not exactly, man.
(Introduction on piano to "God Save the Queen." Two singers detach themselves and become Announcer and Queen.)
Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, Her Majesty the Queen!
Queen: Hello (She stops, realizing that her accent has rendered the word unrecognizable. She tries again.) Helle-ah. (She tries again.) Hell-ya; hell-uh; hillya; hilloo. (A whole bunch of "hellos" emerge at once.) Hilleehillyoohillaaaahillye (Piano repeats first line of "God Save the Queen" which covers her confusion. She pulls herself together and starts again.) On this festive and happy (Her accent has now destroyed the word "happy." She tries again.) hi-yappy; hi-yippie; h'yappy (Her voice trails off.)
(Singers resume stroll.)
Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock,
Jingle bell chime in jingle bell time,
Dancing and prancing in jingle bell square,
In the salty air.
(Two singers detach themselves and become kids.)
Kid 1: Shur I saw Santy Claus. It was last Christmas Eve. Me and Dad and Jack Costello were up real late drinking. Yeah, drinkin'! And Santy Claus came down over the stairs, and I picked up me hockey puck, boy and I said, "Get up over them God-damn stairs and don't come down again, or I'll pick you off wit' dat, luh." And he didn't either.
Kid 2: What ya get for Christmas?
Kid 1: Nudding!
Queen: (She resumes character and is finishing off her message now.) And a happy new year (Oops, there goes the word "year." It sounded more like "yir." She tries to correct it.) ye-ir; yeah; yuh; yeh; ya; yi; yoo (She trails off in confusion as "God Save teh Queen" comes up again.)
Single Singer: I saw daddy kissing Santa Claus
(Singers become a family. It is late Christmas Eve. Nerves are frayed. Children are panicking as parents begin to unravel.)
Mother: No, you can't have anything more to eat. You'll have it all tomorrow. Christ sake, I spent more than we had for the past two months. Well, this is it, this is the last year I'm getting into it. I bought all the presents you know. I had to get all the treats and yank all the decorations up from the basement. I suppose you want me to fill the bloody stockings?
Father: Then don't fill 'em, for God's sake.
Children: (Frightened, trying to please.) We don't want nothing in our stockings.
Father: Well, you're not gonna get anything in your stockings and where do you think all the God-damned money is coming from? Santa Claus?
Mother: (To father.) Now, my son, you can keep your money and go down to the Newfoundland Hotel for Christmas. There's gonna be no Christmas here!
Children: (Weeping.) This is not a house, it's a hell hole!
Father: What's wrong with ye two? Be quiet! (He prounounces it "quite.") It's gonna be a wonderful Christmas. (Pause.) Just like last year!
(Children weep more loudly.)
(Singers form strolling singers.)
Tiny tots with their arms all on fire,
Will find it hard to sleep tonight.
They know that Santa's on his way ...
(Songs and lights fade.)