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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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This killer whale has been hanging out at Gold River in Nootka Sound (Vancouver Island) since 2001, bumping boats and socialising with humans. The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans wants to reunite "Luna" with his pod. The local Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation want to let "Tsux'iit" make up his own mind about what to do next. The two groups have come to a very nifty agreement, which basically involves letting the whale hang out if the Mowachaht-Muchalaht agree to keep an eye on it (with some financial support and emergency backup from DFO). The story is back in the news (today's Globe and Mail) because the contract is up for renewal, and the Mowachaht-Muchalaht want to leave the whale alone for at least another seaon. According to their website:
The whale appeared in Nootka Sound in the summer of 2001, soon after the Mowachaht/Muchalaht lost a great leader, Ambrose Maquinna. Chief Maquinna said he would return to this world as a killer whale. The Mowachaht/Muchalaht believe the young whale carries his spirit and has, for now, chosen Nootka Sound for his home. To the Mowachaht-Muchalaht, killer whales are the guardians of the laws of the sea, and their choices should be respected.There is a potlatch next November to honour Chief Maquinna, and the natives want to let Luna hang around at least til then. The reincarnation angle has more emotional clout than simply suggesting "let's just go with whatever the whale wants to do" (which would work for me), and probably accounts in large part for the DFO's willingness to compromise thus far.
I got mad today, however, because according to the papers, PUBLIC SAFETY is stated as the main reason the DFO wants to remove the whale from the bay. Granted, the whale is pretty boisterous and keeps bumping into people's boats and wrecking private property. But really now, how hypocritical can we imperialist friggin' human beings get?! BC is all about wilderness tourism. Snowboarders and skiers break their legs, freeze their ears, and become engulfed by landslides; hikers sprain their ankles, contract sunstroke, and, get mauled by grizzlies; surfers drown, and get sand-rash. Can the threat of somebody getting injured by this one whale really be such a pressing issue? People's properties --boats in the marina--have been getting damaged, and other whales have been returned to their pods (with varying degrees of success). The cachet of cutting-edge marine biology holds a certain sway in west coast culture, and of course there is no more famous rally cry for white environmentalists than "save the whales" (never mind that they're mostly already full of PCBs and chased around by flocks of tourists in zodiacs all day). I'm sure there are more reasons, but the sum of the parts is essentially this: the global economic model, with its who's-in-and-who's-out hegemony is moving along nicely and we, who incidentally benefit the most, are moving along with it. Your so-called radical big ideas are all very well, but unfortunately, they pose a THREAT TO PUBLIC SAFETY. grrrrr.
In my recent web puttering I came across a few First Nations oriented forums that mention the issue. I like very much what Immortal Thunder had to say in response to an impassioned plea to the effect that the issue is besmirching the First Nations in the eyes of just about everyone and they should back off:
These misinformed ecologists and animal rights groups should blame DFO and eco-tourism outfits, for promoting the public observation and interaction with wild life, as a commercial venture and a form of entertainment. The situation that endangers the lives of the curious and uniformed was created by them not the native people.
Schwarz' 2004 top ten
1 - wfmu top ten list
2 - andrea fraser from walter robinson's top ten list
3 - red states come out
4 - sherry levine continues to do mediocre work
5 - richard prince continues to do mediocre work (spot trend?)
6 - mediocre shipping container houses hit the nyc art scene and get a mediocre review in architects news paper
7 - frank lives in a drat hole on dave's page
8 - selma actually knows about art and architecture
9 - terminal five show from tom moody's top ten list
10 - my show of a ten year old piece (my first 1000 wrenches) in lori bortz's garage, a studio visit by bob nickas and palemale starts rebuilding his nest
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Xandra Eden’s 10 for 2004 (in no particular order)
1. Mike Kelley, The Uncanny, MUMOK, Vienna and Tate Liverpool
http://www.tate.org.uk/international/kelley.htm
2. Scott Lyall, The Canon Copiers, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto
3. Gelatin, Meyer Kainer Gallery, Vienna
4. Jane Jacobs, Dark Age Ahead
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?1400062322
5. Reverend Billy, XSPACE, 7a-11d Performance Art Festival
http://www.revbilly.com/
6. Maura Doyle, There's a New Boulder in Town + Toronto's Erratic Boulders - Downtown Map, Toronto Sculpture Garden
http://www.torontosculpturegarden.com/currentexhibit.htm
7. Darren O’Donnell, A Suicide-Site Guide to the City, Toronto/Vancouver/Edinburgh
http://www.buddiesinbadtimestheatre.com/events/show.cfm?i_key=27
8. Olafur Eliasson, The Weather Project, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/eliasson/
9. Tone Nielsen & Morten Goll, Niagara Falls Artist Host Program, Mercer Union, Toronto
http://www.mercerunion.org
10. Rodney Graham, Rheinmetall/Victoria 8, 303 Gallery, New York
http://www.303gallery.com/artists/graham/index.html
Rob Cruickshank is installing work at Fly Gallery this weekend. I've seen a tantalizing blue spiral in mpeg preview form, and I'm looking forward to the real thing. I very much liked the piece Rob and Sarah Peebles did this summer, and of course if you don't regularly check his blog, Endless Parade of Excellence, then you are working far far too hard and really ought to adjust your priorities. Fly is operated by Tanya Read (see post below) and fellow artist Scott Caruthers. It's a walk-by window display on Queen West, between The Drake Hotel and the Gladstone Hotel, north side. If you are in Toronto, go by Fly in January and take a look.
NB: Let me declare up front that Rob, Tanya, and Scott are all friends of mine, and I will be showing at Fly Gallery myself in April. More posts about artists I've never met coming soon in 2005.
There's a great big story about Mr. Nobody in the Globe today! Gary Michael Dault did a good job filling in the back story on the enigmatic little guy, and there's some nice quotes from Tanya Read, Mr. Nobody's Frankenstein-like creator.
[Mr. Nobody's appeal] has a lot to do with his existential determination, in the way he just keeps going, persisting in the face of futility.Last spring I wrote a short exhibition essay for Tanya Read's show at Truck Gallery in Calgary. Here's a quote:
Recently, Mr. Nobody has acquired an Ignatz mouse, a yin for his yang, a perfect foil. In the film Juggernaut, a monstrous ball appears with dots that might be eyes, mouth, snout or belly but never quite resolving into form, an indominatable abstraction that rolls over Mr. Nobody and leaves him flat and blinking.You can watch Juggernaut online here at the Mr. Nobody website. NB: I also made a wee post on Mr. Nobody here back in May.