Twenty minutes into my time at Fan Expo Canada 2010, I found myself inadvertently siphoned off from the flow of regular foot traffic and fed into one of the long queues snaking through Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
It was here, amidst a sea of makeshift anime characters, bloated superheroes, and bloodied horror icons, that my attention was drawn to the young couple stationed just ahead of me in line. In contrast to the elaborate costumes of their fellow conventioneers, the couple's costumes were surprisingly conservative, and designed to capitalize on the Scott Pilgrim fad.
Famed American artist Julian Schnabel has mounted a massive show of his works in various media at the AGO. The show will be opening to the public on September 1, but the media were let in for a sneak preview of the gargantuan undertaking.
I was a tad nervous about going since I was sure his pajamas would be nicer than mine. So I decided to take my Maosist uniform out of the closet just to throw him off. The usual art journalist herd of people in black and badly jarring style choices were there in full force. We were loaded onto the elevators to be sent upstairs to meet the man and his curator. It was all rather nice as far as press conferences go and they played music from the Velvet Underground and the soundtracks to Schnabel's films as we waited.
The dark forces paid a visit to Trinity Bellwoods Park this week (no, Stephen Harper was not in town) to kick off Fan Expo Canada. Darth Vader, along with his Imperial Army, infiltrated the park in search of Luke Skywalker and his rebel fleet. Neither yoga circle nor tennis match nor lunch circle was left unheeded by the dark forces. Because rebel enemies are best found while searching from a downward dog position.
The underground opera has arrived in Toronto. There I am, walking along quick-paced in the west end's industrial area. Massive, condemned factories line the street with holes poked in their square windows. It's an area of the city, when dusk rolls around, that I take the cash out of my wallet and stuff into my left sock. When I reach my destination - a tin shed behind 128 Sterling Rd. in the industrial vicinity of Bloor and Landsdowne - I'm washed with comfort, yet bemused.
I'm here to see an opera. The so-called operatic mash-up from Opera Erratica, Orlando/Lunaire.
The summer continues to grind to its end with a few more group shows, including the whopping Square Foot Show, and I drop in on a mysterious gallery in the back alleys of Bellwoods.
In this edition:
Flavio Trevisan makes some pretty fine maps. Just don't try to use them if you're looking for directions. Currently showing at Diaz Contemporary, Trevisan's map-sculptures of Toronto perplex as much as they delight. In fact, it'd be fair to say that what makes them so compelling is the degree to which they render the city as both iconic and unfamiliar at once.
While many galleries have closed for summer vacation or to install their newest shows, the season continues with more thematic group shows united by various degrees of vagueness, and I check out relatively new addition to the Ossington gallery scene.
West Queen West may be known as the art and design district, but some of the city's newest art isn't in one of the area's many galleries. It's in the lobbies of the downtown's office towers. Due to the city's requirement that 1% of a commercial building's construction costs go toward a public art installation, the lobbies of Toronto's three newest office towers - Telus House, Bay-Adelaide Centre and the RBC Centre - have substantial, and potentially overlooked, art installations.
Cardboard cutouts of a 'Where's Waldo?'-esque Omar Khadr have been popping up around the city. The cutouts asking 'Where's Omar?' have been spotted at Trinity Bellwoods, outside the Don Jail, at College and Spadina and near the JCC at Spadina and Bloor. Khadr, a Toronto native, has been held in US custody in Guantanamo Bay since he was 15 for alleged war crimes. Only now, at age 23, is he facing trial.
Not Your Father's Contemporary is less a gallery than a brand. And that's a good thing. For generations, young artists have been seeking out alternative spaces and practices to change the way that they produce art and audiences can experience it. One group embracing this is the curatorial team Nice Stuff. Composed of Teresa Aversa, Charlie Irani (both of whom were affiliated with 52 McCaul) and Pantea Razzaghi, they banded together from their divergent backgrounds to hatch this mobile gallery brand.
