Arts News

Drawing on influences as diverse as Harry Potter, Swamp Thing and the book of Revelation, UK-based Canadian artist Kelly Richardson makes video works well suited to our silly-yet-sedate, jaded-yet-anxious age. Her new works, opening in Toronto this week, are no exception.

Rebecca Belmore’s mid-career survey at the Vancouver Art Gallery demonstrates a growing complexity, as well as the cogent reminder that Belmore’s work, and its ability to inspire new kinds of storytelling, continues to have significant critical potency.

Andrew Wright is known for his large-scale photo-based projects. In this interview with Canadian Art editor Richard Rhodes, the Sobey Art Award semi-finalist talks about his stint in the Canadian Forces Artists Program.

Thanks to phenomena like Second Life and Facebook, social anthropologists and cultural theorists are hard at work deconstructing the effects of increasingly blurred boundaries between real and simulated life. Now artists Jake Moore and Maskull Laserre are having their say, too.

A new Winnipeg exhibit is joining the contemporary artwork of six prominent Aboriginal women artists—from Maria Hupfield to Daphne Odjig—with historical pieces from university collections. The result offers a fresh perspective on the shifting lines between myth and history.

Dozens of openings, talks and screenings to take in from coast to coast this week, July 24 to 30, 2008.

Hotel Estela Barcelona and World Gallery, invite you to the opening of the exhibition by Josep M(tm) Pahissa which took place in the artistic hotel on Sunday July 20th, 2008, and which may be accessed throughout the month of August. The artist from Barcelona presents his latest work in which we appreciate a remarkable evolution from his last exhibition. He is still showing an iconographic search through characters very close to surrealism. Concerns generated in some early figurative stage, created by the very nature of the artist, for his need to find a common language and own world through which to express those feelings and emotions that only those who know how to translate, as Pahissa, beyond the limitations of figurative imitation of reality, to move to communicate an inner world that needs to relate to the external environment. Hotel del Arte promotes their artists' works with a Gallery Portfolio at absolutearts.com.

One of the great artists of the 20th century, Isamu Noguchi often blurred the boundaries between art and design, creating a broad range of products for everyday living, including tables, chairs, sofas, lamps, and tableware, and with Charles Eames, Paul Laszio and George Nelson, produced a catalogue of modern furniture widely considered to be the most influential of its time. As part of the first major European exhibition of work by Isamu Noguchi, Yorkshire Sculpture Park presents Noguchi and Iconic Designers; a focus on Noguchi’s innovative furniture and design alongside a select display of work by other iconic designers. All work is manufactured by Vitra and available to purchase. The Noguchi exhibition at YSP will be introduced by a dramatic wave of Akari light sculptures in the Visitor Centre’s long concourse. Noguchi created more than 100 Akari models, many of which are still in production half a century later. The YSP display will feature lights of various forms and sizes, including a globe six feet in diameter.

Oceanside Museum of Art presents the radiant work of Karl Benjamin in the upcoming exhibition The Vibrant Edge: Paintings of Karl Benjamin from the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, which opened with a preview reception Saturday July 19th. The exhibition is on view through October 19, 2008. The Vibrant Edge illustrates how this West coast painting icon became known as one of the founding fathers of Hard Edge. “Color is the subject matter of painting” according to Benjamin, whose oeuvre spans over a half-century. Since the early 1950s, Benjamin has been filling canvases with carefully orchestrated color that vibrates in geometric shapes with clean, crisp edges. He was one of four artists featured in the landmark 1959 exhibition “Four Abstract Classicists,” along with Lorser Feitelson, John McLaughlin, and Frederick Hammersley.

Kiang Gallery is pleased to present the award winning photojournalist, IAN TEH, whose recent work, Dark Clouds, explores man’s impact on his environment. The artist focuses on coal related industries in China, exploring the dark side of China's economic rise and the environmental costs suffered due to the developing nation's increasing need for energy.   China’s economy is exploding and behind the scenes of this ‘economic miracle’, helping to build and sustain it, is an industrial revolution powered by cheap labor and driven by an insatiable need for coal. Coal for electricity, coal for steel, coal for cement; coal is the fuel on which China’s economy runs.

Renowned, award-winning photographers Bobbi Lane and Tony Sweet will serve as instructors at the Sundance Photographic Workshops, August 25-29, 2008, at the Sundance Resort, Utah. World-class commercial photographer Bobbi Lane specializes in creative portraits on location and in the studio. Her course, “Portraits on Location,” provides an opportunity for students to explore the diverse elements of successful portraiture—working with natural light and strobes, studio or portable flash, and photographing models using locations for composition and story-telling.

Curator Joan Stebbins received the Order of Canada for her 25-year cultivation of Canada’s contemporary art. Now, after stepping down from the Southern Alberta Art Gallery’s top curating job, Stebbins talks about the gallery’s current Marie-Josée Laframboise show, a recent Shary Boyle survey and advice for young curators.

Though the art world is a buzz about Mark Lewis representing Canada at Venice in 2009, Canadian architects are taking their turn in the Venetian spotlight this very fall. The opportunity comes via Cambridge Galleries and the aptly named show "41° to 66°".

“Appropos” is new group exhibition at Edward Day Gallery illuminating copyright concerns over Bill C-61. Politically topical but visually rich, it’s sure to make a poignant case for artful appropriation.

Montreal artist Massimo Guerrera has long incorporated performance and ritual into his art, and his summer installation at the Darling Foundry is no exception. In it, he invites visitors to take part in creativity workshops, body castings and shared meals.

When it comes to art, “meanings are arbitrary, but compulsory”—or so complained a recent Independent article. If you’ve found yourself similarly dismayed by proscriptive explanations, “Stories, in Pieces” might be the show you’ve been waiting for.

Dozens of openings, talks and screenings to take in from coast to coast this week, July 17 to 23, 2008.

The START THE NIVEA ART AWARD exhibition, which opened 08 July and runs through 02 August 2008 at KZNSA Gallery, showcases for sale the final competition artworks of 24 up-and-coming art talents. From these 24 finalists, three winners will be selected and will be awarded cash prizes – 1st: R20 000, 2nd: R10 000, 3rd: R5000. The winner also receives a solo exhibition in the NIVEA Gallery the following year. This year 280 entries were received from throughout KwaZulu-Natal, an increased number of entries from the previous year. Artists entered the competition by submitting an art portfolio comprising no less than three photographs of their existing artworks. From these entries, the 24 finalists were selected by a prestigious panel of judges/art experts. Finalists are presented with a platform to showcase their talents in a professional gallery, receive exposure and the opportunity to win cash prizes. In addition, this year the finalists were partnered with professional local artists who became their mentors for the duration of the competition. The aim was for finalists to spend time planning and creating in the studio with an experienced artist and to receive advice, guidance and support throughout the process.

Trisha Lambi's works dating from 2003 to 2008 will be exhibited in a solo show to be held at Kerala Art and Photography Gallery in Melbourne. Opening night is on Thursday, 17th July at 6.30pm. The gallery is located at 283 High Street, Northcote, 3070 and the show runs until 15th August 2008. Trisha Lambi has been a Premiere Portfolio Artist at absolutearts.com since 2001. Lambi comments on her work, "Light on form is my inspiration and is manifested in my work bilaterally as a figurative and landscape/seascape painter. My passion for light is explored further by examining the theory that simplicity in an image has a complex impact on the viewer."

On the Edge, juried by Alan Avery will be on view at Atlanta Photography Group and Gallery from July 11 through August 22, 2008. These dynamic, new images take us to new places, deliver new insights, and speak to us in ways we haven’t heard before. This exhibition will feature the work of a small group of photographers who are re-defining what photography means to them. "Deliverance" is one of two digitally manipulated photos by Ellen Jantzen to be featured. Ellen Jantzen has been a Premiere Portfolio Artists since 2003.