LOVE AND SOLIDARITY



Image courtesy of James Kerr


I recently came back from a two-week visit to my beloved Montreal.  I’m going back in a month to once again stay with Jen and James in Verdun, to chill with my friends, and to see Dineo for open studio at the Darling Foundry, where she is making her first film! 

During my visit I saw protesters sprinkled all over the city, sometimes in bikinis (never understood that part), and little did I know that it would culminate in the giant student protest on May 22 by which point I had already come back to Toronto.  I am so happy to see, hear and read about the determination and continuing solidarity of this particular movement.  Just a reminder – the issue is debt, not tuition!  Now, I hear through the grapevine (facebook) that pots and pans are banging in every neighbourhood including the very residential and sleepy Verdun, since bill 78 was passed.  Way to stick it.

Now onto art homework.  Although I was very ambitious about seeing exhibitions I was largely thwarted by the time frame of being caught in between exhibitions, so many places I went to check out were closed.  I did get to see at the Lyonel Feininger at Musee des Beaux-Arts, Quebec abstract paintings from the collection at the Contemporain, Elizabeth MacIntosh at Division, Geneviève Cadieux at Rene Blouin, Abbas Akhavan at Darling, a whole plethora of shows in the Belgo Building (Peter Flemming at SKOL was the most memorable for me), the adorable musical swings at Place des Arts… can’t remember what else….

Enough of all that.  What I really wanted to share with you this week is this:


Let me introduce to you the King of GIFS, my great friend James Kerr.  Previous to this website I hardly knew what a gif was.  James is the collage extraordinaire of the YPF (don’t know if we still exist) and so now he has evolved his practice into moving animated collage shorts, whereby he makes one a day.  Let’s see how long he can last!  I really enjoyed sexy week, and it seems like he may now be onto pre-renaissance painting revisionism week....