HAPPY 1Q84

As the year 2014 enters, five supermoon dates are expected and the first will be on January 1, the first new moon of the month before another one on January 30 (Chinese New Year), making January 2014 the only month with TWO supermoons until January 2018. Here's to love, hope and magic against the apocalypse! 

 happy new year and best wishes 

btw,
Here's my quick filler for 2013 - since the last time I posted a year ago, I got busy.  I admit I started my year off pretty chill - having the time to read Murakami's 1Q84 in book form, at home with it's weight on my lap. Then I headed towards my year of unreal, amazing Miamitime basically.  I attended the Fountainhead residency for March-April, the Wild Bush residency in Lac Pacquin QC in June, and went back to work at the Fountainhead studios from July-August. I recently came back from another two weeks in Miami for the shitshow that is ABMB.  I showed work at Pulse with a gallery from Mexico City.  I stayed an extra week after all the fair crazytime to touch real base and to celebrate my birthday for the very first time in warmth, in all of my 32 years on this earth, ending the night by belting impromptu acapella ukelele covers at The Corner til 4am. It was glorious.
I also went back to school... I'm a grad student now at York University and it's free.  Keeping my bases covered, I have to make sure I stay on point.
A few group and a couple solo projects, and making plans for the forthcoming, studio dreams, working all the time, collaboration, sharing, dialogue, finding meaning, love, existential angst, political rage, ADHD etc etc.
And like that a year has whizzed by. Have you ever noticed that as one gets older, every day seems painfully long, but a month disappears in the blink of an eye? I'm a old dog now and will be posting my homework shortly.

I had a good year, and hope you did too!

2013 BLACK WATER ssssSNAKE

♥ happy lunar new year of the snake everyone!!! ♥

Wishing you health, love, happiness, best wishes and good vibes magic. My belly is rumbling both in anticipation of what is to come for the next 12 months, and from reminiscing on what I ate on my new years eve symbolic dinner :) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx mmmmmmm

Here are some of the Cantonese aphorisms and their translations, which I have been wishing to grown ups since childhood, in exchange for lucky envelopes:

Sun Leen Fie Lok                     Happy New Year

Gung Hey Fat Choi                  Wishing prosperity (contrary to popular opinion, this does NOT mean happy new year)

Man See Yuen Yee                  Hundreds of thousands of your wishes will come true!

Luong Ma Jing Sun                  Wishing you the strengths of the dragon and horse

See See Suen Leigh                Wishing smooth sailing in everything you do

Chut Yup Ping Hon                  Wishing safety and peace

How time flies…. I didn’t mean to be friendly butcher MIA for so long … but I had been on the road for over 3 months beginning in September 2012, then was back home for 2 months to regroup myself in private.  Now I am preparing to leave again for the month of March as a participant of the Fountainhead residency in Miami. 

My itinerary since Sept 2012: I started in New York for a week, then for two months I was at the Can Serrat artist residency near Barcelona, situated at the foot of the Catalan pilgrimage mountain – the beautiful and ecstatic Mon Serrat.  Blessed as I was, I spent one of those months at Can Serrat with Jen Storey, my wife, and after we traveled to Sitges, Barcelona, Santa Coloma de Cervello, Colbato, Barcelona, Madrid, and Athens to visit the one and only Pantelis Makkas.  Then she left me to travel to Amsterdam, Basel, Utrecht, and Roosendaal where I held my solo exhibition at Galerie Albus Lux.  I flew home on Christmas Eve and by complete chance, the British Airways lady tore up my ticket at Heathrow and bumped me up to business class!!!  I drank 2 glasses of champagne alongside a chateauneuf-du-pape all at the same time… just because I could.  PS, I know about chateauneuf-du-pape, thanks to a Beastie Boys rhyme.

Not a bad way to trip!  But my head was spinning from being in so many cities that I really needed to reduce the level of human and art contact.  So like always, I built a fortress at mom and dad’s house in Scarborough Ontario for 2 months, teaching quietly in Scarbs, starting up kung fu again (my body sucks right now), working on applications and project plans both for my time in Miami and for the rest of the year.

Now to find my bathing suit, and perhaps a pastel windbreaker to go with it….    

MINI GOLF – A SOCIAL PRACTICE (LOOK WHAT I MADE!)

Last week July 6 and 7, I was honoured to be a part of the exhibition opening for ‘Common Ground’ at Cambridge Galleries.  I am one of 9 artists curated by Iga Janik, invited to develop an artist interpretation of a mini-golf course in various non-spaces throughout Cambridge, Ontario.

Although I have worked on installations and group public sculptures in the past with the YPF, I have never designed anything sculptural on my own – this is my first experience of single handedly figuring out a concept in three dimensions!  It was really daunting when it came down to the engineering and material logistics of the ramp… as a painter I never have to consider an oil on canvas supporting human weight…. Anyway, I worked real hard and I’m glad everything works.  However, if it weren’t for my brother Chris, who built the entire structure for me, I don’t know what I would have done.  I owe my bro bigtime.

The aim of my ramp is to celebrate the intrinsically quaint artifice of mini-golf.  I wanted to use it to address issues of agency, the politics of otherness and the reclamation of clichés.  I designed a miniature island, inspired by the step forms of pyramids and ziggurats.  The structure features the reproduction of a mural drawing I made entitled ‘Projections of Idealism: Props to Tahitian Kids and Henry Darger’.  I wanted this island to be bright and beautifully synthetic, as one big stereotype, yet sincere, with plastic flowers contrasting the romantic images of charcoal on paper.  Plastic flowers are an attempt at resisting death, and my drawing of the Tahitian kids was my attempt to resist the exoticism of Paul Gauguin.  All with a grain of salt!  As a spiral golf ramp, one could either start at the bottom and hit the ball up the ramp, or begin at the top to allow the ball to roll down.  My feminine composition, double dong ramp is also a conversation about the Freudian machismo fantasy of golf- of getting it into the holes…

If you can, please check out the show and tell me what you think.  The exhibition will run until September 30, 2012.  Here is a link to Common ground, and a review of the exhibition on Canadian Art.

http://projectcommonground.ca/

http://www.canadianart.ca/online/reviews/2012/07/12/common-ground-cambridge-galleries/

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:

scorpiondagger.tumblr.com

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.... 

DOING MY HOMEWORK

Exhibitions: Recently I saw a lot of art: at the AGO - Jack Chambers (blech, I got no feeling or connection from the work at all) Ian Baxter& ‘Works 1958-2011 (I liked the Rothko in plastic ok, and all those plastic molds. Those painted tvs are classik. But the taxidermy animals were so bad). Then drank in the group of 7 paintings and Haida argillite carvings next to Jack Chambers. Bee-u-tiful with a CAPITAL B. Then ‘Sovereign Acts’ curated by Wanda Nanibush at Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, which I really recommend seeing as it considers issues in the complexity of representation, cliché and reclaiming that representation as Aboriginal artists. General Hardware Contemporary for Celia Neubauer: Exit Enter (nice colours) The Mercer Union for TACTICAL USES OF A BELIEF IN THE UNSEEN: Deborah Stratman. I liked the giant speaker sound installation, you should go feel the vibration. Then I even got on the Artbus to see my friend Keren Cytter’s exhibition at Oakville Galleries (a fabulous show as I know her work already, but there wasn’t time to really watch much, with the opening and the tight bus schedule) and to the Art Gallery of Hamilton to see Mark Lewis and William Kurelek (wasn’t crazy about either unfortunately). Best thing was Keren’s play, part of the Images festival at Al Green Theatre, ‘I Eat Pickles At Your Funeral’. So good. Based on the premise of failing/cheating relationships, it felt like the most vulnerable thing she has written somehow. The humour wasn’t just the beautifully nerdy, witty badass armour that she is known for, but more the entrance way to the meat and potatoes of her thought process. And it was so nice that Andrew Kerton was one of the four actors, he is a performance artist from London, and so we got to catchup over ginandtonics and dumplings. Keren, Andrew and I attended De Ateliers in Amsterdam, which is how we know each other. The international cult where reunions are lovely, especially in my hometown, because that never happens. Photo by Lisa Marie Becker

ONTARIO ARTS COUNCIL, ACCESS IGNITES!

I recently participated in a wonderful symposium called Access Ignites, organized by the Ontario Arts Council. The event began with a traditional Anishnaabe blessing by Dan Commanda and ended with a hand drumming performance of the ‘Strong Woman Song’ by Veronica Johnny. Keynote speeches were made by Philip Akin, Samina Mansuri, and Jani Lauzon. For two days, fellow grant recipients of the Access and Career Development Grant shared presentations, performances and projects.

This was an opportunity for Aboriginal artists and artists of colour to learn, or be mentored in a way that relates to their cultural heritage. For two days we ate together, brainstormed, discussed our experiences and learned from each other. We addressed goals and strategies in continuing to establish true multiculturalism, issues of tokenism and visibility, barriers as artists of colour. It was so super nice to have such a diverse group of unified camaraderie, and made me feel really proud to be from Ontario, a province with such eclectic talent. Additionally, I think it was one of the few times I could remember where I was in a room full of artists and did not feel one iota of competition vibes whatsoever. The organizers of this event, Bushra Junaid and Nazanin Shoja, facilitated an inclusive space, which was constructive, meaningful, and inspiring.

In regards to my own project (which I have written about in past posts) – to study the lion dance drum in order to transfer that energy into my paintings – I was able to pursue this ‘secret project’, as Wanda Nanibush called it. She developed the program only five years ago. Other grant recipients agreed that when applying for this grant, it was an application that felt really like it was coming from the heart more than the brain.

Anyway, again, I am very happy to have been part of this event, to experience the immense scope of creativity and wisdom in our province. Ontario artists, if you might qualify, please apply for the upcoming deadline: Ontario Arts Council, Access and Career Development Grant May 1, 2012

SISTERS AND ME

I can’t completely get my head around the recent round of (supposed) self-constructed music video image women, although it should be my zone of expertise… Nicki Minaj, Lana Del Rey and of coursey, the lady gaga, for example. The following isn’t judgement, it’s merely reflection on surface impression.

I haven’t delved into any of these ladies too much, I don’t own any of their albums. A couple weeks ago, I was surprised by how much I like Nicki Minaj, after seeing her on the superbowl (I was soo curious about the Madonna hype!) I wondered, who the hell is she? Often, I live under a rock. Now I know the song and video, ‘Stupid Hoe’. From what I can deduct, she is one oversexed to the max crazytown bitch (I mean this in the most respectful way) who marks an aesthetic lineage from say, Grace Jones and Missy Elliot. L’il Kim is too obvious. Now I can’t get that song out of my head, with the schizophrenic siren drilling the hook over and over (dissing Lil Kim btw) “you a stupid ho you a you a stupid ho!” as she shakes her ass in a cage. If she was a big lesbian (which I think she is on some level…), that would make her even more awesome.

I like Lana Del Rey’s songs, as they are very easy to like for indie people, but I am not in love with them as I want to be. The broody, cinematic melodies and girl’s aesthetic are hard to dislike for someone like me, but ultimately I find the melancholy too cool to be sincere. I wished she had the type of voice where she could really belt her heart out. So far, the lyrics to me are dumber than Stupid Hoe and they don't have the same wink and nod. Video games? So young! And painfully to me, the first time I saw her video posted I was really saddened by the botox. I thought it was an ironic joke done for one video, until I watched another.

I imagine that lady gaga by now is old news. I will say that over all, I like that gal, and in many ways she started this recent wave. She’s got a lot of chutzpah, and that Telephone video she did with Beyonce is, I think, the pinnacle of her cultural significance in music video history.

I am not going to say what a lot of music fans say, that artifice today trumps the sincerity and talent of a nostalgic past, of Nina Simone or Cat Power or Janis Joplin or Etta James, et al. because that isn’t the point. Today is today, unfortunately.

I’m curious, are any of these women aware of Orlan? Just curious. And did you notice that I started every paragraph with I? That was by chance. To end this article is a Bell Hooks dissertation on the politics of why black women don’t identify with Madonna much. As a woman of colour, I was never fanatic about her either, even though I love her VOGUE era. Hook explains this well. The article is taken from a fb post from curator Gabi Ngcobo via Martha Rosler. Next week’s article… I’m getting off the internet!

http://stevenstanley.tripod.com/docs/bellhooks/madonna.html

I LOVE UBUWEB

OK, this may be redundant to art nerds but I just wanted to express my true love for the UbuWeb archive. It is utopian, anarchistic, unbridled academic pretension at its best, anti-capitalistic independent obscure art distribution of audio and video. As I am only a painter and not internet savvy, I generally look up hard to find art videos on youtube. I mean, one doesn’t always need to go white room perusing. When I was in school the video art library took so long in comparison, those days of looking up, renting and rewinding battered vhs tapes. Then I remember UbuWeb. Everytime I visit this site, I am so amazed and thankful for it. What a great, and free, learning resource that refuses to advertise or promote itself. That's so cool. ‘Deleuzian nomadic model’!

If you haven’t had a chance to explore, I highly recommend it. Especially in light of the current SOPA, PIPA, ACTA wars, this site is an ideal example of what the internet is capable of being.

http://www.ubu.com/

UBUWEB MANIFESTO FROM THEIR WEBSITE LAST YEAR WHEN I MEANT TO WRITE THIS ARTICLE (it has since changed…)

Concrete poetry's utopian pan-internationalist bent was clearly articulated by Max Bense in 1965 when he stated, "…concrete poetry does not separate languages; it unites them; it combines them. It is this part of its linguistic intention that makes concrete poetry the first international poetical movement." Its ideogrammatic self-contained, exportable, universally accessible content mirrors the utopian pan-linguistic dreams of cross-platform efforts on today's Internet; Adobe's PDF (portable document format) and Sun System's Java programming language each strive for similarly universal comprehension. The pioneers of concrete poetry could only dream of the now-standard tools used to make language move and morph, stream and scream, distributed worldwide instantaneously at little cost.
Essentially a gift economy, poetry is the perfect space to practice utopian politics. Freed from profit-making constraints or cumbersome fabrication considerations, information can literally "be free": on UbuWeb, we give it away and have been doing so since 1996. We publish in full color for pennies. We receive submissions Monday morning and publish them Monday afternoon. UbuWeb's work never goes "out of print." UbuWeb is a never-ending work in progress: many hands are continually building it on many platforms.
UbuWeb has no need for money, funding or backers. Our web space is provided by an alliance of interests sympathetic to our vision. Donors with an excess of bandwidth contribute to our cause. All labour and editorial work is voluntary; no money changes hands. Totally independent from institutional support, UbuWeb is free from academic bureaucracy and its attendant infighting, which often results in compromised solutions; we have no one to please but ourselves.
UbuWeb posts much of its content without permission; we rip out-of-print LPs into sound files; we scan as many old books as we can get our hands on; we post essays as fast as we can OCR them. UbuWeb is an unlimited resource with unlimited space to fill. It is in this way that the site has grown to encompass hundreds of artists, hundreds of gigabytes of sound files, books, texts and videos.
Sounds like a marginal situation? Hardly. We've won many prestigious internet awards and are acknowledged web-wide as the definitive source for Visual, Concrete + Sound Poetry. UbuWeb is on the syllabus of countless schools; we've gotten queries from Ph.D. candidates seeking information to third-graders researching a paper on concrete poetry. UbuWeb embodies an unstable community, neither vertical nor horizontal but rather a Deleuzian nomadic model: a 4-dimensional space simultaneously expanding and contracting in every direction, growing "rhizomatically" with ever-increasing unpredictability and uncanniness.
-The Editors

PEACE HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR LETS DANCE

This same time last year, I swooned about the Chinese Lion Dance, a performance I have loved since I was a kid. I should be more specific. There are many types of lion dance but the one that hits home for me is the Southern Nian ‘fancy’ style…

In that article I had longed to get a grant that would allow me to learn to play the lion dance drum, remember that post? Well guess what, I actually did! I am happy to say that this year I have the support of the Ontario Arts Council Access and Career Development Grant to learn the Lion Dance drumming, dance, and the martial art Choi Li Fut, as the foundation. I recently began my intensive training with sifu Kin Sze at Bamboo Kung Fu, and my whole body has been so sore that I’ve been brining myself in Epsom salts since. I feel my wimpy artsy self, getting stronger already.

This so-called lion is the Chinese unicorn (Qilin, or Kirin in Japanese). The myth of a one horned beast is the only mythical creature that existed in every ancient culture. Described as a composite of different animal traits, it could only be tamed by a good, pure (aka virginal) maiden, whereby it would lay its horn in her lap. Eventually, by way of rumour and broken telephone translations by ancient Greek philosophers, it became associated to symbolize Christ, and the maiden of course turned into Mary. In China, the Qilin was associated with Guan Yin Po Sat. It doesn’t need to be said that the unicorn was a universal symbol of phallic power. In Mesopotamia, it dipped his horn in the seas and created life!


Facts From Wikipedia:
This Chinese Southern dance is more symbolic than the other styles. It is usually performed as a ceremony to scare away evil spirits and to summon luck. It has a distinctive head with eyes (of an eagle), a mirror on the forehead (demons are supposedly scared of their own reflection), and a single horn at center of the head (the horn of a unicorn).

The story goes that once upon a time a monk had a dream in which there were many sorrows and evils plaguing the land. The monk prayed and asked the gods how he could prevent these evils from occurring. The gods told him that a lion would protect them and fight back the evils. The Chinese people had never seen a lion before, but had heard stories that the lion was the king of all the other animals, so the monk combined all the lucky or magical animals he could think of and so made a lion.

If you look closely at any lion, you can see a red sash tied on its horn. It is told that the lion was disrespectful to the Jade Emperor. This of course caused the Jade Emperor to get very angry, so as a punishment he chopped off his horn (The source of his life) and the lion died. The Goddess of Mercy (Guan Yin) felt bad for him so she tied his horn back on with a red sash with golden leaves and chanted to the lion and he came back to life.


Here is a video of the dance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXN1qLid5z8&feature=related

LOST RIVER REUNION

What a way to bring closure to two and a half months of traveling…. As I said before I just came back from Lost River in the Laurentians in Quebec (close to Saint Sauveur) with some of my oldest friends whom I rarely get to see all at the same time, all together in an old wood log cabin.

Ksenia Yurganova I’ve known since high school at Danforth Tech Baby. She now produces tv, currently some murder show and can’t stop complaining of Toronto’s work pace, because she’s part of it! She drove up with her boyfriend Dave Hamelin and Jackson the dog, his white paw just like Michael’s glove. We knew Dave before he started his band the Stills 10 years ago, now defunct. He just started a new band called Eight And A Half. Jill Kasian used to work making IMAX films and now she has some new job going, and her bf Jonathan Dorthe is an architect at Sid Lee. Krissy Longtin, Jen Storey and James Kerr I’ve known since the beginning of moving to Montreal 12 years ago. Krissy has been long done her Masters after working with orphans in Romania and now works as a therapist, James is the best landscaper ever (I’m sure Debbie Travis has a crush on him) and Jen of course I have featured in a past article… most recently she collaborated on beautiful fabric print work with Angie Johnson of Norwegian Wood. To top it off, we had Neil Doshi and his gf Katie, now both Cal Arts grads who live on the west coast… Neil just got a FIVE YEAR Creative Capital Grant to build a graphic design house in the dessert then work around the world. Sheeit.

Some major nostalgia s down the line, well, my best pals are now grown ups who do wonderful things. Because I am so often away, it’s so crazy and amazing to see them so changed. At the same time, it's so good to feel our goofy idiotic chemistry, dynamic as ever when we are together. I had so much fun, which counts for everything in this life. AND, that whole week, I did not see one exhibition, as it was not the point of this trip. Felt So Good.

When we were back in Montreal, our New Years Day hangover hangout was more or less a very humourous group therapy for kids coping with their thirties. Before I left I was treated to a spa at Bota Bota in the old port, which by chance, Jonathan worked on!

I’ve been kind of emotionally losing it in a good way, feeling blessed to always surround myself around such special people. I played Dance Central for 4 hours straight with James (a natural), ate poutine at the same time, and didn’t get sick.

NEW YEAR NEW YEAR FIND YOUR SPIRIT

Blessings! Here is a picture of my spirit animal, a miniature dreadlocked unicorn found next to the parking lot of an apple orchard in upstate New York, back when my pals, German painter Julia Muenstermann, curator Natika Soward and I went for a day trip to the Dia Beacon. After experiencing one of the most sublime museums in the world, and one of my favourites, it was the end of a perfect day to find this little grungy creature appear out of nowhere, much akin to the epiphanies from experiencing 1960s conceptual art!

I hope this guy inspires you to find your own hidden spirit animal for the years to come.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM THE FRIENDLY BUTCHER!

ALL MY BEST TO YOU AND THE ONES YOU LOVE AROUND YOU
MAY YOUR HOLIDAY BE FULL OF LOVE, PEACE, CREATIVITY AND OPTIMISM <3

Ah, as I’ve said before, I’ve been a silent reporter these past months… keeping quiet, growing my hair long. I have done a lot lately and some have been asking me to tell stories or put pictures on bloody facebook…. Neither of which I have done, yet.

I had been preparing for a gallery exhibition in Holland in September and was then at residency in Spain. So in the past few months have travelled to Roosendaal, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Berlin, El Bruc, Barcelona, Paris, and finally now back home to Scarborough-crazytown-Ontario, woot woot! I am living with my folks again, I have turned 30, and am fleshing my way around this other side, my oncoming thirties. I must admit it feels ok so far. I have also heard that 2012 according to the Mayan calender means a prediction of major CHANGE, not necessarily in the apocalyptic direction. Next 20,000 years of light!

In order to tell of what I’ve been up to, I’ll start off the coming year with some retroactive nostalgia and looking back, trying to reminisce all while living every present moment~ the lively and the boring, joyful and dreadful to its fullest!

OK, more to come in the new year. I am excited to make watercolours with my sister Polly and bake a Pavlova for xmas dessert tomorrow (email me if you want the recipe). Then a cottage in Lost River Québec, Montréal for New Years, and I’ll be back real soon to meditate on things.

BIG CHEERS, AND SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE xxxxxxxxxxxx

More shameless self promotion, come May 12th!

Dear Artpost,

I'm sorry that my last two articles are press releases, but this is what happens when an artist changes from observation to making mode. The following is a pretty casual and experimental show in the gallery of the White House where we both have studios, and I am excited to be collaborating once again with one of my best friends Dessa Harhay. We've known each other since we were 9 years old and I'll never forget fond memories of being teenagers, er aimless idiots in Toronto, trying to find something creative to do. We even took summer class for kicks in Parkdale where we found a loaded gun up top a cabinet during our snooping meanderings, and I don't know if she remembers this, but once she decided to colour each of her teeth in with different colour permanent markers. That's pretty inspirational to me still.

In some ways we are very different people now, I don't think she would do that anymore whereas I totally would, but don't want to rip her off.
Anyway, please come to the opening, where Dessa brings the hip and I'll bring the grunge!


Exhibition opening 'Sick!' - Amy Wong and Dessa Harhay, May 12th 2011 7PM-1AM
exhibition on display through May 20th
Gallery viewing hours: daily 1-5pm

New Work by Dessa Harhay and Amy Wong

www.dessaharhay.com/
www.amywongwebsite.blogspot.com/

'Sick!' presents new work by Toronto born artists Dessa Harhay and Amy Wong. The two painters will be exhibiting work that reflect the ambiguity of the word 'sick' - referring to notions of either being affected by physical and mental illness, or as a compliment - a word that takes on both a positive and negative light depending on context. The exhibition contemplates decadence, beauty, consumerist culture, information overload, the recent election results in Canada and the search for spirit throughout.

Having exhibited together as founding members of local art collective, the YPF, Harhay and Wong have often developed their practice side by side as Concordia University fine arts graduates (Montreal, QC). Since living in Montreal, both artists have taken different paths, leading them to live in separate parts of the world such as Chicago, Amsterdam, China, and New York. They have now regrouped in Toronto to show a collection of new work reflecting their growth while apart.

Opening Thursday May 12th, 7PM:

Featuring DJ dance party (DJ Ambulance Wolf)
www.ambulancewolf.blogspot.com/

Live musical experience with Parent-Teacher Night:
www.myspace.com/parentteachernight

and BON FIRE Jewelry line by Rachel Hawkes Cameron
www.rachelhawkescameron.com/

ASHITA: Artists for Japan

If you are in the Toronto area, please come and support this Tuesday at the Great Hall. I am donating a work, the only small thing I can do to help a horrible situation. Here is the press release, bless:

Tuesday March 29, 2011 7:00pm - Wednesday at 2:00am
The Great Hall
1087 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON
Cover: minimum donation $10 (students $5 with ID)

All funds raised through admission fee and sale of donated artworks
will go to Red Cross through The Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre's
Disaster Relief Fund
Tax receipts available for over $50 donations and art purchases

Our heart and minds are with the Japanese people and now its time for action!
The Toronto arts community felt the shock much like everyone else when images first started to appear on the news and stories through friends started to come in

Many of the artists have traveled to Japan as visiting artists or to study its rich culture and its embrace with nature and nurture. We have made many friends and built bridges through collaborations and deep friendship

Curator Rafi Ghanaghounian and Artist Daisuke Takeya are organizing a fundraiser event that will bring the arts community of Toronto together to support our friends in Japan both mentally and financially. All artists and performers will give their time and efforts for this very cause

This night will include musicians, artists, poets from both Canada and Japan. As well galleries have donated books and other items available for purchase

Thank you for your support!

Participating groups, sponsors and partners:
The Great Hall, GUU restaurant, K6cards, Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, Japanese Visitors Association (JAVA), Nihongo Art Contest 2011, Toronto Artists Fund Raising, Orange LLP, Healing Japan, Hardboiledinc for doing our shirts!!

Special Thanks to: Kateryna Topol, Christine Seki

Participating galleries (more coming!):
OBorn Contemporary, Le Gallery, Show and Tell Gallery, Art Metropole, Koyama Press, Narwhal/Magic Pony, OUCHI Gallery NYC, Orbital arts

Participating artists (more coming!):
Howard Podeswa, Laura Horne, Fiona Smyth, Yuriko Kubota, Tomori Nagamoto, Winnie Truong, Nicholas Di Genova, Shigeko Okada, Keiko Tokushima, Ayako Bando, Sonomi, Kobayashi, Bernice Lum, Ron Loranger, Pierre Julien, Richelle Forsey, Jae-hong Ahn, Juno Youn, Miki Shinozaki, Keita Morimoto, Shinobu Akimoto, Yumi Onose, Shinya Kumazawa, Martin de la Rue, Joshua Choi, James Fowler, Martin Ouellette, Patrick DeCoste, Daisuke Takeya, Matt Evans, Martin Reis, Aisha Simpson, Harvey Chan, Peter Chan, Shary Boyle, Akira Yoshikawa, Rie Aikawa, Bud Fujikawa, Laura Adams,Tanya Reed, Dasar, REN, Amy Wong, Risa Kusumoto, Chrisopher Hayes, Takashi Iwasaki, Seth Scriver

Participating performers:

Your MC's for the evening:
Rafi Ghanaghounian and Nana Akimoto

music:
Clara Venice and Ken Ogawa
Nobu Adilman: Choir!Choir!Choir!
Rambunctious featuring Michael Louis Johnson
Ashely Ingram
Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy)

performance:
Visual Assault
Yakudo: traditional Japanese drumming
AKA Dance (Keiko Ninomiya, Amy Hampton, Mike Dell)
Natasha Bailey, Nayeon Kim, Adam Herst, Yumi Onose
VPV (Daisuke Takeya, Ayumi Sawada, Tatsu)

tea ceremony:
Tomori Nagamoto and Mika Sato

poetry by:
Ewan Whyte, Bonnie Bowman

DJ
Luis Jacob
Derek Mainella

It’s been long overdue! Sophisticated Boom Boom

One of my bestest friends, the wonderful Jen storey, is my heroine and my wife. She graciously put up with me since our class together, painting 101 at Concordia University 11 years ago. God…

Her and I, back in the old days of Montreal loft parties used to go where she calls ‘The other side’, meaning that we would get so drunk that all inhibition was lost, then we would take over dance floors by holding hands and spinning around until we flew apart, with everyone around us hating our guts. Human Bowling! The Big Lebowski, or rather, the Dude, would have been proud.

This is also so Jen: I always distinctly remember once how she was solicited in the red light district when she came to visit me in Amsterdam. She caught up with us after some polite chitchat and she asked me innocently what the word ‘sexytime’ meant in Dutch? I look over and crack up at this scrawny old dude hustling her with the pitch, ‘Cocaine? Ecstasy? Sexytime?’

She is one of my biggest inspirations and she never gives herself enough credit. Her first oil painting was a naïve still life with a large knife sitting in a cup of water, pinks and peachy colours with rainy days wallpaper, all something around slightly sinister. Also, in her bathroom of her old apartment I remember she used to have next to the toilet a rectangular painting of a pack of birth control pills in acrylics. Aqua’s, peachys, our favourite colours are the mint blues greens, pastels from the 50s. Sooo feminist Pop Montreal baby!

She has also been a strong and true supporter of my work, like good friends are. This gal is like a sister to me, so it’s hard to find things to say without sounding like a boner. What I am trying to say is in general, she is the sweetest good-hearted person I know, a lovely artist, and the only person I know in the whole world who doesn’t act out of self-benefit. Ever. There was one time I visited her at her job at the Westmount diner, she was being so genuinely nice to all these grumpy assholes that it gave me a flash of Bjork in Dancer in the Dark (not Bjork the woman, I love her too but she’s clearly a hard bitch in real life).

Jen both talk about having to soup up ourselves on the internets, I hope she puts up those paintings I was talking about. We also talk about chips n hash, nirvana, nine inch nails, twin peaks, hockey. We have also been talking about a reunion period where I go back to Montreal and sublet a studio with her for a time. I know it’s gonna happen someday. Anyway here’s her site, buy her prints!

http://jen.theypf.com/'http://jen.theypf.com/index.php?\'/about-this-site/\\'

Further more on guardian angels kindred spirit s

Do you know that feeling when you are sure and assertive even though the ideas may not be totally sound, and then you grow older and wiser and get the shaky hand
?

Every time I come back to Toronto I suffer a peculiar straightlace comedown, and it usually lasts at least a month before I fully adjust, I'm getting closer. Because of my best friend Ksenia living here again, we go on dates every weekend and I’ve recently been in the company of many other ex-pat Montrealers (there has been a steady stream migrating to Toronto in recent years looking for work past Portlandia…) We get drunk, shout and complain together; such social gatherings are almost more like meetings to express our feelings in Toronto’s otherwise polite social environment. This is my city for introverted reflection and calmer waters, but instinctively I try to carry on energy like an eager puppy, or more romantically speaking, like Bas Jan Ader, falling off paths and getting up again til death stops repetitive action. Nice to hold hands with Ksenia’s this time around.

If you may remember from a past article, I was emblazoned with a fabulous strength from my schizophrenic guardian angel just before leaving Brooklyn, and I forgot to mention that when I returned in October, that I was lucky enough to pick up another! At some stale old lady opening in Chelsea (Tom Phillips at Flowers Gallery), a Mrs. Eccentric something or other appeared out of the blue and imparted me with some serious strength to add to my stash. I caught her eye as the elevator door opened and she came emerged as a genie would, in pigtails and a red north face jacket. She immediately sat next down to me (possibly emitting heroin vibes) but anyway, lovingly linked my arm and asked me what a bee-u-tifal gal like I was doing, unhitched, hanging around all these crackers… she told me I was going be of the new generation to represent ‘us Orientals’. Er. When I laughed and corrected her to use the word ‘Asian’ instead, yknow, Edward Said and all that… she rejoiced, ‘See! What did I tell ya, the new generation.’ Then something to the extent that the world is shit and racist but now young people are gonna make it happen. She continued in a manner of poetic rants that really told the MAN from the perspective of American otherness, in an eloquent, insightful and impassioned way, things like her hatred for neo-liberal shenanigans and how it trickled down to the patriarchal structure of one’s home, for instance. It sounded by inference that she had lost many things in her life. On a very personal, ex-husbands, filial piety note, I think fondly of her best quote - ‘Hey. Family isn’t some asshole you meet’. She looked at me long and hard before moving on to bitch about another subject of love and loss.

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE!

Hello lovely anyone who may be reading this, wishing you a healthy and happy new year of the rabbit, Wishes, wishes, wishes. Isn’t this a good time for a reunion, I’ve missed writing dearly but you know how it is when things get hectic and depressing in the brain, it becomes very difficult to avoid melodramatic details! I can’t keep up with the pace of reality television tweet blog instant diary time, why this is friendly butcher slow-on-the-uptake diary time, so I appreciate your patience. My mind of late has been too full of absorption squiggles (in an idea realm) and schlepping plans (in a practical realm), neither of which is going all that smoothly.

Feeling much like the woman with gun fun in the propaganda poster above but hopefully, aren’t we all. I have cherished my ambiguous love for this painting for a long time, and thought it was ripe time to share it with you.

So, I had real yummy dim sum in Scarborough. My heart is full when I get to be home with my fam for Chinese new years. I had never seen this in a restaurant before, there was a whole crew doing the lion dance, my favourite performance. Paper mache kid heads lure and flirt with the lion. The lion in turn flirts with the kids, bats eyes coyly, then seduces the lettuce and the lucky envelopes before devouring them. In 2011, this particular lion head was all new-age, decorated with plastic, neon paints and holographic fabric, so inspiring! I would love to have it as an outfit. The coordination, athleticism and grace of the sifu lion dancer made my heart melt as the room filled with the sound of drum and cymbals, it really feels akin to being at a good dance party. The whole thing is so sexy. Reminds me of the difference in aesthetics which Roland Barthes mentions early on in Mythologies where he writes of the difference between wrestling and judo (not to compartmentalize between east and west too much, but it’s true). Same with the fundamental difference between oil painting and Chinese brush painting is the strength in gesture: oil attempts to dominate with layers and layers, covering up everything, until all surface within the frame is conquered. Barbarism begins at home babes! Whereas brush painting covets the grace in the restraint of gesture: quick, slow, energy and vitality in one stroke, extravagant but never overdone. A swoop, a dash, practice practice, so fabulous! Same as that 40-pound lion head with the batty eyes, when done right is a grace and swiftness that makes me want to weep. Ever since I was a kid, I have always wanted to learn that big drum. Please contact me if you can teach me this? I’ll apply for a grant.

In other news, I have a new space to work at the adorable White House in Kensington market. Very excited about starting a new studio period, although I find it really cramped in there… wish me luck this new year. Oh by the way, I paint with oils largely.

So let’s talk about art baby, let’s talk about you and me, in 2011. Put up those machine guns!!!

JULIAN SCHNABEL and SHARY BOYLE at the AGO

These two big shows opened just before I left Toronto for Brooklyn again. I was so happy that I was able to attend them with a wonderful ladies crew so close to me - comprised of my mom Regina, my sister Polly, Milena, Lindsay, Ameera and Ksenia. We started up top and were all very surprised and pleased with the Schnabel show ‘Art and Film’. Even mum and Polly whom neither have ever heard of this guy, seen his films, nor paintings, nor give a damn about his so-called historical relevance in the trajectory of painting’s lineage or in the 80s New York scene etc etc. loved it all. Maybe that helped, come to think of it. It’s just that they are usually so critical of everything in life that I assumed they would dismiss the work as a bunch of pompous b*lls**t, which is basically what I think of his machismo gestures, except that I love him for exactly that reason. But I am usually a sucker for huge paintings, maybe the physical act of looking up makes me feel like I am swooning! Milena cracked me up when she turned to me very seriously after perusing that first room, and like as a very serious art viewer looking for the no. 1 hits demanded, ‘the plates, the plates. I want to see those plates!’

Not crazy about Shary Boyle sadly… and the ladies had divided opinions all around about that, some loved, some hated, some loved and hated… as for my own opinion I was really psyched to see the show, and am still really psyched and proud that Boyle is a young woman with a solo show at the AGO and from Scarborough (!), but basically I am not a fan of overly aesthetic work that lacks in content and doesn’t challenge itself, let alone the viewer. I can tell she really likes indie rock and her various pieces are very fashionable and crafty with nice colours and a pluralistic sensibility which suit me fine, but unfortunately the work is weak… too hipster, not cool man. I do think her ceramics are beautiful and the projector piece is real neat but it’s all too decorative and I was not feeling the ‘Flesh and Blood’.

STREAM OF THOUGHT RANDOM INTERNET CRACK PROCRASTINATOR FOUND FROM WRITING LAST YEAR AND UPDATED WITH YOUTUBE PLAYLIST

What about a tee pee that doesn’t look like a tee pee but only functions like one, surface out and substance in, so sick of derivative indie rock looks squiggles and fetish of the thin wavering voice.

…trance passion that is knowingly cheesy and I don’t care, one must be sincere! Gabba gabba Dutch style rave do.

disparate connections:
Watching twin peaks again caused me to youtube david lynch clips, for I wanted to see my husband’s face again…anyway, following the loop downward spiral of clicking link after link after link it lead me to an especially wacky one of his transcendental meditation lectures in Berlin where this raja cum adolf Hitler sympathist became like an unstaged performance piece. The whole time I was watching twin peaks through my cold coupled with jonathan meese performance videos from the CFA website… I am an art nerd even in baths and strepsils no no I do not ever take breaks.
Then at the next tangent I looked up the very sexy Joan Chen from her role in the last emperor, utube sure is one holographic ephiphany connecter. The song I have been looking for so long, wondering who made the orginal and assuming it might be some Chinese classic (the one Anita Mui covered way back when) is composed by world music version of DAVID BYRNE. Jesus how could I have known as a child. So Cantopop refers back even to him too in the ‘West’, not just Wham! careless whispers renditions….

Other things that come to mind as I think of the possibilities of letter writing and postcards:
Paul mcmahon postcard series 1975 it’s very cool
Also postcard projects by gilbert and george and on kawara

And on another note, my inner 90s radical postmodern feminist has been agitating me to do something a little more rad again, let’s really try to overthrow the patriarchy once more gals and dudes, put up those machine guns! (More on that in a future article)

When I am at home in Scarborough I realize just how much suburban reality magnifies the way I am mediated through screens…cell phone tv computer screens, video game screens, movie screens, cooking show screens, Cathy and Kathy smoke screens… I also realize the neurosis of incessant pipe dreams playing on my brother’s iphone (now sassily renamed toobz). I think it was in Artforum that I once read that Seoul had the highest density of internet users because it had the highest density of LED mediated architectural facades.
Update to 2010: Other things I blissfully took breaks with on youtube this week while trying to work on my LAP TOP, I am so not a computer savvy so this is an arena that my stress becomes slightly relieved. yeeesh I cant wait until I find a place to start painting again….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqFl1HPrxOQ&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNNZL6MReWo&p=959D89662BBF1496&playnext=1&index=11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90iaLaPMa9g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyUjYJ5qdcU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtD5dxTcXm4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACTx6fhpLc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJPNUjcrWSE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXb6bjCCtuY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ntELm03G4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvgEIbj50gQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rg4h62H6jk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a57PrFzTfYY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kujnl4Dys7s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0U-M9W4nKw

And like street fashion was to catwalks in the 90s onward, the Guggenheim museum has taken note the merits of you-tube as an artistic cultural phenomenon. Lovely to hear that my pal James B’s animation ‘I met the Walrus’ is shortlisted on this. Surreal that he was also nominated for an oscar when it first came out, shit. At some point in his life he was from Scarbs too, represent babe! If you want to know more about that:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/20/huffpost-arts-top-ten-pic_n_732578.html

MICHELLE AT THE POWERPLANT

Time has flown; this has been my summer of being a slave to children so it has taken me some time to recover my regular self again…

Just before I left Brooklyn in June, I was surprised by an email from a great friend whom I have not seen in a long time, the one and only Michelle Williams Gamaker. She had invited me to the press opening of the Adaptation group show at the Power Plant of which she was part. Michelle is an artist from London, currently working again in Amsterdam, and was one of the first people I met when I moved to Europe five years ago. I remember landing like a crackpot off the plane with two giant suitcases and no idea where I was, and she took care of me by letting me crash in her house with Zen and Kim, and kept me welcome there during the same time that Gary and his amazing crazy Polish girlfriend Anya were also visiting, it was a real full house with such bustling winter energy. Aside from the diversely chill intellectual conversation, I distinctly remember it being the only time I had tasted smoked vodka! (from Poland)… I also remember Michelle’s voice back then exclaiming ‘I feel like I’m getting a mass-age’ while trying to watch some insane quiz show about magic on television after her, Anya and I made a trip of perusing a smart shop two days after my arrival.

Anyway, In the time I have not seen her, she has completed her PhD at Goldsmiths, gotten married, and just co-directed a feature length entitled ‘Mère Folle’ with Mieke Bal. Woof! I miss you dear and hope to see you again soon <3

Happily, I managed to catch Adaptation just before it closed on Sept 12. It was a really nice summer show, with an accessible theme (albeit a little far stretched at times) of what I understood to be an exploration of pseudo-animalism in contemporary culture. I have seen Michelle’s myriad documentary projects in the past, but never her performative work. What she showed here was a video where she is filmed playing dead, whereby her pet dogs sniff and lick her all with a slow motion edit. It’s so uncomfortable to watch because I have never seen her so passive, and it’s all made to seem romantically bestial! The same uncanny feeling arises when my dog tries to clean my hand.

If you want to know more about this fabulous woman:
http://www.michellewilliamsgamaker.com/Home.html