The Art Collective tag:www.cogev.com,2007:/tac//1 2007-03-08T05:58:32Z Movable Type 3.2 The Art Collective @ Art Matters tag:www.cogev.com,2007:/tac//1.165 2007-03-01T04:38:51Z 2007-03-08T05:58:32Z Phase 3 of our Interactive Bunker Project takes place Tuesday March 6, 3 to 7 p.m., in the lobby of the Visual Arts Building at the corner of Crescent and René-Lévesque. We’re adding a middle layer to our imaginary underground... Robert W Phase 3 of our Interactive Bunker Project takes place Tuesday March 6, 3 to 7 p.m., in the lobby of the Visual Arts Building at the corner of Crescent and René-Lévesque. We’re adding a middle layer to our imaginary underground world, filling in the space between the two layers worked on so far in interactive sessions in November-December and in February.

Then don’t miss our two special events next week:

Monday March 12: A drawing/video event on Monday March 12 (noon to 5 p.m.) in the vernissage space of the Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery on the ground floor of the EV building. Read details below for this not-to-be missed event and if you would like to be involved as a co-ordinator for this event, please let me know. Last year’s event like this involved participation by about 100 people.

Tuesday March 13: Come and draw with UQAM students at their Café des arts, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. This is the third year Concordia and UQAM students have done collaborative art-making during Art Matters at the Café des arts (like our Café X). A one-week show of the work produced has its vernissage on Thursday March 15, 6 p.m., at Café des arts, and the names of participating artists will be posted on our website.

Below is more information about the above events, Art Matters and two shows that are worth checking out.

Art Matters, Concordia University’s high-profile student-organized arts festival that presents the best work of Concordia student artists to the art world of Montreal and beyond, led by Celia Perrin Sidarous and Jim Verburg, the festival’s co-producers and artistic directors. Click here for more information about the festival: http://artmatters.concordia.ca/index.html

You can also check out the Art Matters myspace section at: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=144248126

Friendly Fire is a strong Art Matters show at Art Mur, curated by Montreal artists Joshua Barndt and Ed Janzen, a fibres student who is president of the Fine Art Student Alliance. Ed made the first mark at The Art Collective's April 2006 interactive show at Concordia University's Visual Arts building. http://artmatters.concordia.ca/evites/artmur.jpg

More on March 6 event: At the March 6 event in the VA Building lobby, come and fill in a room with your vision of what’s happening underground when life becomes too difficult on the surface. And take a look at the network of dozens of fascinating interconnected drawings that look at how life underground is evolving in the imaginary future scenario.

More on March 12 event: get ready for an interactive drawing and video event in the space just outside the excellent Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery, on the ground floor of Concordia University’s EV Building, 1515 Ste. Catherine St. W. Not-to-be missed videos of interactive installations will be shown and fresh video will created and shown by leading-edge visual and video artists. Drawings drawings will be put up on the walls and windows of the space, just outside the Gallery with its not-to-be missed LiveLifeLab show by Bioteknica artists Shawn Bailey and Jennifer Willet, who explore the crucial concepts and issues linked to fast-advancing biotech research.

http://fofagallery.concordia.ca/bioteknica.html

The Bioteknica website is definitely worth a visit:

http://www.bioteknica.org/

The Bioteknica show at the FOFA Gallery follows the excellent futuristic show presented by Montreal artist Bill Vorn. Red Light, a reactive robotic installation, provided a unique window into the mysterious interaction between living things and technology.

http://fofagallery.concordia.ca/vorn.html

PROJEX-Mtl show: Eliza Griffiths and Susan G. Scott, two Concordia teacher/artists, are presenting work at the PROJEX-Mtl gallery in a show that focuses on the portrait. It continues until April 1.

Here is information about the show:

http://projex-mtl.blogspot.com/search/label/%27Visages%27%2021%20f%C3%A9vrier-1%20avril%202007

Here is Eliza Griffiths’ website:

http://www.artengine.ca/elizagriffiths/

The show also includes work by Concordia artist and teacher Susan G. Scott
http://www.susangscott.com/
PROJEX-Mtl Galerie is at 1000 Amherst, suite #103, in Montreal, facing the Radio-Canada tower. Open Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 5:30. For information: 514.570.9130. See information below about the show. See more information below.
Robert Winters, co-ordinator of The Art Collective

]]> robertwinters@videotron.ca

On the PROJEX-Mtl website, you can find this description of the ideas involved in portraiture:
In accessing the visage, there is certainly as well an access to the idea of god. »
Emmanuel Lévinas, ‘Le Visage’ Ethic and Infinity.
The origins of the portrait can be traced in the primitive masks. These masks were believed to literally ‘bring’ the traits of the spirits to the living, hoping to facilitate the fascinated spectator’s own passage in the beyond. The blank surface of the canvas also starts as a ‘blank mask’, and will possibly in due time tale the appearance of a portrait more or less individualized. This operation will enable the interiority of the visage to hopefully come through. The exhibition ‘Visages’ explores the symbolic space emerging between the fascination of the mask and the appearance of an interiorized visage.
From the quasi mortuary masks by Marlene Dumas and Michel Denée to the poetic portraits of Sylvie Bouchard to the expressive and loaded images of Eliza Griffiths to the impressionistic portraits of Susan G. Scott and the cold melancholy of the photographic portraits of Thomas Kneubühler, and the cosmetic coldness of Alex Katz this exhibition will take another look at this timeless theme in the midst of the stylistic implosion characteristic of our contemporaries.

]]> Associate member Philomène Longpré in Montreal tag:www.cogev.com,2007:/tac//1.166 2007-03-01T04:08:51Z 2007-03-08T04:48:30Z Montreal artist Philomène Longpré, who was invited to teach Introduction to Art and technology at the School of Art Institute of Chicago where she received her MFA, has returned to Montreal for two high-profile shows, one which just ended at... Robert W Montreal artist Philomène Longpré, who was invited to teach Introduction to Art and technology at the School of Art Institute of Chicago where she received her MFA, has returned to Montreal for two high-profile shows, one which just ended at the Parisian Laundry and a new one that recently opened at the Galerie de l’UQAM at Université du Québec. Philomène, an associate member of The Art Collective, has followed the project’s work since its founding in mid-2004.

For information about her UQAM show, which continues until March 31, 2007:

http://www.galerie.uqam.ca/#basculer

Philomène’s work involves the creation of life-like individuals who reside in a dark space, through a projection system that allows them to come to life and interact with each visitor to the space. The reaction of the individual character varies with the movements of the viewer, using an interactive system of sensors that lead to different reactions by the onscreen person, depending on the movements each viewer makes in the dark space, which uncannily seems to be inhabited by at least the spirit of the projected individual character, which is played in each case by Philomène.

When the visitor enters the space where the character waits, it is usually peaceful as the character waits, moving slightly, watching. It becomes more animated as the visitor moves into the space and has the distinct impression that there is an uncanny relationship with the character, which takes on a life in the viewer’s imagination that goes far beyond being merely a projection.

You can read more about Philomène and her fascinating work at:
http://www.philox.net/en/home

To read more about Formica, the disturbing character who was living in the cavern below Parisian Laundry this winter, click here:
http://www.hour.ca/visualarts/visualarts.aspx?iIDArticle=11424
http://www.molior.ca/communiques/comm_paris_formica_2007-01-05_eng.pdf

The Parisian Laundry site has information about Philomène’s show as well as about many other excellent shows that have been there.
http://www.parisianlaundry.com/exhibition_archives/philomene-longpre

To read about an earlier project by Philomène, called Octopus, click on the page below. You can also watch a short video of Octopus, including an other-worldly soundscape, by clicking the second link below:

http://www.molior.ca/video.php?projet=11&vid=octo1.mov&width=240&height=190
http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2004/010804/philomene_longpre.html

Here is how Philomène’s career is described on her website:


]]> Philomène Longpré received an MFA degree in Art and Technology Studies from the School of Art Institute of Chicago. Her graduate studies were funded through two merit-based awards: the Art Institute’s Trustee Scholarship as well as the FQRSC Quebec grant for research in Society and Culture. She also completed a BFA degree specializing in Electronic Art at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. During the course of her undergraduate studies, she took part in a one-year student exchange program at the University of New Mexico and also she participated in a six-month granted art project in South Asia.
Her interactive video systems have been shown in international electronic art festivals such as BUDi05 Busan (2005), FILE Sao Paulo (2004), Digifest Toronto (2004), Nexus Bangkok (2004), FIFCA Moncton (2005), Promo4.3 Montreal (2004) and has exhibited in several contemporary art galleries in Canada and the United States. Ms. Longpré also has the distinction of being the recipient of the Hexagram's Prize of Excellence of New Media (2003), the Judith Hamel New Media Award (2005), the Pinsky Medal (2004), the Studio Arts Concordia (2004), the New Millennium Scholarship (2001), the Stanley Mills Prize Purchase (2001), the Golden Key International Honour Society (2002), the CVM Culture Merite Award (1999).
Here is how Galerie de l’UQAM describes Philomène’s career:

Philomène Longpré détient un baccalauréat en arts visuels de l’Université Concordia et une maîtrise en art et technologie de la School of Art Institute de Chicago. Son travail juxtapose des écrans vidéo robotiques, des personnages et des sons abstraits, pour générer de nouvelles communications entre les visiteurs et leur environnement. Depuis 1999, elle a réalisé plusieurs « œuvres-systèmes » fonctionnant principalement via le langage gestuel et émotionnel. Ses projets ont notamment été présentés à la Parisian Laundry (Montréal, 2007), à Oboro (Montréal, 2004) et à la Société des arts technologiques (Montréal, 2003), ainsi que dans de nombreux festivals internationaux d’art électronique dont Digifest (Toronto, 2004), FILE (Sao Paulo, 2004) et Nexus (Bangkok, 2004). L’institut de recherche Hexagram lui décernait en 2003 son prix Excellence. Elle a participé à un programme d'échange d’un an à l'Université du Nouveau-Mexique ainsi qu’à un projet de résidences en Asie du Sud.

Philomène’s show at UQAM is at Pavillon Judith Jasmin, Room J-R120
1400 Berri St., at the corner of Ste. Catherine St. E., in Montreal. Métro Berri UQAM
It’s open from Tuesday to Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. Free admission. Information: (514) 987-8421.

At the UQAM show, you can also see work by Montreal artist Frédéric Lavoie, who played a key role in helping The Art Collective present its one-week interactive show at UQAM’s CEDx Gallery in May 2006.

To read an article by Robert Winters, co-ordinator of The Art Collective, about a Parisian Laundry show by Concordia University master’s students in 2005, click here:
http://ctr.concordia.ca/2004-05/may_05/26/

Robert Winters
co-ordinator of The Art Collective

]]> Interview with Philomène Longpré tag:www.cogev.com,2007:/tac//1.167 2007-02-27T05:48:46Z 2007-03-08T05:53:09Z By Robert Winters MONTREAL - Philomène Longpré’s fascinating art is an attempt to explore the relationship between physical reality and the virtual world that increasingly intersects with it as technology becomes increasingly sophisticated and expands its reach into the fabric... Robert W By Robert Winters

MONTREAL - Philomène Longpré’s fascinating art is an attempt to explore the relationship between physical reality and the virtual world that increasingly intersects with it as technology becomes increasingly sophisticated and expands its reach into the fabric of our lives, and our imaginations.

“I’m always trying to connect the virtual world to the physical world,” Philomène said in an interview while visiting Montreal to present two compelling shows in early 2007 at two leading-edge galleries, one at the Parisian Laundry and the other at Galérie de l’UQAM, which continues until March 31.

One influence of Philomène’s work has been Carl Jung, who explored the universe of images in the subconscious mind and developed a system for understanding archetypes in the individual and collective consciousness.

In her Illusio installation at Galérie de l’UQAM, “which explores the language of colour,” the character “is trapped by the shadow of its environment,” she said, adding that “the character takes form and represents the colour the visitor triggers.” This installation “is a metaphor for being over by its own environment,” she added.

When visitors arrive, various colours are triggered, with light coming through 365 two-inch holes. The installation is described on her website as “an interactive video system where visitors trigger different emotional stages of a virtual character. The installation explores the character’s predicament of being trapped by the shadow of its own environment.”

Her Formica installation, which was shown at Parisian Laundry, explores “the process of communication, including the multiplication of all the links that everybody builds up.” The piece seeks to trigger “memories and links we have with our history,” she said. The character in the video projection system is played by Philomène in costume. She filmed herself with a remote control using a video camera on a tripod. One goal of the interactive video system is “to create emotional inks with a virtual person,” she said.

In fact, a visitor to Formica’s dark cavern below Parisian Laundry had an uncanny sense that the character was alive and could respond in unpredictable ways to movements within her space.

]]> “My pieces are not complete without the viewer,” she said, adding that her research is about non-conventional screens that become the environment for virtual characters.”

The next step for Philomène is to develop systems that communicate among themselves, rather than only with the visitor.

During her recent MFA studies at the Art Institute of Chicago, Philomène was advised by three key artists: Tiffany Holmes, chair of Art and Technology, Eduardo Kac and John Manning. It was an exciting environment, with visiting artist graduates returning to the school to interact with the students, she said.

Philomène’s website is at : http://www.philox.net/en/formica


]]> Interactive event/shows by David Elliott, Bill Vorn, Philomène Longpré/YouTube PDA items/Juliana Espana Keller's website/artist Alexis Rockman tag:www.cogev.com,2007:/tac//1.150 2007-02-14T21:33:02Z 2007-02-14T22:51:43Z This newsletter from The Art Collective includes news about Phase 2 of the Interactive Bunker project, our latest interactive show, which takes place this Monday and Tuesday (Feb. 12, 13) in the lobby of the Visual Arts building. Come and... Robert W This newsletter from The Art Collective includes news about Phase 2 of the Interactive Bunker project, our latest interactive show, which takes place this Monday and Tuesday (Feb. 12, 13) in the lobby of the Visual Arts building. Come and draw your vision of what future life underground might look like; event is co-sponsored by Concordia’s Fine Arts Student Alliance.

There is also news about these points (take your time, there are lots of links to explore):

Key shows by David Elliott, Philomene Longpre and Bill Vorn.
YouTube videos about shows by the Painting and Drawing Association, which has collaborated with the Collective at art-making events.
Two New York Times stories about Monet’s pencil and pastel work, and post minimalist art.
Features of the website operated by Juliana Espana Keller, guest curator of the Collective’s CDEx show at UQAM in May 2006.
A key influence on our Interactive Bunker project: artist Alexis Rockman, whose work shown in Canadian Art magazine was recommended by Montreal artist Adrian Norvid, visiting professor of painting and drawing, who is advising the Collective this year. You can see images from Rockman’s work on our website.
1) Feb. 12 and 13 is Phase 2 of The Art Collective’s Interactive Bunker project, takes place this Monday and Tuesday (Feb. 12, 13) in the lobby of the Visual Arts building at the corner of Crescent and René-Lévesque in downtown Montreal. Come and draw your vision of life underground in an imaginary future world where the surface is no longer habitable. The first phase took place Nov. 30-Dec. 1 and the new phase takes us further underground.

2) Concordia University Studio Arts chair David Elliott’s not-to-missed show at Joyce Yahouda Gallery, an excellent gallery in Montreal's Belgo building, which opens Feb. 17 and runs until March 17. (see details below) David has provided invaluable advice and support to the Art Collective as it operates in its third year of exploration of collaborative art-making.

The Collective, which operates in collaboration with the Studio Arts department, thanks Concordia’s Fine Arts Student Alliance for its ongoing support and funding of the Interactive Bunker project, including FASA president Ed Janzen, who made the symbolic first mark at the collective’s Strings show in 2006.

Hélène Brousseau, FASA's vice-president finance, placed the symbolic first mark on Phase 2 of the Interactive Bunker project on Feb. 12.

Philomène Longpré’s show at Parisian Laundry, which ends Feb. 24: http://www.molior.ca/artistes.php?section=bio&artiste=7&lang=0&cc=1

This cutting edge show is especially recommended for those who were able to visit Bill Vorn’s excellent show, which just closed at Concordia’s leading-edge Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery. See details below about this show by Bill, who gave excellent advice and support to The Art Collective in its key second year of operations, while he served as acting chair of Concordia University’s high-profile Studio Arts Department.

http://fofagallery.concordia.ca/upcoming_exhibitions.html

To read a story about Hexagram, a Concordia project that Bill Vorn has played a key role in developing:

http://ctr.concordia.ca/2004-05/jul_28/03/index_d.shtml

1) Interactive Bunker project:

See images from the first phase on our website’s gallery page, at:

http://gallery.theartcollective.net/

2) See info below about shows by David Elliott and Bill Vorn.

3) Check out a YouTube video from the 2006 Concordia University Painting and Drawing Association show last January at L’Espace gallery in Montreal. The video, by Ztron, includes images of a piece about wartime identity by Robert Winters, the collective’s co-ordinator, starting at the 45-second mark. The clip is titled FASA Vernissage at l’Espace. The video includes a few words from artist Nathalie Quagliotto, who worked on two large-scale collaborative pieces done by The Art Collective during its show at the VAV Gallery in November 2005, in collaboration with the Painting and Drawing Association.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XziuyEdcZDA

Ztron also has a short video on YouTube from the PDA’s recent show, called Study in the City, FASA show 2007 Vernissage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WRqictGzKk

4) Attached to this note and posted on our website, you can read two excerpts from recent New York Times art stories: the first is about a show called “The Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings,” which will be at the Royal Academy of Arts in London from March 17 to June 10, and at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., from June 24 to Sept. 16. The second, “A Promise that Never Bloomed, a Post-Minimalist You’ve Never Heard Of,” by New York Times art writer Holland Carter, is about alternative art spaces in New York and a post-minimalist that the art world skipped over. You can read more excellent arts coverage at: http://www.nytimes.com/

http://Robert Winters, co-ordinator of The Art Collective

robertwinters@videotron.ca


]]> 5) One artist’s website worth visiting belongs to Juliana España Keller, a Montreal artist and curator who curated The Art Collective’s one-week interactive show in May 2006 at the high-profile CDEx gallery at Université du Québec à Montréal, which presents work by UQAM’s master’s level students.

http://www.julianaespanakeller.com

Images from the CDEx show can be seen on our website’s gallery section, at:
http://gallery.theartcollective.net/

Here is the site for the CDEx gallery, which is administered by Barbara Wall, of UQAM’s master’s program: http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/cendif/

This section below is from Juliana’s listing at: www.lightstalkers.org

Juliana Espana Keller is an interdisciplinary artist who brings art and life together. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing (2000) and a Masters degree in Sculpture (2003), both from Concordia University in Montreal. She explores and experiments with all contemporary media. She has recently curated two exhibitions in Montreal this year at Galerie Articule and Galerie Art Mur and her own work has been presented in many international venues; most recently at the Ice Box Project Space as part of the Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe, Philadelphia, USA, Galeria Nina Menocal, Mexico City, Mexico and Muu Gallery in Helsinki Finland. Her second solo exhibition with Galerie Art Mur opens in Montreal in October. More info. on this project can be found at: http://www.artmur.com.

A link to The Art Collective’s website can be found on this page:
www.julianaespanakeller.com/links.htm

Following is a description of an artist whose work was referred to by Montreal artist Adrian Norvid, who is advising The Art Collective in 2006-07, in discussions that led to this year’s Interactive Bunker project, which provides an imaginary look at what life would be like if it was forced underground because of an inhospitable surface environment.

If you go to The Art Collective’s website, at www.theartcollective.net, Alexis Rockman piece, from Border Crossings in November 2002, was one of the artworks used as a reference in our Interactive Bunker project in 2006-07. This project attempts to show how life might evolve if it was limited to underground spaces, faced with an inhospitable surface environment.

The following is from Rockman's listing in Wikipedia:

Alexis Rockman

Rockman's Manifest Destiny

Alexis Rockman (born 1962) is an American contemporary artist known for his paintings depicting the precarious relationship between man and nature. He has been exhibiting his work internationally since 1985, when he received a BFA in fine arts from the School of Visual Arts. His artworks are information-rich depictions of how our culture perceives and interacts with plants and animals, and the role culture plays in influencing the direction of natural history.

Believing that the past provides clues to the future, Rockman’s 8-by-24-foot mural, Manifest Destiny offers a view of the Brooklyn waterfront after catastrophic climate change. Consulting with experts in various fields, Rockman shows the haunting outcome 3000 years in the future past the ruins of the Brooklyn Bridge, following a sea-level rise caused by global warming. Included are the wrecks of a Dutch sailing ship and a 20th-century submarine, tropical plants and animals, and a two-tailed salmon resulting from genetic manipulation. Rockman's project suggests what the remote geological, botanical, and zoological future might bring, predicting the ecosystem of the area thousands of years ahead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_Rockman

This image is a section of Alexis Rockman's "Manifest Destiny" (8x24 feet, oil and acrylic on wood, 2004). Consulting with experts in various fields, the artist crafted a view 3000 years in the future past the ruins of the Brooklyn Bridge, following a sea-level rise caused by global warming. Included are the wrecks of a Dutch sailing ship and a 20th-century submarine, tropical plants and animals, and a two-tailed salmon resulting from genetic manipulation. Roughly 2/3 of the mural is shown here.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/xRockman.htm

"Alexis Rockman is a native of New York City. Born in 1962, he grew up in and around The Museum of Natural History. He is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts. His work has been exhibited internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions, and is in the permanent collections of several prominent institutions, including Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Brooklyn Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Baltimore Museum of Art."

David Elliott

Phantom Engineer


17 février - 17 mars 2007

February 17 - March 17, 2007

Vernissage : samedi le 17 février, 15h –17h

Opening: Saturday, February 17, 3 – 5 pm


David Elliott crée des univers carnavalesques où animaux, étoiles, l’homme et divers signes se côtoient. Il s’intéresse à des signes iconographiques qu’il peint sur un fond blanc, les faisant avancer dans l’espace. Elliott s’applique, dans ses dernières œuvres, à la formation d’une grille sous-jacente à ses compositions où l’on reconnaît la structure de l’abstraction formaliste. Ainsi, leurs compositions ressemblent à des jeux de cartes, des calendriers, des agendas et des équations mathématiques.


David Elliott creates carnivalesque orchestrations of animals, stars and people. This recent body of work explores the nakedness of the white gessoed ground, letting the visual events sit more bluntly on the surface. Elliott has self-consciously employed the grids and stripes of formalist abstraction, giving the paintings the look of playing cards, calendars, agendas or mathematical equations.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Le travail d’Elliott a été exposé dans divers lieux de diffusion nationaux et internationaux depuis 1974. En 1993, le Musée d’art moderne de Mexico a organisé une rétrospective de son oeuvre. Ses principales expositions sont True North: The Contemporary Canadian Landscape, au Musée des Beaux-arts Kaohsiung à Taiwan (1998), Instant Karma au Centre Saidye Bronfman de Montréal (2002) et une participation à la Deuxième Manifestation de l’art internationale qui a eu lieu à Québec en 2003. Il écrit également sur l’art, notamment pour la revue Canadian Art , et il enseigne à l’université Concordia.

Elliott’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally since 1974. In 1993 the Museo d’arte Moderno in Mexico City mounted a retrospective of his work. Other exhibitions include True North: The Contemporary Canadian Landscape at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan (1998), Instant Karma at the Saidye Bronfman Center in Montreal (2002), Deuxieme Manifestation de l’art internationale, Quebec City (2003), He also writes about art, contributing regularly to Canadian Art magazine, and teaches at Concordia University.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Galerie Joyce Yahouda Gallery

372 Sainte-Catherine Ouest, #516

Montréal,QC H3B 1A2

514.875.2323

info@joyceyahoudagallery.com

www.joyceyahoudagallery.com

Artistes / artists:

Alain Benoit, Jacques Bilodeau, David Elliott, Massimo Guerrera, Flutura & Besnik Haxhillari, Corine Lemieux,

François Morelli, Alana Riley, Stephen Schofield, Andrea Szilasi.

+ oeuvres de plusieurs autres artistes / + artworks of various artists.

Heures d’ouverture : mercredi au samedi, 12h – 17h et sur rendez-vous.

Opening hours : Wednesday to Saturday, 12pm – 5pm and by appointment.

Bill Vorn’s show:

January 11 – February 9
BILL VORN: RED LIGHT
RED LIGHT: A Reactive Robotic Installation by BILL VORN

Photo: Bill Vorn

Bill Vorn’s cybernetic, feral creatures inhabit a highly theatrical space that evokes the sensation of imminent danger. The moving, twitching machines instantly sense any human intrusion into their environment, emitting loud metallic sounds and flashing lights, and further reacting to human presence in unpredictable, menacing ways. By confronting such complex robotic creatures, the visitor learns to anticipate their erratic behavior, to negotiate a space of coexistence, and perhaps even to empathize with them. Since 1992, Vorn has explored the “aesthetics of artificial behavior” in various robotic art installations. RED LIGHT is his most recent reactive robotic environment.

The red light flooding the gallery space already alerts one to beware. Stepping into the RED LIGHT area, one finds oneself in the midst of eight strange, gesticulating bodies, consisting of long pneumatic and mechanical tubes with sensors. Six of these tentacle-like creatures are hanging from the ceiling, seemingly watching two others convulse on the ground. Immediately, they sense the presence of a visitor. Their tubular muscles contract and conflate, generating a wild play of strobe lights and hissing sounds. They move towards the visitor in a seemingly random, chaotic fashion. But even while they are drawn to the presence of the human intruder, they appear to be secretly communicating amongst themselves – or perhaps conspiring. Once one has entered their strange RED LIGHT habitat, one can no longer remain a passive, detached spectator. Whether choosing to interact with the robotic creatures by touching or moving around them, or whether remaining immobile, one inevitably finds oneself engaging with these animate machines, and by so doing, one becomes an integral part of the RED LIGHT spectacle.

Setting up a space where such human-machine interactions are played out is the goal of the artist, Bill Vorn. While wishing to explore the techniques and technologies relating to “parallel mechanics” and pneumatics, his primary aim is to create a space for human and machine behavioral interrelationships. This is a space where the human qualities of machines and the machine-like character of human beings “are intermixed” and where any behavioral distinctions between them “become blurred.”


http://

]]> François Morelli's show in Outremont/l'exposition de François Morelli tag:www.cogev.com,2006:/tac//1.149 2006-12-23T23:00:11Z 2006-12-26T01:27:50Z Montreal artist François Morelli's latest show, Parades, opens Jan. 11, 2007, and runs until Feb. 4, at la Galerie d’art d’Outremont. François, who has provided advice to The Art Collective and co-curated one of its shows, Below is a description... Robert W Montreal artist François Morelli's latest show, Parades, opens Jan. 11, 2007, and runs until Feb. 4, at la Galerie d’art d’Outremont. François, who has provided advice to The Art Collective and co-curated one of its shows,

Below is a description of his show, from the Gallery's website, which is at:http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/page/arr_out_fr/media/documents/Calendrier_expositions_2006-07.pdf

Il nous fait plaisir de vous annoncer l’exposition Parades de François Morelli qui aura lieu à la Galerie d’art d’Outremont du 11 janvier au 4 février 2007.

English translation of the text on the website, followed by the French text on the website:

For more than 15 years, François Morelli has printed on various media (paper, walls, sheets, clothing, skins…) through the use of special ink stamps he has produced by a Montreal company. He chooses each of the images, which he finds in illustrated books, his sketchbooks or in the objects in his work environment. As with collage, this involves a conversation of juxtaposition and inclusion. This heterogeneous compositional approach has parallels with Byzantine mosaic work as well as with the lyricism of heavy metal images on rock T-shirts.

Depuis plus de 15 ans, François Morelli imprime sur divers supports (papiers, murs, draps, vêtements, peaux…) à l’aide de tampons encreurs qu’il fait fabriquer mécaniquement par une industrie spécialisée. Il sélectionne chacune des images, qu’il récupère dans des livres illustrés, dans ses cahiers à dessins ou à partir d’objets se retrouvant dans son environnement de travail.
Comme dans le cas de la technique du collage, il s’agit très souvent d’opérer une rhétorique de la juxtaposition et de l’inclusion. Cette constitution hétérogène rappelle autant les mosaïques byzantines que l’imprimé heavy métal et pourtant lyrique d’un t-shirt de rocker.

]]> Bunker 2006: New Show by The Art Collective tag:www.cogev.com,2006:/tac//1.148 2006-12-21T17:18:16Z 2006-12-21T20:17:04Z Bunker 2006, the latest show by The Art Collective, was on display in the lobby of Concordia University's Visual Arts Building in November-December 2006. You can see the pieces in the show in our gallery, under Our Work. The show,... Robert W Bunker 2006, the latest show by The Art Collective, was on display in the lobby of Concordia University's Visual Arts Building in November-December 2006.

You can see the pieces in the show in our gallery, under Our Work.

The show, curated by Montreal artist Adrian Norvid, was exhibited while Adrian's own show was ongoing at Joyce Yahouda Gallery, at the Belgo building in downtown Montreal, 372 Ste. Catherine St. W., Suite 516.
You can visit the gallery's website at:
http://www.joyceyahoudagallery.com/

Collective member Stephanie Reynolds served as a curator at the Bunker 2006 show, working on the display of the work chosen by Adrian Norvid and playing an active role in co-ordinating the design and execution of the interactive underground bunker piece. Stephanie worked on many of the collective pieces chosen by Adrian for the show.

Adrian, who is giving feedback for the collective this year, is visiting professor of painting and drawing in the Studio Arts program of Concordia University’s Fine Arts Faculty. Adrian came up with the Bunker project idea during a discussion with collective co-ordinator Robert Winters about the collective’s special events this year.

]]> Draw Life Underground/Interactive Bunker Show/FASA/Stéphane Aquin of MMFA tag:www.cogev.com,2006:/tac//1.147 2006-11-28T05:22:12Z 2006-12-07T07:56:29Z You are invited to participate in The Art Collective’s Interactive Bunker show this Thursday (1 p.m. to 9 p.m.) and Friday (noon until 4 p.m.) in the lobby of the Visual Arts Building at the corner of Crescent St. and... Robert W You are invited to participate in The Art Collective’s Interactive Bunker show this Thursday (1 p.m. to 9 p.m.) and Friday (noon until 4 p.m.) in the lobby of the Visual Arts Building at the corner of Crescent St. and René-Lévesque Blvd. in downtown Montreal.

We will be creating a large-scale image of what life might be like if humans have to move underground to survive whatever calamity might take place on the surface of our planet.

Bunker habitations can suggest humans living like another species: eg. ants, other insects, burrowing animals. Our drawing will be interconnected large panels showing cutaway views of life inside the bunker. What can we see? Come and draw and paint your vision of life underground.

This is the first phase of a special project funded by the excellent Fine Arts Student Alliance at Concordia University; we have received $522 in special funding for materials so we’ll have lots of top-quality paper and materials, but feel free to bring your own materials to draw or paint with.

FASA's website is at:
http://fasa.concordia.ca/fasadirectory.htm

Adrian Norvid, visiting professor of painting and drawing, has contributed excellent ideas for implementing this project, which he conceived of. He is also expecting some artists from his class to come and work with us.

Adrian also has curated a new show of 20 collaborative pieces from our work since January and those will be on display during this ephemeral show. Pieces from the show will be posted in the Our Work section of our website.

You can see a drawing of one view of the Interactive Bunker in the Photos section of our website, done by Montreal artist Stephanie Reynolds, who is helping co-ordinate and curate the Bunker show. Member David King had his drawing of the bunker project chosen by Adrian for the show of our best work that will be displayed. Member Khadija C. Baker also worked on planning for the Bunker project.

]]> 2) Don’t miss Montreal artist Adrian Norvid’s show at Joyce Yahouda Gallery in the Belgo Building in downtown Montreal. Details are on the invite for the show, called Woodie Hoodie, which is posted in our Photos section of our website:

Joyce Yahouda Gallery's website is at:
http://www.joyceyahoudagallery.com/

3) Collective member David King’s work was featured in Concordia’s Graduating Students Exhibition in June along with work by member Shawn Kuruneru. A photo of David and Shawn, along with Ed Janzen, president of the Fine Arts Student Alliance in 2006-07, and Corina Kennedy, Art Matters co-producer in 2006 and a VAV Gallery curator for 2006-07, can be viewed on the website of the university’s Fine Arts Chapter of the Alumni Association.

http://alumni.concordia.ca/calendar/2006/06/14/007060.shtml

The above photo was taken by collective co-ordinator Robert Winters, who also has helped organize events for the Fine Arts Chapter, including the Nov. 14 presentation at Concordia by Stéphane Aquin, contemporary art curator at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. You can read about this event at the website below, and see photos of guests, including Celia Perrin-Sidarous, a final-year photography student, who is co-producer and co-artistic director of Concordia’s 2007 Art Matters Festival.

http://alumni.concordia.ca/calendar/2006/11/14/007979.shtml

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' website is at:
http://www.mmfa.qc.ca/en/index.html

Robert Winters
Co-ordinator of The Art Collective robertwinters@videotron.ca

]]> Interactive Bunker/Adrian Norvid's show/David King's work/Khadija C. Baker's work/Holly King's work in MOCCA show tag:www.cogev.com,2006:/tac//1.146 2006-11-22T07:03:39Z 2006-12-07T07:17:49Z This Friday (Nov. 24), drop by VA 315, 10 to 130, have some fresh bagels and grape juice, and help create the visual framework for our Interactive Bunker project. We’ll be sketching out on large pieces of stonehenge paper the... Robert W This Friday (Nov. 24), drop by VA 315, 10 to 130, have some fresh bagels and grape juice, and help create the visual framework for our Interactive Bunker project.

We’ll be sketching out on large pieces of stonehenge paper the structure for an imaginary underground bunker where humans and other creatures make their habitat sometime in the future.

Then you can be a curator/co-ordinator of the Bunker project which takes place Thursday afternoon and evening (Nov. 30) and on Friday during the day (Dec. 1), in the Visual Arts building lobby at the corner of Crescent St. and Rene-Levesque Blvd. in downtown Montreal. Interaction with any artists that want to participate is encouraged. This is the first stage of our special project funded by Concordia’s Fine Arts Student Alliance. Please let me know if you would like to be a curator/co-ordinator for a section of paper linking this Bunker project; each section will be documented in terms of participants, and will be presented on our website.

2) Don’t miss Adrian Norvid’s excellent exhibition of drawings, which continues at Joyce Yahouda Gallery, at the Belgo building in downtown Montreal, 372 Ste. Catherine St. W., Suite 516. The show runs until Dec. 17.
You can visit the gallery's website at:
http://www.joyceyahoudagallery.com/

Below, you can read more about Adrian and his work. Adrian, who is giving feedback for the collective this year, is visiting professor of painting and drawing in the Studio Arts program of Concordia University’s Fine Arts Faculty. Adrian came up with the strong Bunker project idea during a brainstorming session about the collective’s special events this year.

]]> 3) Take a look at the Photos section of our website to see three new images of work by member David King, a Montreal artist who is in his third year as a member of The Art Collective.

David worked on the distinctive tree mural at the collective’s one-week exhibition at UQAM’s CDEx exhibition; photos of this mural are in the Photos section.

In describing his work, David says: “All my work is derived from numbers and algorithms; it is from these simple begins that complex patterns emerge. Complexity from simplicity. This mimics the basics principles of the operation of life on all levels of existence.”

4) There also is an image from an animated film provided by Montreal artistKhadija C. Baker, who is in her second year as a member of the collective. The animation piece was partly funded by Concordia University’s Fine Arts Student Alliance and was presented at a student film festival at the school.

Khadija, a painter and photographer as well, says that in this piece, titled Totico, which means crazy in Kurdish, “I try to focus on issues surrounding war, as an endless circle “by using dance and fight, which present love and hate. The use of chocolate as an image is related to its role as a traditional sign of love, and “scratching the surface is my way of showing the violence in the action of war to create my animation, which emphasizes the anger of war.”

5) Montreal artist Holly King, who has helped curate two shows by The Art Collective, has work in a new show opening at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto, led by director David Liss, a Concordia graduate. The opening reception is Saturday 2 to 5 p.m. if you are in Toronto on the weekend.

For more information:

http://www.mocca.toronto.on.ca/

MAINSPACE EXHIBITION
The Invisible Landscape revealing our place in the world
November 25, 2006 – January 21, 2007
Public reception: November 25, 2006 2-5 p.m.
Bertram Brooker, Emily Carr, Paterson Ewen, Robert Flack, Betty Goodwin, Lawren S. Harris,
Holly King, Ernest Lawson, Jock Macdonald, Jane Ash Poitras, Roland Poulin, Eric Renner, Gerhard Richter, Jack Shadbolt, Thomas Sivuraq, Bill Viola, Joel-Peter Witkin.

Robert Winters

Co-ordinator of The Art Collective

robertwinters@videotron.ca

To read about Adrian Norvid’s show at Jessica Bradley gallery in Toronto, click this link:

http://www.jessicabradleyartprojects.com/artists/adrian_norvid/show">http://www.jessicabradleyartprojects.com/artists/adrian_norvid/show">http://www.jessicabradleyartprojects.com/artists/adrian_norvid/show

This description below is at this web page which is part of a Road Trip project that Adrian was involved in, that also included Will Gorlitz, who has shown at Galerie Rene Blouin in the Belgo Building, Margaret Lawther and Adrian Blackwell:

http://georgeloney.com/eloraCentre/docs/RoadTripArtistsBiographies.pdf#search=%22%22adrian%20norvid%22%22">http://georgeloney.com/eloraCentre/docs/RoadTripArtistsBiographies.pdf#search=%22%22adrian%20norvid%22%22">http://georgeloney.com/eloraCentre/docs/RoadTripArtistsBiographies.pdf#search=%22%22adrian%20norvid%22%22

Adrian Norvid received an MFA from York University in 1986. His recent solo exhibitions include: AKA Gallery in Saskatoon, Galerie B312 in Montreal and AxeNeo7 in Gatineau Quebec. His work was also featured recently in the “Other Worlds” exhibition at Jessica Bradley Art and Projects in Toronto. In 2005 he participated in the Symposium Internationale d’Art de Baie-Saint-Paul. He has upcoming exhibitions at Galerie Joyce Yahouda and the Societe des Arts sur Papier, both in Montreal. He currently teaches at Concordia University. Adrian Norvid works on very large format drawings exploring themes of underachievement, misbehaviour and decrepitude.


]]> Interactive Bunker Project tag:www.cogev.com,2006:/tac//1.145 2006-11-09T17:07:43Z 2006-11-17T07:15:02Z Come and join us every week on Friday, 10 to 130, VA 315, corner of Rene-Levesque and Crescent. Have some grape juice, fresh bagels and make fresh art. Adrian Norvid, this year’s visiting Professor of Painting and Drawing at Concordia’s... Robert W Come and join us every week on Friday, 10 to 130, VA 315, corner of Rene-Levesque and Crescent. Have some grape juice, fresh bagels and make fresh art.

Adrian Norvid, this year’s visiting Professor of Painting and Drawing at Concordia’s Studio Arts program, has made the excellent suggestion that our large-scale interactive project could be the creation of a bunker image, a bit like an ant farm seen from the side. This underground city offers countless panels for showing life in this new civilization, and the panels of images can fit together to make a very large image. We will use a total of eight rolls of Stonehenge paper, provided by our grant from the Fine Arts Student Alliance. Other ideas are also being discussed, pass along your thoughts.

Adrian is preparing his show of drawings at Joyce Yahouda gallery in the high-profile Belgo building in downtown Montreal; news about the opening will be in next week’s note.

Check out new images from our live television collaborative art making project with Art Matters on Global television. The images were prepared as part of our documentation of the TV appearance in March; clips are being prepared for our website.

]]>
Montreal artist David King, who worked on the mural project at our CDEx gallery show in May, will be helping co-ordinate work on the large scale interactive project we’re doing. David, artist Cassandra Wittome and Robert Winters collaborated on several pieces last week, including work begun by Montreal artists Stephanie Reynolds, Carina Phillips and Marisa Hoicka.

Check out the News section on our website for excerpts from excellent New York Times stories on the growing power of art advisers in the art world and the changing Los Angeles art scene.

Robert Winters

Co-ordinator of The Art Collective robertwinters@videotron.ca


]]> Los Angeles Art World Morphs tag:www.cogev.com,2006:/tac//1.144 2006-11-09T00:00:03Z 2006-11-17T07:16:38Z This excerpt from a New York Times story provides a fascinating look at the changing art world in Los Angeles. October 1, 2006 Artquake By BRUCE HAINLEY New York Times I am amused by fancy art-world types who breeze into... Robert W This excerpt from a New York Times story provides a fascinating look at the changing art world in Los Angeles.

October 1, 2006
Artquake
By BRUCE HAINLEY
New York Times
I am amused by fancy art-world types who breeze into Los Angeles planning to “get” the scene in a few days. They would have better luck reading “In Search of Lost Time” over a long weekend. America’s second-largest city sprawls — physically, aesthetically, socially — over nearly 500 square miles, so any attempt to nutshell the burg and its cultural bazaar takes on comic aspects. Note that the Pompidou Center’s recent survey of Los Angeles art was called “The Birth of an Artistic Capital” and that Michael Govan, the new director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has declared Los Angeles the new New York, forgetting perhaps that Angelenos have never wished to be New Yorkers and that long before the 1955 birth date pronounced by the Pompidou, Hollywood was producing things as provocative, philosophical and influential as anything given the name of, well, art.
Sun, sand, great surf, a climate usually allowing a smooth shift from beachwear to cashmere pullover and until recently — “recently” thanks to no major earthquake in more than a decade and brutalized New Yorkers’ finding respite here — relatively cheap studio and living spaces, all with easy access to the materials of the film, television and porn industries, explain why anyone, not just artists, would wish to live and work here.

]]> “In the 50’s there was no art scene in L.A. at all,” Tom Marioni wrote some 30 years ago in his artist-driven publication Vision. Marioni, that great conceptual troublemaker, encouraged aesthetics to mellow, so that we can all now claim that “The Act of Drinking Beer With Friends Is the Highest Form of Art” (as his 1970 “social sculpture” was titled). By his estimation, “not until about ’64 or ’65 did L.A. become known as an art center.” He also thought that the L.A. scene “burned fast and extinguished itself in 10 years,” but perhaps a few too many brews combined with the weather in his hometown of San Francisco had fogged his perspective. You would have to ignore that by 1964 Irving Blum’s Ferus Gallery had already put on landmark shows (including Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans”) and that by 1975 Cal Arts was on fire: the institute could already claim as alums Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl, Barbara Bloom, Troy Brauntuch, Jack Goldstein and David Salle. But they all quickly decamped to New York — never mind that Robert Irwin, an L.A. native, and Ed Ruscha, a transplant from Oklahoma, had thrived out West long before their alma mater existed in Valencia. It was some combination of John Baldessari moving to L.A. to teach many of those first Cal Arts grads and, soon after, the Cal Arts graduate Mike Kelley not moving to New York, that significantly changed the situation.
Although such a synopsis jettisons all nuance, in L.A. it is not a confluence of museums, auction houses and galleries but the intense nexus of art schools (there are five major players, all vying to win the tartest students) and their renowned faculties (including, to cherry-pick one from each school, Mike Kelley, Catherine Opie, Thomas Lawson, Frances Stark and Larry Johnson) that remain key to challenging what art will be. Often, an early sign of artistic success in New York is when the artist no longer has to teach to pay the rent; for over 30 years, major artists in L.A. have continued to teach in addition to carrying on stellar careers. Contrary to the air-headed local stereotype, it’s as if to be an artist worth the name means educating younger practitioners how to think critically about what is seen, an education the world, and image-obese America especially, too frequently has abandoned, since images are understood to be, I guess, transparent. (Dude, no way!) Combine this pedagogic tradition with the fact that one of the sharpest art journals anywhere, Afterall, is co-published here, and L.A. can shrug its shoulders.
Of course, no one wishes to be enrolled forever. It would be jejune to think that schools could, or should, provide more than the equivalent of a pair of Ray-Bans to guard against the UV rays of a solar art market. Carefree without major auction action and no distracting art fair (or, at least, not yet), L.A.’s galleries thrive as a system in which smarts and fun are on almost equal footing with business. The reigning gallery style is brisk and low-key chic compared with Chelsea’s grand, mausoleumlike airs, and its gallerists, with lower overhead, take relatively more risks, mixing things up with bright group shows by non-gallery artists. New venues have been springing up like some genetically altered mushroom able to thrive in full sunshine. The already decentralized metropolis can now boast of galleries in neighborhoods from Culver City (the current center of buzz, if not always daring cerebration) to Chinatown and Santa Monica. Any thinking person would have to count David Kordansky’s and Daniel Hug’s galleries as well as Solo Projects and Sister, helmed, respectively, by Tom Solomon and Katie Brennan, as serious players. There is also Trudi, a brazen, vitrinelike alternative to the Wrong Gallery; the innovative nonprofit Outpost for Contemporary Art; and the inaugural sessions of the Sundown Schoolhouse, spearheaded by the indefatigable architect and catalyst, Fritz Haeg.
And, hey, the artist-impresarios Flora Wiegmann, Drew Heitzler and Justin Beal’s new bar, the Mandrake, gives needed juice to the Culver City drag, a place not only to spotlight what’s really on the local minds (the artist-curator Darren Bader’s bicoastal shindig, “Grupe,” started things off with a bang) or to test with friends the highest forms but also to sit in the corner, sloe-eyed, researching the timely goings-on.
L.A. has been nominated as an art capital before, and it will be again when the spotlight moves elsewhere. (Mexico City? Shanghai?) Gagosian Beverly Hills’s Oscar-week opening remains the only heady swirl of art and industry in Tinseltown. Art making goes on despite it all, behind closed doors, which is why it matters. Party of one — or plus one.
Bruce Hainley is associate director of graduate studies in criticism and theory at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. He is the author most recently of “Foul Mouth,” published by 2nd Cannons Publications.


For more New York Times coverage of the art world, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/

]]> Powerful role of Art Advisers tag:www.cogev.com,2006:/tac//1.142 2006-11-07T23:40:56Z 2006-11-09T23:57:47Z This excerpt from an excellent New York Times story discusses the growing influence of art advisers in the art world. October 15, 2006 Art Advisers By MIA FINEMAN New York Times WITH so many wealthy collectors competing for the work... Robert W This excerpt from an excellent New York Times story discusses the growing influence of art advisers in the art world.

October 15, 2006

Art Advisers
By MIA FINEMAN
New York Times
WITH so many wealthy collectors competing for the work of a few dozen international art stars, top galleries are in a position to handpick their clientele these days, keeping long and closely guarded waiting lists for new work. As a result, many insiders say, today’s art consultants are valued as much for their entree as for their advice on choice acquisitions.
“The most important thing an art adviser can provide is access,” said Mark Fletcher, 44, an adviser who specializes in postwar art with an emphasis on emerging artists. “It’s become much more difficult to buy art these days, especially in the primary market, which is highly imperfect because, unlike auction buying, it’s a closed system based largely on relationships of trust.”
Like many top advisers Mr. Fletcher spent years forging connections in the art world before starting his own business in 1998. He worked for several years as director of the Gladstone Gallery in New York, and then in London at Anthony d’Offay Gallery.

]]> These days he works out of a stunning apartment on the 66th floor of the Time Warner building, which he shares with his companion, Tobias Meyer, worldwide head of contemporary art at Sotheby’s. Displayed on their living room walls are exactly the sorts of contemporary art trophies ambitious collectors are competing for: a huge Warhol silkscreen of a .22-caliber pistol; a sculpture of a dollar sign in shimmering lights by the British artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster; and a John Currin painting, “The Clairvoyant,” depicting a beautiful young woman with cloudy blue eyes.
So, can a well-connected adviser help a collector gain access to highly desirable works like these?
“If the adviser knows what they’re doing, the answer is yes,” said David Zwirner, whose Chelsea gallery represents a number of highly sought-after artists, including the figurative painters Neo Rauch, Luc Tuymans and Lisa Yuskavage.
“There are a lot of novice collectors out there who don’t realize that you can’t run through the door and make your first purchase,” Mr. Zwirner said. “You have to finesse your way to that. Primary market galleries like us often have three-year waiting lists. We’re very picky.”
This means that while advisers are selling the merits of a particular artist to their clients, they must also sell their clients to the gallery.
“I’ve definitely felt that there’s a certain hazing ritual in art buying,” said Lowell Pettit, an art adviser in Long Island City, Queens, who often works with first-time buyers and young collectors. “Galleries literally want your C.V. and that of your client” before they will part with their best inventory.
Since the art adviser’s profession is unlicensed and transactions are unregulated, it is difficult to know how many are operating today. But in general top-tier gallery owners report that 10 percent to 30 percent of their sales of contemporary art involve advisers, and that they are encountering more of them than ever before.
Contemporary art can be notoriously hard to navigate of course.
“With over 300 galleries in Chelsea alone, most people are intimidated and don’t know where to begin,” Mr. Pettit said. “With an adviser you evolve a conversation and at the very least narrow down certain interests, certain preferences, which leads you to certain artists and galleries.”
When a collector falls in love with a work that is out of his price range or that has an impossibly long waiting list, Mr. Pettit said, he will try to track down less expensive works — like editioned prints, multiples or works on paper — by the same artist.
Two years ago, for example, a client who had acquired a large gridlike painting by Dan Walsh was seeking another Minimalist work with a repeating grid structure. Since a major Minimalist sculpture was beyond the client’s means, Mr. Pettit recommended an editioned suite of photographs by Sol Lewitt, “A Sphere Lit From the Top, Four Sides, and All Their Combinations” (2004), consisting of 28 pictures arranged in a grid. The client purchased the work for less than $50,000, which “could have easily been the sales tax alone on a larger, significant sculpture by the artist,” Mr. Pettit said.
Sometimes collectors balk at an adviser’s recommendation, given that “great art often doesn’t look like art,” said Thea Westreich, an art adviser in SoHo.
In 1992, for example, Ms. Westreich recommended a sculpture by the artist Robert Gober to Norman and Norah Stone, a psychologist and former corporate lawyer in San Francisco who own works by Jeff Koons, Richard Prince and Matthew Barney, as well as by younger artists like Keith Tyson, Simon Starling and Cheyney Thompson.
At first Ms. Stone found the sculpture, which consists of a pair of handmade nonfunctioning urinals, mystifyingly banal.
“I didn’t understand it or have any desire to own it,” she said by telephone from California. “Then something clicked.”
The Stones purchased the work at a Christie’s auction for $154,000 (a bargain by today’s standards, when similar pieces by the artist run in the high six figures) and installed it in the hallway outside Ms. Stone’s home office. “I’m actually quite attached to it now,” she said.
Payment arrangements for art advisers vary. Some work on commission, generally charging about 10 percent of the retail price of any work of art their client purchases. Others charge a monthly or annual fee, based on the client’s estimated spending budget and how much time the adviser devotes to building the collection.
In some cases advisers will request a commission from the gallery, but this arrangement is “by far the least appealing,” said the Chelsea dealer Marianne Boesky.
Dealers are particularly wary of advisers who demand a commission from the gallery without making the buyer aware of the transaction. The worst, Ms. Boesky said, are “the Long Island ladies who come into the gallery with a group of girlfriends, and then call in from the street and say, ‘If my friends buy anything, make sure you give me a commission.’ ”
Because they often handle purchases that run into the millions of dollars, discretion and confidentiality are prized, and most advisers try to stay out of the spotlight. But in recent years several high-profile tax-evasion cases have drawn some unwelcome attention to the field.
In June 2002 L. Dennis Kozlowski, the former chairman of Tyco International, was indicted on charges of failing to pay New York sales tax on the purchase of $13.1 million worth of art he bought with the help of Christine A. Berry, an art adviser with offices in New York and Palm Beach, Fla. (In a settlement last May, Mr. Kozlowski agreed to pay $3.2 million in sales tax and interest.) In May 2004 Ms. Westreich pleaded guilty to similar charges in a different case.
While most in the top rank come to the advising profession after years of experience in galleries, museums or auction houses, there is no standard career path or certification process.
“Calling yourself an art adviser today is like calling yourself a decorator in the 80’s,” said Allan Schwartzman, a Manhattan art adviser who has served as a curator at the New Museum, directed a gallery and written about art for several magazines. “Anyone who prints up a business card can call themselves an art adviser.”
But this may be changing. This year for the first time Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York is offering a graduate-level certificate program in art business that prepares students for a variety of careers, including art advising.
Steven L. Brezzo, director of the Institute, said 45 students were enrolled in the art business program, and perhaps seven or eight were interested in “individual or corporate art consulting in the contemporary field.” Students take courses in art research methods, art law, business ethics, art valuation and financial analysis, among other subjects.
Art advising is “kind of a schizophrenic specialty,” Mr. Brezzo said. “It requires that the person be part connoisseur, with the eye of a decorator, the analytical skills of a C.P.A., the logistical skill of a general, the grit of an entrepreneur and most likely, the diplomatic finesse of a Presbyterian minister.”
The enlistment of art experts by wealthy collectors has long precedent in the United States. In the early years of the 20th century the British art dealer Joseph Duveen and the art historian Bernard Berenson advised some of this country’s greatest collectors, including Henry Clay Frick, Isabella Stewart Gardner, J. P. Morgan and Andrew Mellon, cultivating in them an expensive new taste for old master paintings.
While today’s art market is more international than ever, with biennials held in cities from Beijing to Berlin, employing art advisers remains a predominantly American practice.
“Americans more than other people tend to want to do the correct thing,” said Barbara Gladstone, a dealer in Chelsea. “Europeans are more individual. They have confidence in themselves, in their own taste, in their own take on things.”
Sometimes an adviser can help reconcile a collector’s personal taste with the desire to build a historically coherent collection. For example, in 1997 Howard Rachofsky, a former hedge fund manager in Dallas, hired Mr. Schwartzman specifically to help him assemble a collection of art that would complement a new house he had commissioned from the architect Richard Meier.
The sleek lines of the house led them to focus on the work of Minimalist and Post-Minimalist artists like Donald Judd, Robert Ryman and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Mr. Rachofsky loved Abstract Expressionism, but this more painterly style didn’t fit. So Mr. Schwartzman suggested a painting from the same period by the Argentine-born Italian artist Lucio Fontana, an aesthetic forerunner of Minimalism.
“This work gave historical weight and momentum to collecting Minimalism,” Mr. Schwartzman explained. “It became a kind of existential launching pad for the collection.”
Mr. Rachofsky has since donated his art collection, along with the house that inspired it, to the Dallas Museum of Art.
In one sign of their growing art-world prominence, advisers are broadly quoted in a new book, “Collecting Contemporary,” a compendium of inside advice for aspiring collectors by Adam Lindemann, an art collector and media entrepreneur. The book, published by Taschen, consists of excerpts from interviews with 40 art-world power players, among them five art advisers, including Ms. Westreich and Mr. Fletcher.
“These advisers — the ones I include in my book and many others out there — have tremendous power,” Mr. Lindemann said in an interview in his West Chelsea office. “If they thumb-up or thumb-down it, an artist’s career can grow or it can shrink.”
When investing in a market as volatile and unpredictable as that of contemporary art, working with an adviser makes financial sense, Mr. Lindemann said. “The 10 percent that one pays for that advice can pay off in multiples,” he said. “The art world is a world of winners and losers. It’s not a world of small, incremental changes. The hits are astounding, but the misses are also astounding.
“If you’re going to make a meaningful investment in art, it’s really important to believe in someone, unless you want to make a lot of mistakes and learn from your mistakes.”
Asked what constitutes a mistake, he replied: “Anything that’s not smart. Either you bought something that’s out of favor, or you overpaid for something, or you bought a dud. I think the worst mistake one can make is to pick the right artist but buy the wrong piece.”
While money may not get you everything you want in the art world, Mr. Lindemann is not about to deny its importance when it comes to collecting contemporary art.
“Money does matter,” he writes in the book’s introduction, adding, “The picture always looks better when someone offers you two, three or 10 times the return on your investment.”
Mia Fineman is a senior research associate in the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

For more New York Times coverage of the art world, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/

]]> FASA funding/VAV show (David Elliott, François Morelli, Adrian Norvid)/Moore on collaboration/Ed Janzen show/Juliana Keller in Sweden/Damien Hirst's Dead Shark tag:www.cogev.com,2006:/tac//1.143 2006-11-05T23:44:48Z 2006-11-09T23:53:01Z Drop by our meeting this week; make some fresh art while enjoying fresh bagels and grape juice. 10 to 130, VA 315 each Friday morning. Damien Hirst: To read an excellent New York Times article about British artist Damien... Robert W Drop by our meeting this week; make some fresh art while enjoying fresh bagels and grape juice. 10 to 130, VA 315 each Friday morning.

Damien Hirst: To read an excellent New York Times article about British artist Damien Hirst and the Dead Shark, his battle to restore his famous Dead Shark piece, check out excerpts on our website (under news) at: www.theartcollective.net

2) We received $522 in funding from Concordia’s Fine Arts Student Alliance to do interactive projects and you can be involved in co-ordinating one or more of these event. We have to figure out when they should take place, what themes we should have and what kind of special guests we might want to have. If these events are in the evening, this could allow several Collective participants to join us who can’t make daytime events. The money will cover a full roll of stonehenge paper and supplies for each event, so there are interesting possibilities to talk about.

3) Don’t miss the excellent Salon Rouge show at the VAV Gallery in downtown Montreal, which continues until Nov. 10, which includes work by three high-profile Montreal artists who have helped The Art Collective: David Elliott, François Morelli and Adrian Norvid.

David Elliott, chair of the Studio Arts department, presented a major show at Joyce Yahouda Gallery in the Belgo building in late 2004. You can read about the show here:

http://ctr.concordia.ca/2004-05/oct_21/16/

You can read about François Morelli’s recent shows at the Belgo building in this article in The Journal:

http://cjournal.concordia.ca/journalarchives/2006-07/oct_12/007793.shtml

Adrian Norvid, who is giving feedback on the Collective this year, has a show opening shortly at Joyce Yahouda Gallery.

]]> In the VAV show there is also video work by Juliana Pivato, whose Fine Arts Reading Room project helped the Collective in its early development. You can read about a previous project she did at the VAV Gallery here:

http://ctr.concordia.ca/2003-04/april_22/14/

Another not-to-be missed show coming up at the VAV Gallery runs Nov. 27 to Dec. 8. It’s called Bulwark and it includes Collective members Sonomi Tanaka, Bea Parsons and Shawn Kuruneru.

For information about the VAV Gallery and its shows: http://www.vavgallery.com/

4) Collaboration: As part of our project’s reflection on collaboration, Montreal artist David Moore stopped by last week and passed on a note on the value of creative collaboration, a citation from Jorge-Luis Borges, a Nobel prize-winner, who wrote about collaboration in The Aleph and Other Stories. David, a Studio Arts professor, said he was impressed with Borges’s frankness in describing his collaboration as having led to work that was better than anything he had written himself.

Jorge-Luis Borges: “I have often been asked how collaboration is possible. I think it requires a joint abandoning of the ego, of vanity and maybe of common politeness. The collaborators should forget themselves and think only in terms of the work. In fact, when somebody wants to know whether such-and-such a joke or epithet came from my side of the table or Bioy’s, I honestly cannot tell him. I have tried to collaborate with other friends – some of them very close ones – but their inability to be blunt on the one hand or thick-skinned on the other has made the scheme impossible. As to the Chronicles of Bustas Domecq, I think they are better than anything I have published under my own name and nearly as good as anything Bioy has written on his own.”

If you have a reflection about collaboration, or want to pass on something you come across, that would be great; we are collecting this type of information for a journal which will be called Collaboration.

5) Two Montreal artists, Ed Janzen, president of Concordia’s Fine Arts Student Alliance, and Hélène Brousseau, FASA’s v.p. finance, are presenting work at the Espace Perspective gallery, at 19 Fairmount East. The show runs until Saturday, November 13.

6) Juliana Espana Keller, who curated The Art Collective’s one-week CDEx show in May, is in a show in Sweden that is worth checking out.

http://www.300m3.com/

When you have a chance, take a look at images from our CDEx show in the Photos section. Collective members Judith Brisson, Angeliki Gketsou, Marisa Hoicka, David King, Celine Lapointe, Sylvain Vachon and Robert Winters spent a week turning the gallery into an installation, complete with murals and reborn found objects, with the participation of artists and other visitors who collaborated with our process.

Robert Winters

Co-ordinator of The Art Collective robertwinters@videotron.ca

]]> Damien Hirst and the Dead Shark tag:www.cogev.com,2006:/tac//1.140 2006-11-02T15:11:45Z 2006-11-09T23:59:12Z This is an excerpt from an excellent New York Times story about Damien Hirst dealing with his dead shark piece Swimming With Famous Dead Sharks By CAROL VOGEL ASTON DOWN AIRFIELD, England - In this vast Gloucestershire flatland dotted with... Robert W This is an excerpt from an excellent New York Times story about Damien Hirst dealing with his dead shark piece

Swimming With Famous Dead Sharks
By CAROL VOGEL
ASTON DOWN AIRFIELD, England - In this vast Gloucestershire flatland dotted with abandoned airplane hangars, a former Royal Air Force Station where pilots once plotted classified missions during World War II, the artist Damien Hirst was overseeing a secret operation of his own one recent morning.
It was a delicate undertaking, one that required rubberized protective jumpsuits, long tables of medical equipment and more than 224 gallons of formaldehyde. The goal: to replace the decaying tiger shark that floats in one of Mr. Hirst’s best-known works of Conceptual art, “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.”
As rap music quietly played in the background, five men and one woman wearing bright yellow suits, black rubber gloves and breathing masks huddled over the shark’s hulking 13-foot-long replacement. The immediate impression was that the shark was being treated by a team of acupuncturists: some 200 large needles dotted its body.
So toxic was the air that the property could be reached only through security-coded iron gates, and no one, not even the artist, was allowed near the shark without protective gear. As Mr. Hirst, 41, looked on, he plucked a long hypodermic needle from a nearby worktable.

]]> “Three different lengths of needles are being used to inject the shark with formaldehyde,’’ he said proudly, with the air of a child showing off a new toy. He flexed the syringe to demonstrate how the needles are inserted into the animal twice, each time penetrating deeper into the body cavity. “The last shark was never injected, so it decayed from the inside.’’
The original shark — a 14-footer that was caught and killed by a fisherman in Australia at Mr. Hirst’s behest in 1991 — was first unveiled to the public in its glass tank the following year at the Saatchi Gallery in London. It quickly became a symbol of the shock tactics common to the circle known as the Young British Artists.
Charles Saatchi, the advertising magnate and collector, had commissioned Mr. Hirst to make the work for £50,000, now about $95,000. At the time that sum was considered so enormous that the British tabloid The Sun heralded the transaction with the headline “50,000 for Fish Without Chips.’’
But as a result of inadequate preservation efforts, time was not kind to the original, which slowly decomposed until its form changed, its skin grew deeply wrinkled, and the solution in the tank turned murky. (It didn’t help that the Saatchi Gallery added bleach to the solution, hastening the decay, staff members at Mr. Hirst’s studio said.) In 1993 Mr. Saatchi’s curators finally had the shark skinned and stretched the skin over a fiberglass mold.
“It didn’t look as frightening,’’ Mr. Hirst recalled. “You could tell it wasn’t real. It had no weight.’’
In recent years Mr. Saatchi has been selling off works by the Young British Artists that he collected so voraciously in the 90’s, and two years ago “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’’ was purchased by the hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen, who lives in Greenwich, Conn. He paid $8 million for it, one of the highest prices at the time for a work of contemporary art.
The impetus was a call from Larry Gagosian, the Manhattan dealer, alerting him to Mr. Saatchi’s intention to sell. Mr. Cohen knew the shark’s history and its problems: that the piece was never properly injected with formaldehyde, and what was floating in the tank was a fiberglass shadow of its former self. But in a funny way, that too had its appeal.
“Is it real? Isn’t it real?’’ Mr. Cohen said. “I liked the whole fear factor.’’
But Mr. Hirst didn’t. When he learned of Mr. Cohen’s plans to buy the 22-ton work, he volunteered to replace the shark. “I frequently work on things after a collector has them,’’ the artist said. “I recently called a collector who owns a fly painting because I didn’t like the way it looked, so I changed it slightly.’’
As it turns out, Mr. Cohen is paying for the replacement project, although he declined to say how much it would cost, other than to call the expense “inconsequential.’’ (The procedure involving the injection of formaldehyde alone adds up to about $100,000, including labor and materials.)
Mr. Hirst began by contacting his shark sources in Australia. And a year ago he bought the second tiger shark, this one from a fisherman who caught it just off the Queensland coast and killed it. It was shipped by sea freighter in a special 20-foot freezer with backup power, a journey that took roughly two months. Meanwhile the original tank was being renovated.
PURPOSELY provocative and sometimes disturbing, Mr. Hirst is probably Britain’s most controversial artist. Lines form around the block at gallery openings of his work, and fans often shout when they recognize him in the street. Some art critics praise him for acquainting a young generation with conceptual art nearly a century after Marcel Duchamp unveiled his porcelain urinal; other critics deride him as an artist of gimmicks and one-liners. In 1995, when he won Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize for “Mother and Child Divided,’’ a cow and a calf cut into sections and exhibited in a series of vitrines, Brian Sewell of The Evening Standard of London wrote that it was “no more interesting than a stuffed pike over a pub door.’’
Mr. Hirst has arranged rotting cows to simulate copulation, and displayed sheep preserved in formaldehyde and maggots attacking a cow’s head. He has filled glass-fronted shelves with hundreds of bottles and boxes of drugs, displayed dead animals and skeletons in cabinets, and produced canvases covered with real flies and butterflies.
In the airplane hanger where the shark is being worked on — a vast space with several eight-foot-tall freezers filled with dead animals — he continues to explore variations on those themes. Four crucified fiberglass cows, their skins stretched over molds, lie on the floor. Nearby is a table of skulls. Canvases hold the beginnings of what Mr. Hirst said would become a series inspired by the Beatles’ “White Album,’’ which he said he might call “Bigger Than God, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.’’
“I’ve also tried to do a Pietà with cows,’’ he said, pointing to a marble-edged tank ready to be filled. Nearby is “Mr. Potter’s Curiosity Museum,’’ a doll’s house filled with dead, stuffed animals — rabbits, cats, birds, mice, turtles, frogs — that he bought from a taxidermist in Cornwall.
Reportedly one of the richest men in Britain, Mr. Hirst can now afford to run multiple studios in London and in Gloucestershire, some two hours west of the capital, equipped with freezers full of dead animals and emergency generators in case of a power failure.
Such is his reputation that when a seven-foot shark washed up on a beach in July, and the Natural History Museum in London needed a place to store it until its staff was ready to preserve it, the first call it made was to Mr. Hirst.
“They asked if I had any room in my freezer,’’ he said with satisfaction. He was happy to oblige.
Oliver Crimmen, a scientist and fish curator at the Natural History Museum in London, was in the formaldehyde pool with the shark, directing the operation. Mr. Hirst had enlisted his help to ensure that this specimen would last longer than its predecessor. “It’s like cookery,’’ Mr. Hirst mused. “There are loads of recipes.’’
Mr. Crimmen is experienced mainly in preserving fish like giant squid and swordfish. “Normally the fish I work on are smaller,” he said, “so I have adapted the recipe to the shark’s weight, which is 1.92 metric tons. It is critically important to make sure the fluid penetrates all the tissues.’’
During a short lunch break, over sandwiches and soft drinks, Mr. Crimmen explained the procedure. The shark — a female about 25 to 30 years old, middle-aged in shark terms — would spend about two weeks in a bath filled with a 7 percent formalin solution, made of dissolved formaldehyde gas and water.
“There are places you cannot reach with needles, like its fin, skull and the spinal column,’’ Mr. Crimmen said. So the shark is immersed in the bath to allow the formaldehyde to be absorbed through the skin. The mission required 34 barrels — each containing 6.6 gallons— of formaldehyde. At night a lid is put over the pool, and the shark is left to marinate.
“You have to have a carefully mapped injection program,’’ Mr. Crimmen said. “There are no nice tests to see if the formaldehyde has been properly absorbed deep inside the shark. You have to see how the specimen behaves to the touch. If it is hard when manipulated and bent, it means it has properly penetrated into the animal’s body tissues.’’
Unlike most fish, the scientist explained, sharks do not have bony skeletons; theirs are made of cartilage, which is relatively flexible. “Even their jaws, which you might think are made of bone, are actually made of hard cartilage, which has a limited life span and can crumble over time,’’ Mr. Crimmen said. So if the body is to last for decades, the shark must be kept constantly moist in the formalin solution.
A shark’s skin is armored with tiny teeth, so Mr. Crimmen and his team had to first drill small holes in the skin, filling them with temporary pins in preparation for the injection of the formaldehyde. Because a shark’s skin is so rough, the tiny holes won’t leave noticeable marks once the fish is properly preserved.
“As a fish curator I generally preserve things for science and then I don’t have to pay attention to aesthetics,’’ Mr. Crimmen said. “This is a novel angle for me.’’
After lunch Mr. Crimmen returned to the formaldehyde pool with five workers from Mr. Hirst’s studio, the rap music still softly playing in the background. Only Mr. Crimmen spent the entire day attending to the shark; the environment was so unpleasant, the workers said, that most of them could bear to be there for only a few hours at a time.
By now the shark had been turned on its side and the process of removing the temporary needles and injecting the animal had begun. Once the shark has totally absorbed the formalin and formaldehyde, it will be taken in a specially designed shark-shaped traveling tank to Bregenz, Austria, for an exhibition that begins in February. (Its original 1991 tank has been refurbished for the occasion.) Sometime in the summer the shark will make its way to Mr. Cohen’s house in Greenwich.
ON a recent Saturday afternoon Mr. Cohen was in Manhattan taking in the latest gallery exhibitions. He had stopped by the Gagosian Gallery on Madison Avenue to see some drawings by Mr. Hirst that had just gone on view. On the walls were studies for “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living,’’ prompting Mr. Cohen to reminisce about the first time he found himself face-to-face with the real piece.
“It was in County Hall in London,’’ Mr. Cohen said. “I grew up in the generation of ‘Jaws.’ I knew it was the piece of the 90’s.’’
Mr. Hirst acknowledges that once the shark is replaced, art historians will argue that the piece cannot be considered the same artwork. “It’s a big dilemma,’’ he said. “Artists and conservators have different opinions about what’s important: the original artwork or the original intention. I come from a Conceptual art background, so I think it should be the intention. It’s the same piece. But the jury will be out for a long time to come.’’
Echoing that argument, Mr. Cohen said the shark could not be compared to a painting. “We’re dealing with a conceptual idea,’’ he said. “The whole point is the boldness of the shark. Damien felt strongly that this was the best option.’’
Rumors have circulated in the art world that Mr. Cohen has promised the work to the Museum of Modern Art. But Mr. Cohen said that he had made no plans to donate the work to the Modern and that he is unsure exactly where he will put it when the tank arrives in Connecticut.
“Ultimately I think it’s a piece that needs to be put in a major museum,’’ he said. “I’ve had discussions with some, but I can’t say which ones, and nothing has been decided.’’
More generally his long-term plans include building a private museum on his property in Greenwich to display his art collection, from a Manet self-portrait to Monet’s “Water Lilies’’ to a Jackson Pollock drip painting to Pop Art by Warhol and Lichtenstein. He also owns Mr. Hirst’s “Away From the Flock,’’ a whole lamb floating in a formaldehyde solution, as well as several paintings by Mr. Hirst, among them examples of his signature butterflies, pills and a skull.
As for the future of the new shark, Mr. Hirst isn’t worried, he said.
“As long as it lasts my lifetime, I’m happy,’’ he said. After a pause, he added: “It’s got a 200-year guarantee. Or your money back.’’

For more New York Times coverage of the art world, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/

]]> Funding/Cinema Festival show/New York art scene tag:www.cogev.com,2006:/tac//1.141 2006-10-25T15:20:57Z 2006-11-03T07:29:28Z 1) Come and draw and paint with us this Friday Oct. 27, 10 to 130, in VA 315. There will be fresh bagels, juice and snacks. Try our new woodless pencil crayons, cut up stonehenge paper into the size you... Robert W 1) Come and draw and paint with us this Friday Oct. 27, 10 to 130, in VA 315. There will be fresh bagels, juice and snacks. Try our new woodless pencil crayons, cut up stonehenge paper into the size you want.

Our proposal for a special project grant went in to the Fine Arts Student Alliance before the deadline, we’re asking for $500 for an interesting project that’s a bit different (hint: it involves eight special events).

2) Check out new images on our website by collective member Stephanie Reynolds; they are in the photos section.

3) You have until Saturday to catch an art show organized by Concordia in collaboration with the Festival du nouveau cinéma. The show is called Nouveau Cinema - New Image. Two multi-layered digital prints by Robert Winters were selected for the show, which continues until Saturday, noon until 5. The gallery is in a storefront space on the ground floor of EV building, the entrance is directly from Ste. Catherine St.

Here’s a Concordia Journal item about one artist in the show, a German photographer/filmmaker who says some of her work is inspired by The Godfather. Photo is by Robert Winters:

http://cjournal.concordia.ca/journalarchives/2006-07/oct_26/007915.shtml

fyi, here's website with info about the show:

http://mediarelations.concordia.ca/

website's page that describes Robert’s images:

http://mediarelations.concordia.ca/mediaroom/pressreleases/2006/10/007855.shtml

]]> 4) if you’re wondering what’s happening in the New York art scene, you can visit a website run by Nancy Smith, a Concordia MFA graduate:

Nancy's website, ArtloversNewYork, features some interesting drawings in her latest posting, talking about a book that's just come out in New York. Here is the link:

http://www.artloversnewyork.com/artlovers/report/2006-10-19.html

Here is her home page:

http://www.artloversnewyork.com/

Simon Cerigo, the curator she quotes on home page about the fall New York auctions, is her husband, also is a Concordia graduate, who started as an art dealer when they moved to New York in the early 1980s, then managed and worked in galleries in Chelsea.

Her site covers the Chelsea art scene back to 2002 when she started doing coverage for Artnet.com, then took her site independent in late 2004.

Robert Winters, co-ordinator of The Art Collective

robertwinters@videotron.ca

]]> Adrian Norvid attends session/new members tag:www.cogev.com,2006:/tac//1.137 2006-10-18T07:59:24Z 2006-10-20T08:22:02Z It was an exciting session last week with Adrian Norvid, visiting professor of painting and drawing at Concordia’s high-profile Studio Arts program. Adrian worked with us in developing new ways of working involving techniques such as collage using pieces we... Robert W It was an exciting session last week with Adrian Norvid, visiting professor of painting and drawing at Concordia’s high-profile Studio Arts program. Adrian worked with us in developing new ways of working involving techniques such as collage using pieces we were making, allowing for unusual juxtapositions of images that moved our work up a level. We also used different sizes of paper, cut from sheets of stonehenge paper, and new materials such as pencil crayons with no wood, only pigment.

We meet this Friday at 10 to 130 in VA 315 in Visual Arts Building at corner of Crescent and Rene-Levesque Blvd.

This week we are expecting a new artist who has just moved to Montreal from Ottawa.

We also have welcomed two new artists to the group:

Jennifer Laoun-Rubenstein, who was featured in a VAV Gallery show with her collection of “roommates” in small boxes that could be purchased. Watch our website for photos of her work and a description of the ideas behind it.

Matt Goerzen, who works with painting, drawing and printmaking. His interests include comics.

Also please look into the event described below involving the impact of the Canadian mining industry. Member Judith Brisson is involved in this project.

Robert Winters
co-ordinator of The Art Collective
robertwinters@videotron.ca

]]> Mauvaises mines : festival de films sur les impacts de l'industrie minière canadienne

Programme du festival de films sur les effets des projets miniers.

The Ugly Canadians: Festival on the impact of Canadian mining companies in developing countries
Documentary Film Festival on Mining

Mercredi 25 octobre
UQAM, Pavillon de l'Éducation, 1205 St-Denis, salle N-M340
19 h
Sipakapa n’est pas à vendre, v.o. Esp. St.fr

Le film décrit avec justesse la lutte du peuple Maya de Sipakapa contre un projet d’extraction d’or d’une minière canadienne. Il démontre comment un peuple peut défendre avec dignité son autonomie et réfuter les arguments avancés par les représentants de la minière.

Suivi d’une discussion avec Vinicio Lopez, du Movimiento de Trabajadores Campesinos de San Marcos au Guatemala. Espagnol avec traduction en français

Thursday, October 26th
Concordia University, E/V 1-605 -- the new Engineering/Fine arts building, Guy/St Catherine
19 h
Sipakapa is not for sale, v.o. Spanish. ST. English.
This documentary contrasts the daily life and struggle of the Sipakapan Maya people with the justifications of representatives of the Canadian mining company that operates in their territory. The film analyses the debate on mining exploitation and demonstrates the dignity of the Sipakapan people as they fight to defend their autonomy in the face of encroaching large-scale projects.

Followed by a discussion with Vinicio Lopez, responsible for mining issues at the MTC (Movimiento de Trabajadores Campesinos – Agrarian Workers Movement) of San Marcos, Guatemala. Translation to English.

Vendredi 27 octobre
UQAM Pavillon de l'Éducation, 1205 St-Denis, salle N-M110
19 h
Le prix de l'or, v.o. Fr.
Grâce à une enquête rigoureuse et à de nombreuses rencontres avec toutes les parties concernées par le projet, la réalisatrice décrit l’ensemble des conséquences sociales et environnementales de projet d’extraction minière conduit au Mali. Le documentaire présente notamment un cas avéré de contamination d l’eau et des conséquences sur la santé des communautés locales. Un documentaire poignant et instructif.

Suivi d’une discussion avec le Groupe de recherche pour les activités minières en Afrique de l’Université du Québec à Montréal (GRAMA)

Samedi 28 octobre
Université Concordia E/V 1-605 – Guy coin Ste. Catherine
17 h
New Eldorado, v.o. roumain, St. Fr
La compagnie canado-roumaine Rosia Montana Gold veut ouvrir la plus grande mine d'or d'Europe à Rosia Montana. Pour ce faire, la compagnie devra construire un réservoir de 800 hectares pour contenir les rejets d'eau contaminée au cyanure. Les quelques 2000 personnes du village devraient abandonner leurs terres, leurs maisons, leurs églises et tous ce qui a constitué leurs existences jusqu’à présent. Ce documentaire raconte leur histoire.

Suivi d’une discussion avec le groupe d’appui à la communauté de Rosia Montana.

Wednesday, November 1st
Concordia University, E/V 1-605 -- the new Engineering/Fine arts building, Guy/St Catherine
19 h
El agua brilla mas que el oro, v.o. Español.
The film illustrates the case of Pascua Lama, an open pit gold-mine in Chile, owned by Barrick Gold Ltd., a Canadian company. It shows the rejection, by local and national Chilean groups, of the mine and its destructive environmental impact on the local glaciers, and on the water supply for human consumption and agricultural use.

19h15
From Midnight to the Rooster's Crow, v. English. & Spanish. St. English.
A Canadian oil giant is under fire for the construction of an oil pipeline that is fuelling controversy and conflict in the Amazon. Faced with the contamination of their lands and coercion by military forces, Ecuadorian peasants tap into reserves of remarkable strength and courage as they resist the pipeline. A documentary that follows the story of big oil from the toxic rivers of the Amazon to company headquarters in Alberta. Best Canadian Documentary, Hot Docs Film Festival 2005. Audience Award at Rencontres internationales du documentaires de Montréal, 2005.

Followed by a discussion led by film-maker Nadja Drost (for From Midnight to the Rooster's Crow), and a member of the group No a Pascua Lama (for El agua brilla más que el oro).

Thursday, November 2nd
Concordia University, E/V 1-605 -- the new Engineering/Fine arts building, Guy/St Catherine
19 h
Moving Mountains, v.o. Eng..
Documentary on how the oldest mining company in the Philippines has destroyed a community in the Cordillera region, home of the indigenous peoples of northern Philippines, who are stripped of their livelihood, land and culture. The documentary also presents an alternative: another tribe in the Cordillera has decided to keep the big mining companies out of their area, and engage in small-scale mining themselves, to ensure that the benefits from the land's rich resources go back to the people.

19h45
All that Glitters, v.o. Eng..
The last rush for gold is seriously disrupting the indigenous people of the Philippines. Already marginalized in their homeland, they now face the mass arrival of small independent miners, keen to make their fortunes, and Canadian mining companies with larger operations.

Followed by a discussion led by Royal Orr, of the United Church of Canada which has partnerships with local communities in the Philippines and produced the video

Friday, November 3rd
Concordia University, E/V 1-605 -- the new Engineering/Fine arts building, Guy/St Catherine
19 h
The Curse of Copper, v. Eng..
The struggle of the communities of the Intag cloud forest in Ecuador against Canadian Ascendant Copper Corporation.

19 h 40
U.A.I.L. Go Back, v.o. Eng..
This documentary presents a series of interviews with the local populations that have been resisting the construction of a mine in the Kashipur region of India supported in part by Alcan. The communities have been resisting the company for 13 years. The documentary demonstrates clearly the company’s tactics to try and wear the local indigenous people down: killings, threats, intimidation etc.

Followed by a discussion led by Andree Germain, of Friends of Earth, producers of the film The Curse of Copper.

Samedi 4 novembre
UQAM, Pavillon de l'Éducation, 1205 St-Denis, salle N-M110
15 h
Une mine … non merci : un mois à Tambogrande, v.o esp. St. Fr

Le cas de Tambogrande au Pérou. L’histoire d’un projet minier canadien qui entraînerait le déplacement de 8000 personnes et la déviation du cours d’une rivière. Édifiant!

16 h
Un rêve de fou / Un sueño de loco, v.o. esp. St. Fr
Le documentaire cherche à comprendre les répercussions environnementales et socio-économiques de l'industrie minière sur les populations locales dans les Andes chiliennes.

16h15
Vidéo-discussion
Projection d’extraits d’une vidéo sur la problématique minière au Pérou suivi d’une discussion avec les stagiaires ayant travaillé à la réalisation de cette vidéo.

]]>