Richard Deschênes, Arvo Pärt au théâtre Estonia de Tallinn, en septembre, 2011, collage on news paper, 22 x 33 cm. (photo: Guy L'Heureux)

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By Bernard Schütze

In the digital age images proliferate endlessly, they can be reproduced, altered and circulated at will; a vertiginous profusion in which the distinction between the original and copy has been all but obliterated. Governed by an ever increasing velocity, images no longer even have the time to take shape in our minds. In assessing this situation the theorist Paul Virilio remarks: “We now have the aesthetics of the disappearance of a numerical, unstable image of fleeting nature, whose persistence is exclusively retinal.” [1] Richard Deschênes counters this logic of accelerated vanishing by accompanying and assisting images in a slow transit from one mode to another. This transit process, which ensures both an origin and a destination for the image, is at the heart of Deschênes’ exhibition Transfert. A movement that is operative in both the displayed painting and collage series, but according to different terms: enlargement and isolation of a figure against a neutral ground, for the paintings; subtraction of the figure and substitution of a new ground in its place for the collages. (more…)

From left to right: Daniela Kostova “Souvenir from Warsaw”, archival print, 2010 (from the exhibition "Unorthodox Image” curated by Kamil-Julian Malinowski and presented by Foundation 93 at Hotel Europejski in Warsaw, Poland 2010). Eastern Exterminating fumigation tent.

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By Adam Lerner

The above photograph on the left harkens back to 1912 when the Russian authorities ruling Poland at the time erected the Eastern Orthodox Alexander Nevski Cathedral in Piłsudski Square, Warsaw. Seeing it as a glaring symbol of Russia’s power and beliefs, the Polish government destroyed the cathedral in the early 1920s, a few years after Poland regained independence. In 2010, Daniela Kostova, a Bulgarian-born artist living in New York, constructed an image of the church, displaying the massive picture on its original site. She presented a photograph of her re-creation in an exhibition in the basement of a grand old hotel on Piłsudski Square, not far from where the church once stood

The second photograph, created by Eastern Exterminating, a South Florida pest extermination company, depicts the company’s fumigation in Germany of a 400-year-old church, which was infested with termites. The company was brought in because of its ability to create tents over complex structures to more effectively eliminate pests.

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Exterior view of Gallery F 15, Photo: Punkt Ø

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By Matthias Neumann

The sixth Momentum, the Nordic Biennial of Contemporary Art, in the town of Moss in southern Norway opened its doors this June under the title “Imagine Being Here Now”. Five curators, corresponding to the five participating Nordic countries, organized the exhibition with fifty international participating artists in three venues: the Gallery F15, a historic countryside villa, Momentum Kunsthall, a former brewery in the city center of Moss, and the Solberg Tower, an empty high-rise building near the city of Moss. The biennial theme is decidedly not site-specific, and rather tries to provoke an intimate dialogue between the spectator audience and each individual work presented. This curatorial focus away from the site-specificity of the art event in the city of Moss, however, did not entirely preclude works that related their critical content through the context of the local. (more…)

Thérèse Mastroiacovo, "Situation: Auto Duration (CLARK, March 10, 2011 – to be determined)", 2010-2011. Clockwise: The pile of publications at the beginning of the exhibition in Gallery 1 at CLARK. The pile of publications at the end of the exhibition in Gallery 1, before it was re-stacked in a new location (after the Audio Station and before Gallery 1) at CLARK. The graphite line in Gallery 1. A detail view of the publication. Photos: Kim Waldron

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By Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre

A pile of newspapers is arranged in the alcove of the reading area at Clark. A graphite line drawn on the wall encircles them, serving as a kind of measuring gauge. Two black and white text-based drawings hung on the wall above them read: “Three thousand copies of this publication are stacked in the gallery. Anyone is welcome to take one until none remain. The intervals between each removal join together to constitute the duration of the work.” On the cover, one can read a description of the process that led to the production of the images presented within the pages of the publication. These consist of 32 black and white photographs of a sunset from Kamouraska, Québec, documented in just less than two hours on June 25, 2010. Though it may not seem obvious at first, Situation: Auto Duration (CLARK, March 10, 2011 – to be determined) astutely addresses several principles that form the basis of artistic experience, namely those that relate to the context of presentation (the exhibition), artistic creation (the role of the author), and its reception (the responsibility of the public).

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Milutin Gubash, video still from "Born Rich, Getting Poorer", episode 2 "Let's Go to Kingston Ontario!", 2008

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By Mathilde Roman

Facing the Self: the Video as Mirror

In the sixties, when technology first allowed the making of films without a crew, artists soon turned to the portrayal of private life. Emerging at a time when social norms and bourgeois ideals were being questioned, video art was decidedly political. The camera documented feminist demonstrations, performances and land art expeditions, and its affinity with existential and feminist questioning made self portraits and personal stories an important part of video art. While autobiography has always flourished in literature, film had not up until then offered the solitude that invites self-revelation. Sony’s 1965 Portapak camera allowed artists to start using moving images in their work with an autonomy that has only since grown. Digital technology has further hastened the democratization of film by making it accessible to everyone, and by allowing artists to easily edit and manipulate their own footage. (more…)

Kim Waldron, installation of "Animal Heads" at the exhibition "La Colonie", 2010.

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By Mark Clintberg

In the photograph Bleeding Out (2010), the Montreal-based artist Kim Waldron, dressed simply in a blue quilted vest and plain overalls, stands over the limp body of a sheep lying in its own blood. Behind her are another animal’s bisected carcass and a plastic bin. Nearby there is a broom. The floor is roughly poured concrete. Three distinct handprints made in blood immediately suggest that she has just killed this animal. She has. Her gaze is focused on the broken animal at her feet. Her puzzling facial expression could be read as pensive, troubled, bemused or satisfied. She is in an abattoir. In this case, temporarily at least, it is also the artist’s studio.

Bleeding Out is one in a suite of photographic images that record Waldron’s long-term project Beautiful Creatures (2009 – 2010), for which she learned to slaughter and prepare animals, and then used these skills to harvest various meats for a celebratory feast served to a small East Coast Canadian community [1]. For this project, Waldron acquired skills that are tied to folk practices. From a certain position, the slaughtering of animals for food is a sort of lost knowledge that is nonetheless fundamental to the food and cooking practices of many people today. (more…)

Lynne Cohen, "Untitled (Police Balloons)".

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By George Slade and Lynne Cohen

When Andy Adams told me that Flak Photo was running a WEEKEND series in January concentrating on Lynne Cohen’s work from her new book Cover, and asked if I’d be willing to “interview” her asynchronously through the web, I leaped at the chance to connect with an artist I’ve admired from a distance since the 1980s. She was gracious to accommodate my questions while suffering the inconvenience of a bruised or broken rib, which kept her from laughing too much. As I realized, the more I looked at her work and after I had a chance to speak with Lynne and hear a recording of her lecturing, not laughing is a significant encumbrance for her. Her work is profoundly, disturbingly funny. David Byrne wrote an essay for her first book, which tells you something about the role of absurdity and surrealism in her creative mission. You can find out more about her biography on her web site; here’s an edited record of our electronic exchanges, which appears here with great help from Andrew Lugg.

GS: Lynne, my introduction to your work was through reproductions in Occupied Territory (Aperture, 1987) and L’endroit du décor/Lost and Found (F.R.A.C. Limousin, 1992); you were kind of a virtual artist for me before such a moniker came into fashion. You were more a thought than a person. It wasn’t until many years later, the mid-1990s I think, that I realized I was getting only half of the picture (and I still hadn’t exchanged words with you or seen you in person). Your works are as much sculptural objects as they are photographs. How conscious are you of the distinction between image and object? How does photography address the distinction as a medium? (more…)

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By Andrew Lugg

Devised by Robert Ashley. “That Morning Thing,” which is being presented at the Union Ballroom by the Once Group, shows that the group is all that it is cracked up to be. It is two-and-a-half years since this local group last did a piece in town. Some will remember their performances on top of the Maynard Street parking structure. “That Morning Thing” is more modest in certain respects but more devastating in others. This scratched at your soul.  (more…)

Erwin Wurm, "Fat Car", 2002.

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By Jean-Michel Ross

Over the last few years in Québec, public galleries and artist-run centres seem to be the venues producing events by internationally renowned visual artists. For a long time, the role of host and exhibition producer for such artists was the exclusive domain of big museums and large-scale events (such as Les Cent jours d’art contemporain, the Biennale de Montréal or the Manif d’art de Québec) but it has now been taken up by a wider range of institutions. During the last few months, this conjuncture has given Montrealers the opportunity to view exhibitions by artists like London’s Janice Kerbel and Chile’s Claudia del Fierro at Galerie Optica, Americain artist Ron Athey at Centre Clark, and French artist Dominique Blais and Austrian artist Klaus Scherübel at the Darling Foundry. (more…)