BUT IS IT ART? ILLUSIONS: THE ART OF MAGIC AT THE AGO

Exhibition Reviews | Mary Wallace

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Detail of Strobridge Lithographing Co.'s Kellar - Levitation, 1900. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace.) 

A good magician has be adept at so many elements of performance while simultaneously appearing as though they are not performing any of them. They must be able to win the trust of the crowd despite explicitly being there to fool them; they must be able to handle their props gracefully and naturally, pretending that a hollow prop is solid or pretending that an envelope laden with secret pockets is perfectly ordinary. Most of what makes good sleight of hand, like good design, must be completely invisible.

In the AGO’s Illusions: The Art of Magic the curator’s hand is often more heavy than sleight but I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing.


The Art of Magic is dramatic from the get-go; one enters through a velvet curtained hallway where turn of the century vaudeville tunes play softly. Inside the walls are painted a dark, velvety green, reminiscent of a pool table. The style of the exhibition space is appropriately theatrical; pieces are lit by spotlights in the dark exhibition space. Section labels are equipped with lenticular prints so thematically appropriate images “appear” as you walk past, however, the effect is somewhat hindered by the low lighting.

There are also several interactive elements in the show. Visitors may look through small peep holes in the walls to view tricks being performed or archival footage from the turn of the century. At about the halfway point of the show there is a station to “design your own magic poster” using various elements from the posters featured in the show.

Take a Peek! Featuring a video demonstrating some sleight of hand. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace.)

The kitschy aesthetic brought back memories of flipping through Ripley’s Believe it or Not books in the school library, which is not a memory I ever thought I’d associate with the AGO. I had fun at The Art of Magic and I’d recommend it to others but I at several points I found myself thinking “I can’t believe I’m in an art gallery right now”. For all the times I’ve written essays railing against The White Cube and reviews complaining about galleries taking themselves too seriously, I was confronted with the fact that maybe I like white cubes more than I’d like to admit and that there was a small part of me that thought this show was too fun.

A lovely assistant hovers above the exhibition. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace.)  

It’s not like the exhibition is unintelligent or shallow. With every successive room I thought to myself “I hope they have more information on this” and lo and behold there it would be. For instance, I was really taken with the incredible skill with which the posters were designed and printed. Most of the posters of this time were made with a process called “chromolithograph”, a precursor to modern CKMY printing, in which posters are successively printed with primary colours which layer to create depth. When you consider the technology of the time, the quality of images achieved is absolutely amazing, I was particularly struck but the sensitivity with which this portrait of Harry Kellar was rendered, rivalling that of any oil painting. Of course, very few of the artists behind these works are named but at least two text panels are devoted to explaining the printing process and acknowledging that the collaborative nature of producing these works would make naming an individual artist almost impossible.

Detail of Strobridge Lithograohing Co's Kellar, The Great Magician, 1894. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace.)

Another aspect of this art form that I had hoped would get some attention in this show was the orientalism that pervaded early magic acts. In the very first room, a poster from around 1915 advertises Chung Ling Soo and his Ten Assistants, in which a man in a Chinese inspired costume holds up ten fingers. Later in the exhibition there is an entire selection devoted to Chung Ling Soo and other similar characters played by white men that were meant to capitalize on the fascination with Asian art and aesthetics. This section is accompanied by a short interview with Julie Eng, executive director of Magicana and a magician herself, as she discusses her experiences confronting these stereotypes in her own career.

James Upton Ltd.'s Chung Ling Soo and his Ten Assistants, around 1915. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace.) 

Ultimately, I thought the objects on display were both interesting and aesthetically pleasing but more than that the exhibition pulled back the curtain just enough to add depth to the spectacle and make it more than just an amusing trick.

Detail of Strobridge Lithograohing Co's Kellar, 1899. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace.) 

The AGO is unfortunately closed until April 5 but once it reopens, Illusions: The Art of Magic will be on until May 18, 2020.

REBELLIOUS NATURE: WILD AT THE TEXTILE MUSEUM

Exhibition Reviews | Mary Wallace

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For this month’s exhibition review, which I now realize is quickly becoming a contemporary art column, I visited the Textile Museum of Canada to see Wild, an exhibition featuring five emerging artists whose work explore nature, otherness and all things “defiantly aberrant, untamed, and uncultivated”. The concept of the show seems absolutely made for museum studies students, the first line of the intro panel describes this textile based art as making “mischief of neat and tidy systems of classification”. Material culture and systems of classification? This description sounds like it’s straight out of a collections management class.

Detail of mappaemundi: one month in Newfoundland (2019) by Emily Jan (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace) 

Emily Jan’s work in particular, uses a lot of the visual language usually employed by natural history museums but contorts this language in ways that make her work feel familiar yet completely alien. Jan’s Apologues installation for instance, features taxidermied animals artfully combined with plants, these hybrid bouquets rest atop ornate pieces of furniture. The doily laden desks and end tables suggest the controlled and artificial, reminiscent of the antique cabinet of curiosities while the animals and flowers overtaking them indicate nature’s refusal to be catalogued so easily.

Emily Jan's Apologues installation (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

Detail of Apologues (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace) 

Much of the art featured in Wild is unashamedly weird, but the works remain grounded by the intense topics they cover and the artists’ strong personal connections to their materials. For instance, Omar Badrin’s series or crocheted masks and bodysuits, accompanied by rapidly flashing animations of his designs may initially read as bizarre, a bit creepy, and maybe a little funny but they are more than just spectacle. These pieces are meant to act as a visual representation of Badrin’s feelings growing up as a visible minority in Newfoundland by taking visibility to the extreme, playing with the duality of masks ability to both obscure and draw attention to the wearer. Masks appear again in Humboldt Magnussen series of “helmets”. These intricately decorated, mix media pieces appear both in person and in photographs of of the artist wearing them. Magnussen uses the helmets to explore notions of masculinity, queer identity and a desire for protection. Much like Badrin’s work, the masks provide the opportunity for self expression while at the the same time obscuring the wearer’s identity.

Installation view of Omar Badrin's work featuring the animation loop Headache (2019) and the bodysuit Lacuna (2019) (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)  

Humboldt Magnussen, Flamer (Fire) (2018) (photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace) 

Catherine Blackburn explores individual identity as tied to nature in her installation Trapline. Blackburn draws on memories of her late grandparents, specifically, her grandfather’s work as a trapper and her grandmother’s beading. These two roles are combined in this installation, in which rabbit skins hang from pale pink traps dipping with strings of red beads. This piece is striking in a different way than Badrin and Magnussen's masks, the pastel colour pallet makes the deep red of the beading stand out in a way that is both visceral and beautiful.

Detail of Trapline (2019) by Catherine Blackburn (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)  

The standout piece of the Wild for me was actually one of the most visually subdued pieces on display. Carrie Allison’s Beaded Botanicals are a series of delicate beaded representations of  endangered plants indigenous to Mi'kma'ki territory (Nova Scotia), these representations are accompanied by preserved examples of those plants from the Nova Scotia Museum’s herbarium. The series acts as a commentary on human relationships with nature and the contrast between the categorical system of western science and the symbolic and ceremonial relationship emphasized by Indigenous ways of knowing. Each beaded specimen is fragmented, imperfect, as though disintegrating. In several of the other artworks in this exhibition, the natural world over takes the human one, but in this piece the natural world is presented as delicate, fragile and at risk of slipping away from us completely.

Carrie Allison, Beaded Botanical 7 (Adiantum pedatum L.) (2019) and Adiantum pedatum L. (1989) from the Collection of the Herbarium of the Nova Scotia Museum (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)    

Wild is on at the Textile Museum of Canada until March 15, 2020.

OPENING SEQUENCE: LISTENING TO SNOW AT THE U OF T ART MUSEUM

Exhibition Reviews | Mary Wallace

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It’s hard to judge a show based on its opening. Openings are often only tangentially related to the art on display; they’re more about the experience of experiencing art. I know a lot of people find contemporary art intimidating and Listening to Snow is exactly the type of show they are thinking about when they say that. I can see how self-referential sound-art would be a tough sell for many but I enjoyed the show and think it was an interesting experience even if I’m not sure if I completely “get it”.

(Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace) 

And so, I’ve decided to create this part-review-part-how-to-guide to work through some of my art opening related anxiety and hopefully some of yours too.

Part One: Dressing for the occasion

View from my window the afternoon of the opening. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace) 

Dressing for an opening is always a challenge; the level of formally is often left up to the imagination of the attendees and will vary greatly between them. On the evening of this particular opening, Toronto was hit with a thematically appropriate blizzard. A universal truth of wintertime openings is that no one will be wearing the shoes they wanted to wear and that evening at the Art Museum almost everyone was in winter boots. It was a strangely communal feeling, all of us standing in puddles of snow melting onto the floor.

Ultimately, it does not matter what you wear to the opening because there will always be someone wearing a sweatshirt and jeans and someone else wearing a designer gown, thus everyone else will fall somewhere in the middle.

Part Two: Refreshments

Most openings will have some kind of charcuterie board or cheese plate hanging around and all openings will have $5 cups of wine (always cash only). The Art Museum, to its credit had quite the spread prepared. I felt no shame in refilling my tiny plate (where do they even get such tiny plates?) several times with free food. I used to be shy about doing this but after volunteering at these types of events, it is shocking how much is left over at the end of the evening.

My advice to you, always bring cash to an opening and don’t be shy about snacking.

Part Three: Watching yourself look at the art

Michael Snow, Waiting Room, 2000. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

One of the strangest things about art openings is that they usually get in the way of actually seeing the art on display. It’s crowded, lots of people are talking at once, you are stuck holding an empty plastic wine cup with a napkin crumpled up inside it, etc. Looking at the art ends up feeling performative, as though everyone is watching your reaction (they are not). The good thing about Michael Snow’s work in this show is that it often undermines this feeling. When you enter the main room of the show, a sign invites you to take a number from a receipt printer and wait on an adjacent couch for your number to come up on a digital display. This faux waiting room, appropriately titled Waiting Room (2000), only involves a few seconds of actual waiting but having some kind of instructions for interacting with the art and with my fellow gallery goers was a great way to break out of the initial awkwardness.

I missed my number coming up on the screen but you get the idea. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

Part Four: Networking

Lots of people use openings as networking opportunities but I have always found it hard to achieve this. People don’t generally wear name tags at openings so there’s no way to know who is the gallery director and who is a friend-of-a-friend that has been dragged here. The only strategy that has worked for me is striking up conversations at random until you find someone who can introduce you to the artist/director/board member. In the case of Listening to Snow I did not even attempt to network and it was a welcome break.

Safety first. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace) 

One of the standout pieces for me was Diagonale (1988). In this piece, several speakers have been placed in a darkened room, each is playing a humming sound that descends in tone as you walk deeper into the darkness. The initial effect is somewhat eerie; the darkness and the dissonant harmonies make the room feel like a minimalist haunted house. However, once I had a moment to let my eyes adjust, I felt strangely relaxed. There was no one to watch my reaction nor could I see anyone else’s and no sane person would attempt to network in this room, I could just stand and let the piece happen around me. It made me wish every opening had some form of sensory deprivation room from which to escape the usual cocktail party chatter.

Michel Snow, Diagonale, 1988. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace) 

In conclusion, art openings, much like art galleries, can be what ever you want them to be, there’s no right or wrong way to engage with them. I encourage all of you who feel like you’re not an “art person” to try checking one out at least once. Trust me, coming from an “art person” everyone there is just as confused as you are.

Listening to Snow will be at Art Museum until March 21, 2020. Also on that day at 4 pm you can see a solo piano performance by Michael Snow himself (registration is required).

KIDS THESE DAYS: THE AGE OF YOU AT MOCA

Exhibition Reviews | Mary Wallace 

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Toronto's Museum of Contemporary Art’s current show focuses on a very intimate and socially relevant topic: “You” or rather the concept of “you” in the face of the internet age. The Age of You examines what individuality means in an age where we have constant internet access and the internet has constant access to us. The show features work from over 70 artists in various mediums, curated by Shaman Basar, Douglas Copland and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Most of the show appears in the form of posters with images of art and related text; these posters are divided into thematic chapters. Many of my fellow editors and likely you reading this, have seen The Age of You and have probably formed a strong opinion of it. The show is divisive (I would guess intentionally so) which is why I was initially hesitant to write about it. I, personally, did not enjoy the show but I didn’t want to write a review that just amounted to venting. So after gaining some distance and taking some time to think about it, I am ready to share my opinion in my professional capacity as a critic.

I, personally, did not enjoy the show but I didn’t want to write a review that just amounted to venting.

(Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

Well maybe with a little venting.

What is this exhibition saying? What is its Big Idea? I was not able to figure this out. Of course, the job of art is not always to inform; asking a question is a perfectly valid driving force for a show. However, The Age of You does not ask a lot of questions, it prefers to make statements.

(Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

Lots of them.

(Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

Most of the exhibition’s text is written in the second person, as though speaking to “you” directly. The use of the second person creates a sense of urgency but it has the unintended side effect of making the writers’ assumptions about the reader very clear, especially when those assumptions are wrong. For instance, the exhibition presents a very specific notion of what individuality is (or used to be) and does consider other potential versions of “the self” in a serious way. A good example of these incorrect assumptions appears in the chapter labeled “The New Crowd”.

The centre text reads: "Do you feel safe in a crowd? Do you feel in danger in a crowd? Do you feel alone in a crowd? Do you form bonds in a crowd? When does a crowd become a mob? Is a social movement a global crowd? Is it hard to be an individual when being in a crowd has never been easier?" (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

The text on the left reads: "What is the opposite of you? ...me? ...a crowd? ...a machine? ...some yet-unnamed entity?" (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

At the very least this section asks questions of the viewer. I found the question "what is the opposite of you?" very compelling but I did feel the same way about the exhibition's answer. The Age of You is deeply nostalgic for a lost sense of “classic individuality”. Classic individuality in this case is presented as some kind of Golden Age of the self; one that I don’t think has ever existed. Was the opposite of “the self” ever “the crowd”, was the opposite of “man” ever “nature”? I would hope not. To consider the notion of individuality as simply being separate from the world around you and from other people, to me is a deeply cynical position. I myself find the prevalence of social media anxiety inducing, but to long for separation from everyone and everything is not a healthy response to that anxiety.

Was the opposite of “the self” ever “the crowd”, was the opposite of “man” ever “nature”? I would hope not.

There are also sections where the text is outright mean-spirited.

The small text reads: “Dating sounds as old fashioned as courting. Chaste, consequence-free messaging, communal laptopping, asexual cuddling and body contact negotiated through legalistic consent dialogs, all followed by ghosting. The relationship’s never over, because it never really started.” (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

It sounds like this poster was written after a disappointing Tinder date or maybe the writer is upset that they had to do consent training at work. Once again, I could not relate to the exhibition’s nostalgia for a time when “consent dialogue” was not considered in the dating scene; I know very few people who would. Maybe if I knew what “communal laptopping” meant I could relate more.

The small text reads:"For a few centuries, smart people— who, being smart— more or less ran the world. The flattening effect of the internet has allowed the world to be run by people with an IQ of 100. It is the revenge of the bell curve." (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

Similarly, I could not understand this poster's longing for a time when smart people "more or less ran the world". When was that exactly? I cannot think of a time, much less a few centuries, when intelligence was the only determining factor in running the world.

This void emoji is calling to me, or maybe it's just the emergency exit. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace) 

I had a hard time determining the level of irony in this exhibition; whether I was supposed to agree with these statements or if they were meant to be like the inflammatory statements of an internet troll. If that is the case then this exhibition is brilliant. It perfectly captures the feeling of reading a rant on an internet forum. One of the reasons I was hesitant to write about The Age of You was because I didn’t want to prove the exhibition right by ranting about it on the internet (the very thing that is supposedly robbing me of my very soul) but what is the alternative? Letting an artwork dictate my internet usage? Not exactly the actions of a classic individual either.

But don't just take my word for it. The Age of You will be on at MOCA until January 5, 2020.  

JOY IN OIL: MAUD LEWIS AT THE MCMICHAEL GALLERY

Exhibition Reviews | Mary Wallace

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Summer Scene with Cows (detail), oil on board. (Photograph Courtesy of Mary Wallace) 

I visited the McMichael Gallery’s Maud Lewis show on Thanksgiving weekend with my parents, this kind of wholesome excursion seems fitting for Lewis’s work. Lewis (1903-1970) is one of Canada’s best known folk artists and female painters and this exhibition features some rarely seen works from private collections in Nova Scotia, mostly small oil paintings as well as some painted shuttlers and Christmas decorations.

Despite the lifelong struggle with rheumatoid arthritis that limited her mobility, Lewis began painting and drawing at an early age, creating Christmas cards and paintings to sell at roadsides. Most of her work was made in the one room house she shared with her husband Everett Lewis in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia, which she covered completely in hand-painted designs. Lewis’s life was marked with tragedy, but looking at her paintings you would never know it. The artwork and the exhibition itself radiate joy and enthusiasm with their bright blocks of colour and whimsical subject matter. One of the things I appreciated about this exhibition was that, while it did not shy away from the illness and poverty that affected Lewis’s life, it did not focus on those aspects either. In fact, the gallery’s stated purpose for the exhibition is to present Lewis’s work as objects of aesthetic and artistic value and not merely as artifacts of tragedy.

These works, while unconventional in style, are of certainly of aesthetic value. This snow laden pine tree painted on glass, for example, shows us Lewis’s unique use of thick unblended paint.

Winter Scene, oil on glass. (Photograph Courtesy of Mary Wallace) 

Winter Scene (detail). (Photograph Courtesy of Mary Wallace)

This cow grazing in a summer field conveys wonderful depth despite the flat application of colour.

Untitled (Cow and Apple Blossoms - Bear River), 1950s, oil on board. (Photograph Courtesy of Mary Wallace)

More than just technical skill Lewis’s work creates a unique atmosphere, the feeling that each piece has been created with a loving hand. These paintings have an undeniable sincerity and humour to them, I don’t think I have ever smiled so much at an exhibition.

How could one not smile looking at this frowning cat?

White Cat, 1965/1966, oil on Beaverboard. (Photograph Courtesy of Mary Wallace)

I left this exhibition ready to go home and start painting. Some of you reading this may look at these pictures and think to yourselves “I could do that”, if that’s the case, I encourage you to do so. If Maud Lewis shows us anything it is the uplifting power of bringing something joyful into existence; if you are an I-could-do-that person then by all means get to it, that’s what Maud would have done.

Untitled (Butterflies), early 1960s, oil on board. (Photograph Courtesy of Mary Wallace)

Maud Lewis at the McMichael Gallery runs from June 29, 2019 to January 5, 2020, free with the price of admission (completely free if you bring your OMA card).

IS NUIT BLANCHE WORTH IT?

Exhibition Reviews | Mary Wallace

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Transformation by Fezz Stenton and Daniel Lanois (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

Full disclosure. I stopped going to Nuit Blanche a few years ago after a particularly poor experience and have not revisited it since. I found the crowded streets and party atmosphere more anxiety-inducing than enriching. However, for the sake of this review I thought I’d put the past behind me and give Nuit Blanche another chance. After all, how could hundreds of people spending their hard-earned Saturday night enjoying art be a bad thing? Here are some of the best and worst experiences Nuit Blanche 2019 had to offer.

Tile-Scape by Kevin Winn, Archer Pechawis and L.C.I. CyberARTS (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

Tile-Scape.1555 Danforth Ave.

I began the evening by visiting one of the Danforth’s two listed works. Tile-Scape, a collaboration between Kevin Winn, Archer Pechawis and L.C.I. CyberARTS, consisted of a long table of interconnected scrabble boards interrupted by hand-made recreations of the forest floor. Each participant was given a small bag of letter tiles and set loose to create words in amongst the leaves and roots. The experience is meant to remind the participant to think about the mark they leave on the earth and in their community. I was delighted to find that my fellow participants had not left any rude messages but instead put in the effort to create some interesting words, highlights included “BOBA_TEA”, “PUTRID” and the surely not scrabble dictionary approved but none-the-less evocative, “BADPAIN”.

Tile-Scape detail (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

Tile-Scape was a fun community art piece, that encouraged creative interaction between neighbours. While not as flashy as other installations, it had clear heart and effort behind it. This piece was definitely worth the visit.

Project GUNK. Bay and Albert St.

Project GUNK by Reza Nik and Matthew Davis (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

In the shadow of the larger piece in Nathan Phillips Square, Reza Nik and Matthew Davis’s Project GUNK might have been easy to miss, but by the time I had reached it there was already a line to view the installation. Outdoor artworks in the Downtown area were almost universally surrounded by metal barricades with lines outside to enter, not unlike rides at the EX. Once I had gotten through the line, I was ushered into a small area filled with found object sculptures. I examined them, a little unsure of what to think, since I had not been able to read the accompanying text panel without leaving my place in line. Once I had left the barricade pen, I was able to circle back and read the text. The sculptures were made from roadside trash found in each of Toronto’s 25 wards, as a way to find use for the discarded items the city produces.

I enjoyed the idea of Project GUNK and will keep an eye out for their work in the future but the experience was hindered by the limitations of Nuit Blanche’s display methods. I could see this idea working if the sculptures were larger or had been manipulated by the artists more. As it was, even for a self-described art lover, waiting in line to see artfully stacked patio chairs was a hard sell.

Transformation. 661 University Ave. MaRS Discovery District.

Transformation by Fezz Stenton and Daniel Lanois (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

Transformation by Fezz Stenton and Daniel Lanois was among the weaker pieces available at Nuit Blanche. Inside the building’s main lobby, mammoth blow up versions of plastic trash loomed over the crowd, all under the glow of a massive LED sun. The pieces were accompanied by video footage of activists and scientists explaining the reality of climate change and how important it is that we, the audience, take action. While I fundamentally agree with the idea of Transformation, standing next to large installations made of plastic, surrounded by hundreds of electric lights and LED screens, the message rang a little hollow.

The actual experience of Nuit Blanche as an event often undermines the enjoyment and understanding of the art. It’s hard to be inspired or moved by these heavy hitting topics when you are shuffling through a line as though you’re about to ride Space Mountain. The best way I can explain this feeling is through this photo I took in the MaRS building, in which futuristic glowing Lilly pads are plastered with hastily printed signs warning the crowd not to step on the art, lest it be ruined I suppose.

Transformation by Fezz Stenton and Daniel Lanois (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace)

Ultimately, the piece I enjoyed the most that evening was the smaller artwork in my own neighbourhood and I don’t think this is a coincidence. Nuit Blanche is at its best when it’s displaying accessible, community oriented art that gives audiences a new chance to engage with contemporary artists right in their own backyards. If you are considering going next year, my advice to you is the same advice I’d give for picking a restaurant: skip the major installations downtown and check out the independent projects in smaller neighbourhoods, where there are some hidden gems waiting to be found.