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Stephen Talasnik at Battat Contemporary in Montreal

Over the past eight years, New York-based artist Stephen Talasnik has been working to perfect his sculpture Nimbus (2002-2010), conceived specifically for the Battat Contemporary. While looming large over the rest of the pieces in his first Canadian show, the massive 25-foot-long (and sometimes 9-foot-high) sculpture equally embodies the ideas explored in the other sculptures and drawings in the show Panorama: Monolithe intime. Notions of past and future, craft and design, nature and structure, science and art all seem to converge in an art that is broad ranging and hard to define. Regardless of the deeper meanings and inspirations, the ... More » »

Arresting the Gaze: Jenny Holzer at DHC/ART in Montreal

With the daily iterations of war, security, terror, violence and privacy in the media, stories relating such content have started to fade from focus over the past 9 years. I, for one, have noticed that I’ve stopped listening, stopped reading, stopped caring. Yet, a well curated Jenny Holzer show at DHC/ART in Montreal (co-organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and Foundation Beyeler in Riehen/Basel, Switzerland) has me listening again. Anthropomorphic LED installations and silkscreen paintings act as supports for found text culled from declassified documents of the National Security Archive pertaining to the Iraq war. In stunning display, ... More » »

Extreme Painting at Joyce Yahouda

Extreme Painting has taken over Montreal. Sixteen galleries across the city have adopted the theme for the summer of 2010. While Division, Orange and Donald Browne galleries (among others) have opted for monumental proportions and excessive applications of paint, guest curator Nicolas Mavrikakis at Joyce Yahouda gallery has chosen a different route. Highlighting the work of an edgier collection of artists, Mavrikakis looks at the gesture of painting and its position in the twenty-first century. Are we indeed in an age of post-painting? Or, will painting live on as an eternal tradition?

Alex Marsolais at KAI Design Studio

The unveiling of Celsius, Alex Marsolais’s first collection of paintings, could not have been timed any better. Set in a cool refuge of KAI Design Studio, away from the sweltering heat wave of Montreal, some of the vividly textured canvases seemed to be melting. The untrained local artist presents a series of portraits of his favorite songs, a colourful exploration for a new artist.

Nadia Myre at the NMAI

[While I haven't seen this show in New York, I know the artist's work through her representation at local gallery Art Mûr in Montreal. She's a wonderful artist doing thoughtful work that both has contemporary and historic relevance; it's so great to see her getting attention in NYC] Recognizing the depth of her practice and the impact of her art, The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York recently invited Nadia Myre (along with Alaskan Sonya Kelliher-Combs) to initiate Hide: Skin As Material and Metaphor, their current multi-show series. Scar Tissue, the first solo showing of Myre’s ... More » »

Nigel Helyer Resurrects the Past in Sydney

Every day at one o’clock, a locomotive, heard but not seen, makes its way through the lobby of CarriageWorks, an old Sydney rail yard recently transformed into a performing arts center. The sound sculpture by Nigel Helyer, called GhosTrain, haunts the space it runs through. While the installation presented by Performance Space only sounds for 90 seconds, the complexities implied by the work encourage thoughtful engagement with the ideas of sound and history implied by its reference to acoustic ecology and the idea of a soundmark.

Fiona Tan in Sydney

I experienced Fiona Tan’s work over two days – not because it was an extended durational work but because her show, Coming Home, was being presented at both the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation and the National Art School Gallery. The fact that the experience of the video works was a journey was the perfect mode of experiential presentation of a work that itself explores the idea of journey and its representation through time.

Melanie Boreham in Sydney

When I entered the solo show of Melanie Boreham at Hardware Gallery, I entered a forest. Suspended from different heights from the ceiling were forty bonsai-sized trees. These floating trees captivated me immediately because of their defiance of gravity, floating in a dream-like constellation. But the trees captivated me more because they were woven and constructed out of human hair.

A Celebration of the Visual Arts: Art Month Sydney

On a cool overcast March morning, I navigated the streets of the heavily residential Elizabeth Bay neighborhood to find Michael Reid’s gallery and talk to the owner about his role as co-creator (with Vasili Kaliman of Kaliman Gallery) of Art Month Sydney. The initiative, now in its first year, celebrates the visual arts in Sydney over the whole month of March, bringing together over 70 galleries, ARIs (Artist-Run Initiatives) and other organizations to host over 140 events. It is a feast, it is a celebration, it is an incredible force of art.

Scott Elk in Sydney

Billowing on banners, printed on posters and featured in multiple venues around Sydney, the artwork of Scott Elk is enjoying great exposure, and for good reason. The Sydney-born artist’s illustrations mix media from photography to screen prints, from design elements to typography. The modern amalgams instantly come across as multi-layered works reflecting a depth of thought and artistic practice. Whether exploring issues of queer identity or playing with variations in typography, Scott Elk represents a leading voice in queer art through his powerful and evocative work.