Art Toronto 2012: Highlights from the Fair
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Two Planets: Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass and the Thai Villagers, 2008,
digital pigment print, Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York
digital pigment print, Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York
The Toronto International Art Fair is bigger and better than ever, having eclipsed Art Chicago (which was canceled earlier this year) as Merchandise Mart’s only North American art fair north of the border and not on the coasts. (In case you’re wondering, Merchandise Mart, which also runs The Armory Show, Volta Basel and NY, and Art Platform Los Angeles, was itself recently bought and renamed by Swiss media conglomerate, Informa Plc.)
With over a hundred exhibitors from 23 continents, more than 20,000 visitors expected to attend, and projected sales in excess of $20 million, Art Toronto 2012 set itself apart this year with a rich program of panel discussions and curator’s tours co-developed with the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), the Power Plant, and the Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art (MoCCA), a diverse selection of artists and galleries highlighted within the Focus ASIA area and exhibition, the AGO’s ongoing and very visible acquisition program, a capsule exhibition of the RBC Canadian Painting Competition finalists for 2012, and a focus on the fresh perspectives offered by newer galleries in the Next section.
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Focus ASIA, Beyond Geography exhibition view with Tromarama’s Ons Aller Belang in the foreground and Rirkrit Tiravanija’s Untitled 2008–2011 (the map of the land of the feeling) I, II, III in the background
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Sheau-Ming Song’s work plays with gesture, materiality, and abstraction in creating images not overtly concerned with issues of identity.
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Two Planets: Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass and the Thai Villagers, 2008, single channel video, Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York
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Poklong Anading, Anonymity, 2008–2012, photographic transparency print, lightbox series with 9 unique photographs, Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill, Graz, Austria and Manila, Philippines
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Ken Matsubara’s self-described Movie Objects were the talk of the fair. Viewed within antique boxes and frames on the wall, or more mysteriously, through the bottoms of water-filled glasses set on small tables or stools, video vignettes transformed portrait photographs and falling objects into ghostly apparitions of wonder. Click on the images above for two video clips from selected works on view.
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Marie-Claire Blais, Brûler les yeux fermés s_15, 2012, acrylic spray on canvas, Galerie René Blouin, Montreal
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Jessica Bradley’s booth was one of our favourites. Roughly divided between gestural or painterly markmaking on one side, and figurative abstraction on the other, Bradley’s display was a clear, cohesive representation of two facets of her curatorial approach and interests. Of particular interest were the wonderfully textural paintings of Sasha Pierce and rising star Julia Dault, shown in greater detail below.
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Toronto-born, Brooklyn-based Julia Dault is making waves in both painting and sculpture, here and in New York where she currently lives and works. We saw her taut, muscular rolled-sheet sculptures at the New Museum’s triennial, The Ungovernables, this past spring, and are looking forward to seeing her similarly tactile, weighty, and richly material painting again one day at the AGO; New Wave was one of three works purchased as part of the museum’s annual Art Toronto acquisition program.
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Sasha Pierce’s jawdroppingly detailed works on canvas are visual explosions of what seem to be intricately knitted threads of richly coloured paint. Hovering between painting, sculpture, and the textiles they resemble, they beg to be marveled at — and touched. We of course did no such thing, but got close enough to practically touch with our eyes, and the image was no less mind-boggling from mere inches away. Despite our attempts to document Dault’s and Pierce’s tromp l’oiel textures digitally, both must be seen to be believed.
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Denyse Thomasos’ wall-sized canvas, full of life and vibrant urban spirit, is made all the more poignant knowing the artist died just a few months ago, much too young, and at the peak of her career.
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Exhibition view featuring paintings by Celia Neubauer and Alex Bierk, General Hardware Contemporary, Toronto
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Above, Scott Everingham builds a castle in the sky (actually, a Cotton Lodge, based on the title) using attenuated lines, swipes of colour, and barely-there two-point perspective. Everingham is represented by Galerie Trois Points in Montreal, but Torontonians will get another chance to see his work early next year in a show at General Hardware Contemporary.
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David Burdeny, Oyster Farm, Vietnam, 2012, archival pigment print, Jennifer Kostuik Gallery, Vancouver
David Burdeny, Matrix, South China Sea, 2011, archival pigment print, Jennifer Kostuik Gallery, Vancouver
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Exhibition view featuring works by Juan Ortiz-Apuy (sculpture and photographs at right) and Mathieu Beauséjour (drawings at left), Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran, Montreal
Carrier’s equally enigmatic video, Parcours, has a diverse group of people, some carrying bundles of fabric or foam, running circles through a wet and barren landscape. The elemental sounds (water, footfalls, breathing), and seeming absurdity or futility of a collective race to nowhere triggers poetic associations and questions of survival, our relationship to possessions, the environment and each other, and ultimately the value of life itself.
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