Vancouver

Robert Adams: The Place We Live attests to the acuity of the artist's vision

“Robert Adams’s black-and-white photographs of the American West—blasted trees standing grimly above a newly constructed freeway, graffiti spray-painted across rocky outcroppings at a sagebrush-dotted lookout, tract housing strewn like litter over a high plateau, a mesa top scored by the tracks of mining trucks, and mountains clear-cut to their ragged peaks—register his sorrow at the ways humankind has plundered and desecrated the once-majestic expanses of Colorado, California, and Oregon.” Georgia Straight, October 5, 2010

Song Dong's Waste Not treats hoarding as an artwork

“Many of the components of this installation are rusty, broken, torn, or tattered, well past a condition of apparent usefulness. Transposed to an art gallery, however, they take on another role, demonstrating how entrenched the practice of wu jin qi yong—of never throwing anything away in case some other use can be found for it—has been for older generations of Chinese people.” Georgia Straight, October 5, 2010

Charred wooden installation torques around with downtown towers

“A dark ruin suspended at the point where it is about to collapse has appeared on West Georgia amid the reflective glass walls of corporate towers in downtown Vancouver.” Vancouver Sun, October 7, 2010

Rentable art from the Vancouver Art Gallery is hip help for bare walls

“That bare white wall in your Yaletown loft may cry out for a large-scale abstract-expressionist painting, but it’s not always easy to come up with a few thousand to invest in a piece of art. Enter the newly recharged Art Rental and Sales program at the Vancouver Art Gallery, where borrowing a funky abstract canvas, a framed slice of photo conceptualism, or an impressionistic landscape can cost as little as $10 a month.”  Georgia Straight, October 7, 2010

Anger brewing after Vancouver Art Gallery's annual general meeting

“Tensions are running high following the Vancouver Art Gallery’s September 29 AGM, where motions requesting greater financial transparency were deemed out of order.” Georgia Straight, October 7, 2010

Opposition to VAG Move Disappears

“Based on Wednesday night's response, opposition to the move of the Vancouver Art Gallery seems to have all but disappeared.” Vancouver Sun, Culture Seen (Blog), October 6, 2010

Community Arts Champions to take message directly to province's politicians

“The province's arts activists are recruiting "Community Arts Activists" to work with MLAs in each B.C. riding.” Georgia Straight, October 6, 2010

Toronto

Basquiat: The Radiant Child: Art for the sake of showcasing modern art without compromise

“Last weekend, Toronto was treated to the fifth annual “all-night contemporary art thing” known as Nuit Blanche…I found out the city’s brand-new Bell Lightbox theatre would be showcasing Basquiat: The Radiant Child, and my faith in the local art scene was restored.” National Post, October 7, 2010

The Blockbuster Show That Proved A Spectacular Bust

“It was this summer's feature at the Art Gallery of Ontario. "The costly show, including works from the Musée d'Orsay and the Louvre in Paris, had been expected to draw crowds to The Grange from mid-June until late September. It didn't.  The upshot: Not just a huge revenue shortfall but an alarmingly low attendance figure for the first six months of the current fiscal year." Toronto Star, October 6, 2010

Lack of desire causes much AGO drama

“The postmortem on what went wrong with Drama and Desire is well under way. The AGO cites a cocktail of potential factors, including the warm summer, proliferation of free festivals, flagging tourism, G20 disruptions, the still fragile economy – even plain old stiff competition. But Mr. Teitelbaum singled out the gallery’s marketing strategy as flawed.” Globe & Mail, October 7, 2010

Denver

Woman Attacks Artwork In Denver Gallery

"A woman armed with a crowbar entered the Loveland Museum/Gallery on Wednesday afternoon and destroyed a controversial exhibit that some said shows Jesus Christ engaged in a sex act." Denver Post, October 7, 2010

Houston

Rotating a House 180 Degrees as Art

“The conceptual artist Mary Ellen Carroll is going to turn a house around to make a statement about the lack of land-use policy in Houston.”  New York Times, October 7, 2010

 Chicago

That Calder Mobile in the Old Sears Tower? Sears Wants It Back

"Alexander Calder's motorized art installation, The Universe, has become the subject of a legal dispute between the current owner [of the skyscraper now called the Willis Tower] - a Chicago-based investor group called 233 S. Wacker LLC - and the tower's original owner, Sears, Roebuck & Co." Chicago Tribune, October 5, 2010

Harmony, Indiana

Stephen Pace, Painter and Abstract Expressionist, Is Dead at 91

“Mr. Pace’s exuberant style applied Abstract Expressionist scale and directness to figurative painting.”  New York Times, October 7, 2010  

New York

Proposed Ground Zero Arts Center to Get Up to $100M in New Funding

"The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is poised to allocate at least $100 million in Federal funds to a future performing arts center at the World Trade Center site." The money is part of a $200 million fund originally intended to compensate utilities companies for 9/11/01 damages. Wall Street Journal, October 7, 2010

Singapore

In Art Exhibit, Singapore Honours a Son of China

“An exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum, "Cheong Soo Pieng: Bridging Worlds," highlights how the experimental artist of the 1950s, '60s and '70s evolved during his career.”   New York Times, October 7, 2010