Vancouver

Art on a grand scale.  “With the opening of Equinox Project Space, the city’s art scene just got kicked into high gear. Not only is the new space the biggest open area dedicated to showing art in Vancouver, the inaugural exhibition of the photographs of Fred Herzog is also a milestone. With about 130 photographs, the exhibition is the biggest show ever mounted of his works” Vancouver Sun, February 4, 2012

Shared vision. “The new exhibits opening this week at the Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery will take visitors on journeys through metaphysical realms with China's Guo Fengyi, across cyber-space with L.A.'s Frances Stark, and out to the stars with Vancouver's Scott Massey.” Vancouver Sun,  February 6, 2012

The rusty charm of corten steel.  Used in the minimalist contemporary garden on the roof of the Rennie Gallery in Vancouver's Chinatown, corten steel “is the hippest, coolest, trendiest, most avant garde material being used today by landscape architects who design cutting-edge gardens.” Vancouver Sun, February 3, 2012

Victoria

Artist's trove deserves permanent display. “Last summer, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria presented Allan Collier's exhibition The Modern Eye: Craft and Design in Canada 19401980.  Now, amazingly, Collier wants to donate his huge collection to some public institution where it will help Canadian design to be seen and appreciated.”  Times Colonist, February 4, 2012

An homage to three artists.  “Filmmaker Jill Sharpe is in town to show her film Bone Wind Fire, a documentary about Emily Carr, Frida Kahlo and Georgia O'Keeffe. The Vancouver filmmaker's new half-hour documentary also happens to be a work of art in itself.”  Times Colonist, February 7, 201

Whitehorse

Untrue North: Intervening with Invention. “Untrue North” at the Yukon Arts Centre gathers works by nine Canadian artists in order to ask whether the north can ever be fully represented in art. Canadian Art (Online), February 2, 2012

Calgary

The Calgary Connection: MOCA and IMCA Join Forces. “Two Calgary boards of directors with their eyes on the same prize have announced they have joined forces to achieve the free-standing, world-class public art gallery devoted to modern and contemporary art that the cultural life of this burgeoning city has lacked.” Canadian Art (Online), February 2, 2012

Toronto

Shary Boyle: National Treasure, Too.  “It all began with an invitation—a thick, heavy, gold-embossed missive that thudded into mailboxes last month advertising Shayr Boyle’s installation Canadian Artist at the BMO Project Room in Toronto.”  Canadian Art (Online), February 2, 2012

Art with heart: Toronto welcomes Condé and Beveridge back. “Fall of Water  by Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge is a contemporary, highly subjective reimagining of Peter Bruegel the Elder’s The Fall of The Rebel Angels, his 1562 masterwork that depicted the archangels, lead by Michael (his stand-in here is the Bolivian peasant woman, a symbol of the power of grassroots organizing), beating back Lucifer’s hordes.”   Toronto Star, February 4, 2012

Phone app brings Toronto architecture to life. A free app for iPhones and Android phones, recently released by Ryerson University, uses geo-positioning for an interactive downtown architectural experience like no other.  Globe & Mail, February 2, 2012

Ottawa

Get ready, Canada: The Clock is about to start ticking. “Everyone is busy, yet somehow, in cities from London to Moscow, from New York to Jerusalem, audiences have found ways to line up around blocks to see – a piece of contemporary art?   The work, by Swiss-American artist Christian Marclay, is called The Clock, a 24-hour loop of thousands of film and television clips, focusing on time, watches and clocks. What’s exceptional about the experience is that the clips are arranged to run concurrently with real time. If it’s 2:38 on a clock or watch on the screen, it’s 2:38 in real life.  On Thursday night, The Clock opens for the first time in Canada at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, with a 24-hour screening at 5 p.m.”  Globe & Mail, February 8, 2012

Up-to-the-minute art. “ Twelve minutes into Christian Marclay’s 24-hour video odyssey, a gentleman onscreen asks in dismay, “Does everybody around here live by the clock?” Well, yes.”  Ottawa Citizen, February 8, 2012

Montreal

Artists evicted in favour of city vehicles.  Montreal’s pledge to value culture and history should be working to save a landmark industrial building along the Lachine Canal from the city’s plan to expropriate and demolish it so it can relocate a public works yard to park municipal vehicles. Montreal Gazette, February 8, 2012

Los Angeles

How Will the Future Judge Him?   “Future retrospectives honoring Mike Kelley, who died last week at the age of 57, reportedly a suicide, will be tricky to organize and assess.” Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2012

Should replicas of destroyed sculptures be in a museum show? “The question arises in the case of Jack Goldstein, an admired artist whose sculptures are currently included in" a Pacific Standard Time show at Pomona College. Goldstein, known mainly as a painter, made a few sculptures which were shown at Pomona 40 years ago. They don't survive, so Pomona recreated two of them. Is this enterprising? Or unethical?”  Los Angeles Times, February 6, 2012

New York

Met Aims to Build Itself a Museum-Quality Plaza.  “An ambitious plan is in the works to transform this four-block-long stretch along Fifth Avenue, from 80th to 84th Street, into a more efficient, pleasing and environmentally friendly space, with new fountains, tree-shaded allées, seating areas, museum-run kiosks and softer, energy-efficient nighttime lighting.”  New York Times, February 7, 2012

London

Ai Weiwei and Beijing stadium architects to make Serpentine pavilion. “Chinese artist and Swiss architects who together designed stadium for 2008 Games will collaborate on the London 2012 project.” The Guardian, February 7, 2012

UK

Art Fund Prize longlist revealed. Four newly-opened museums have made the longlist for this year's Art Fund Prize. BBC News, February 8, 2012

Ten years of free entry, but can it last?  “Maintaining free entry to the UK’s national museums doesn’t come cheap: it costs around £44m a year to maintain free admission to national museums that previously charged, or around £354m in total since 1999. And yet the Secretary of State for Culture, Jeremy Hunt, is happy to support it.” The Art Newspaper, February 1, 2012

Berlin

Guggenheim to Close Berlin Outpost.  After 15 years, Deutsche Guggenheim, an outpost of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in the headquarters of Deutsche Bank in Berlin, is closing at the end of the year. New York Times (ArtsBeat), February 6, 2012

Cairo

Profits at Zaha Hadid Architects hit by Arab Spring disruptions. Profits at Zaha Hadid Architects more than halved last year as the Arab spring brought several major projects to a halt. A conference centre and a complex of offices and shops in Cairo were put on hold, as was a conference hall in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.  The Guardian, February 6, 2012

International

What is an Artist? “This is the first of a series of web columns by Sarah Thornton, author of Seven Days in the Art World and chief writer on contemporary art for the Economist , sharing her concerns with our readers. Her first installment looks at the fundamental question: “What is an artist?"” Canadian Art (Online), February 2, 2012