Prairie Artsters.com

The Distance Between You and Me, Vancouver Art Gallery*

2011-12-06T23:20:00.000-07:00

Image credit: Gonzalo Lebrija The Distance Between You and Me 18, 2008 Lambda print 42.2 x 52.0 cm Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris The Distance Between You and Me as a series, a show, and as a syntactical arrangement conjures up the phantom of sentiments seen and felt, as if I have already read and heard this line over and over again in a poem or song whose origins I

Objects In Mirror May Be Better Than They Appear*

2011-11-11T19:23:00.000-07:00

I went to live and work in Scotland (a nation and not a country) for six months this past year on an arts writing and curating fellowship. The food was bad, the people solid, and the best art show I saw was German. The overall experience of being on a writing/curating fellowship sounds better than it

Review: Ruth Ewan, Brank and Heckle, DCA, UK

2011-11-05T17:11:00.000-06:00

Image credit: Ruth Ewan Foreground: Cone of Power (Margaret), 2010, Green baize Background: Nae Sums 1911–2011, 2011, Plywood “Trying to change the world” has been the nominal subject matter of at least two of Ruth Ewan’s past projects (Psittaciformes Trying to Change the World, 2005-206, and A Jukebox of People Trying to Change the World, 2003-ongoing), but the implicit intention underlying

It's a Small (Art) World After All

2011-10-16T05:01:00.003-06:00

This now iconic scene from Jean Luc Godard's Bande a Part (1964) pretty much sums up how I feel towards The Venice Biennale. The dead run through the Louvre in under ten minutes has been attempted time and time again, in homage to the film, which was then a joyous FUCK YOU to tradition and high culture. The fact that Godard himself has been raised to the position of a demigod in the eyes of most

The Issue of Documenting Live Art

2011-10-15T14:46:00.002-06:00

A persistent issue and ill-addressed problem for at least forty years, the documentation of live art remains how most of its audience sees (and not even remembers, but really sees and experiences for the first time) the ephemeral form of bodies in motion. I am personally referring to the last forty years since the Happenings took off, an era of contemporary art I only know from articles, videos,

Who Are We Writing For? recap*

2011-09-23T15:09:00.003-06:00

Maybe it’s ironic that a writing symposium has left me hardly able to write a word, to literally render my writing invisible, as I attempt to make myself as the writer visible. What I mean is that this inability to profusely write has been the best thing to happen to me in my nine year span as a freelance writer. Endlessly producing words and tailored copy for everyone and anyone, my value as a

Real Life in Huntly, Interview with Ross Sinclair*

2011-09-13T06:53:00.000-06:00

Image credit: Ross Sinclair, Real Life Huntly (surveyed from the Clashmach), 2011 (courtesy of the artist and Deveron arts; photograph: Anna Vermehren) Glasgow-based Ross Sinclair has been the Artist in Residence at Deveron Arts for the summer of 2011 researching the history of The Gordon Clan of Huntly and its relationship to present day Real Life in Huntly. From writing songs encapsulating

Roman Signer, Now and Then*

2011-09-12T19:26:00.002-06:00

I first remembering seeing this photo back in the fall of 2007. I had just given notice to the last office job I thought I could ever hold (still true to date) as unforeseen events made me realize I needed to give freelance writing another full-time go. Naturally, I was going to run away first to Berlin for a bit of fun and inspiration, and doing a bit of homework first, this image popped out at

Convergence at Timespan, Helmsdale, Scotland*

2011-09-12T19:16:00.000-06:00

Helmsdale is an even smaller and more remote community than Huntly. Nestled way up in the North of Scotland with a population in the high hundreds and a history dating back to the early AD years, Helmsdale has a heritage focus on genealogy and geology, and the past is undeniable in this region of the Sutherland. As it goes, a museum and art gallery was built in the mid 80s and in 2009, Timespan

Framework: Maria Fusco writing workshop*

2011-09-12T08:15:00.000-06:00

Coming to the end of this inaugural arts writing gig at Deveron Arts, I am more unsure than ever as to what it is I am actually writing. I know I write, but I know little else. I have no idea what it is I am writing, just that I am definitely writing it. Working on the border of cultural commentaries and creative non-fiction, I am tired of looking, if not legitimating what it is I write, rather,

Akimblog update on Scotland*

2011-09-06T16:36:00.002-06:00

Edinburgh Art Festival | British Art Show 7 | Ruth Ewan at Dundee Contemporary Art | Helen Cho at Glenfiddich | Graham Fagen at Timespan | Deveron Arts | Who Are We Writing For? I was told early on in my six-month arts fellowship in wee, bonnie Scotland that Glasgow is where you make art and Edinburgh is where you see it. Being situated outside of the Central Belt entirely, I have had the

Close Encounters: the Next 500 Years*

2011-08-19T07:30:00.005-06:00

Contemporary indigenous art received its largest international display as part of Winnipeg’s year as Cultural Capital of Canada. Showcasing 33 international artists, ‘Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years’ ambitiously looked forward to the future of indigenous culture while remaining very much in conversation with a past 500 years of oppression. Image credit: Jonathan Jones, 2011 Two

Precocious and Precarious: The Future is Unstable (and it always will be, so deal with it)*

2011-08-02T16:43:00.000-06:00

Since arriving in Scotland from Canada as a visiting writer and curator one month ago, I have been introduced to quite a bit of talk on the subject of ‘precarisation’ and labour - specifically, the precarious labour of cultural workers. There seems to be both a blind valorisation of precarity in the arts and a growing desire for revolution from the precariously dissatisfied. But the theoretical

Responding to Jan Verwoert's "Why this town is big enough for more of us" *

2011-07-26T10:01:00.001-06:00

I remember first reading Jan Verwoert’s essay, “Life Work”, a couple of years ago and feeling both disturbed and drawn to this cult of the art world's inability to separate work from life. Is this really what the subversion of the division of labour leads to: the absolute collapse of our pleasure from our pain? As we all still operate within a capitalist society, this collapse of pleasure and

Searching for My Banff, Essay for Sarah Fuller's My Banff, AGA, May 28 - August 7, 2011

2011-06-15T13:53:00.003-06:00

Photo and image credit: Sarah Fuller, Installation view My Banff, Art Gallery of Alberta, 2011 My earliest memory of Banff goes back to the mid ‘80s, when the hot springs still smelled like sulphur. I was about five years old and I remember thinking that the gurgling pools of dark water must be filled with rotting eggs, that people were boiling eggs and forgetting to take them out. I

Commentary: Federal Cuts to The Arts - A Special Report from Abroad*

2011-06-02T12:40:00.000-06:00