Drawing on history: Midnight chalk drawing opens up a new chapter in downtown's social spaces
The Hotel Cecil sat boarded up, abandoned, squatted and forgotten for years on the corner of Jasper and 104th Street before it was torn down 101 years after it first opened. Once a prestigious hotelier on the then-western edge of downtown Edmonton, the Cecil was designed by architect Roland Lines (Alex Taylor School, Union Bank Inn) during a decade of immense urban development that included the inauguration of Edmonton as the provincial capital. Left off the official list for Heritage Buildings, the functioning hotel and bar eventually degraded into a seedy dilapidated dive before permanently closing in 2003 and being demolished in 2007.
As a prime location on the city's main drag, the corner of Jasper and 104 continued to ride the whitewashing wave of another boom of urban development. A glass tower with a street-level Sobey's took shape on the site with a design nod to the heritage district, but no physical trace of the Cecil remained. A transient town with a mentality of transient architecture, memories of public space blur, but the site of Jasper and 104 remains a meeting place of expectations.
Signifying the status of a somewhat urban density, the demolition and reconstruction of the new building was accompanied by the first "Make It Not Suck"—a DIY initiative led by a group of Edmontonians that saw many of our construction site scaffoldings wheat-pasted with pre-made visual works and text. As an attempt to mark the city with something other than construction-in-progress, the MINS group—along with and often in opposition to—the architects and developers were all staking a claim to the city they each called their own. A city expresses itself, but its expressions are regulated, or inspired, by a few.
This past weekend, gathering just north of Jasper on 104 at midnight, a group of friends and strangers arrived en masse with buckets of chalk and no greater plan than to draw on their city streets. QuickDRAW was the first night of Latitude 53's now annual event of drawing, and the Friday night event was proposed by local artist Sarah Patterson. The idea was to draw on the site of the next morning's City Market, connecting the act of drawing beyond just the gallery area. It was also a fine excuse to take advantage of our summer nights in an area that has been revitalized on the surface, but had yet to generate any real sense of self-sustenance.
"It's just to engage spontaneously with art and make fun in a non-destructible way," says Patterson, a tried-and-true downtown resident who regularly sees the action going on in and around the core.
With cars careening past that either apologized or honked, various individuals from a diverse background picked up a piece of chalk and drew whatever came to mind. Some came prepared with notebooks, others engaged with the street fixtures of stop signs and park benches, and others just freestyled large creatures real and imagined. Curious onlookers and midnight dog walkers looked on as if it was a spectacle, and the market shoppers the next morning smiled at the drawings that had been made for them.
Although QuickDRAW holds the same motivation of graffiti, which has been deemed illegal and unsafe in our city, nobody, not even the passing police cruiser, showed any signs of distress at this gesture to decorate public property for free. Perhaps chalk's temporary nature makes it more digestible, but when entire buildings can be torn down, pressure to remove spray paint seems more like a diversion.
As an event, QuickDRAW was neither here nor there, but as a concept, it marks an entry point for anyone to express themselves, as this city belongs to all of us. As Patterson continues, "It's accessible to anyone. Children do this all the time."
*First published in Vue Weekly
- A.F. Edmonton
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
A Three Day Tour of Winnipeg
Finally heading to the other edge of the prairies, I managed a short stay in Winnipeg to get a dose of the community. Although no studio visits were completed (but a partial studio move was endured), I did receive a gracious tour around Winnipeg's artist run centers and galleries courtesy of Shawna Dempsey.
First up was Platform Gallery, an artist run center that focuses on digital and photographic arts. Saskatoon-based Clark Ferguson's In Search of Desire was present on the walls inside the Artspace Building. First encountering Ferguson's short video "Farmer Jeans" last summer, the same glossy aesthetic remains present, but his brand of humour remains elusive.
(We would also run into visual artist Sarah Anne Johnson here and elsewhere that day. Johnson, whose works I first encountered during a Banff open studio visit, and where that work materialized into a show at the Illingworth Kerr, and whose reputation in the contemporary art world is steadily climbing with prestigious acquisitions and awards, would be an art star in any other scene, but in a city void of even hipsters, self-aggrandizing may be the only thing more socially awkward than the city itself.)
Next up was aceart, where Montreal-based Alexandre David's Over Here filled the space with a voluminous architectural sculpture made entirely of soft wood. At first appearing as an indoor skateboarding ramp, once on the ramp that ascends close to the ceiling in a gentle curve, the give under one's weight, the scent and almost flavour of the fresh cut wood, and naturally the reverberation of sound it causes within the space reveal themselves and reconfigure how we engage and organize space.
Speaking with artist and aceart administrator Liz Garlicki, I was also gladly informed about the center's series of critical publications, essays, and artist books that are an integral part to aceart's mandate to produce and disseminate dialogue from contemporary cultural producers.
In the same building, we stopped in on Urban Shaman, where Cliff Eyland had curated Manitoba-based artists Peter Prince and Jackie Traverse together for a mediocre painting show. While one or two mixed media canvases by Traverse shone with honest brutality, the show as a whole did not necessarily speak to each other, and certainly not to the viewer about why these works belonged with each other. As Manitoba's only Aboriginal artist run center, I was expecting more text and information from and about contemporary practitioners, but save for a darkened corner of books and a table over stacked with outdated postcards, there was no visible or accessible information about the center and its activities.
On to Plug In, where Pandora's Box was currently showing. Curated by Amanda Cachia, the show and tour was organized by the Dunlop Gallery in Regina, where I first saw it in its original presentation. Featuring ten international female artists from a multitude of backgrounds and disciplines, the show had far more room to breath in the gorgeous Plug In venue, but very notably missing was the Kara Walker short film (which was unfortunately replaced with editioned stills from her gallery in New York).
Brief stops were made at MAWA, a mentoring center for women artists where Dempsey and Lorri Millan have been working as co-Executive Directors for this past year. More of a resource space than a gallery space, MAWA seems to be an emblem of Winnipeg's cooperative spirit that espouses help and mentorship far more than competition and rivalry.
A stop was also made at Videopool, where a stack of Poolside publications, information about their various programming throughout the year, and a members' DVD catalogue later, completely affirmed its reputation as what a media arts center should be. As a meeting space for its members, Videopool is first and foremost a resource center that generates new avenues and accessibilities for distribution, technical facilities, archives, residencies, annual publications, funding possibilities, and programming initiatives. Attracting Andrew Harwood to step in from Toronto as the new Executive Director, he will follow a dynamic era led by Sandee Moore, who once again returns to her own artistic practice.
The final space visited was of course the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Sheltered entirely in tyndall stone since 1912, the WAG is just one more heritage building that continues to survive in downtown Winnipeg, though they continue to have their fair share of demolitions and renovations.
There primarily to find Allyson Mitchell's Ladies Sasquatch behind the silver antique selection, I was surprisingly taken a back by the Joe Fafard retrospective. Having seen his work countless times, the retrospective was the first time I have appreciated his work. With focus on his early works, which stand out in their curiosity, Fafard's impeccable note for the mundane detail is certainly on display as you walk by each pedestal. Placed outside of the market value context, Fafard's genuine compulsion with re-figuring ordinary folks and familiarities shine through, giving a face to the world he knows to a world that may otherwise forget.
- A.F. Edmonton
First up was Platform Gallery, an artist run center that focuses on digital and photographic arts. Saskatoon-based Clark Ferguson's In Search of Desire was present on the walls inside the Artspace Building. First encountering Ferguson's short video "Farmer Jeans" last summer, the same glossy aesthetic remains present, but his brand of humour remains elusive.
(We would also run into visual artist Sarah Anne Johnson here and elsewhere that day. Johnson, whose works I first encountered during a Banff open studio visit, and where that work materialized into a show at the Illingworth Kerr, and whose reputation in the contemporary art world is steadily climbing with prestigious acquisitions and awards, would be an art star in any other scene, but in a city void of even hipsters, self-aggrandizing may be the only thing more socially awkward than the city itself.)
Next up was aceart, where Montreal-based Alexandre David's Over Here filled the space with a voluminous architectural sculpture made entirely of soft wood. At first appearing as an indoor skateboarding ramp, once on the ramp that ascends close to the ceiling in a gentle curve, the give under one's weight, the scent and almost flavour of the fresh cut wood, and naturally the reverberation of sound it causes within the space reveal themselves and reconfigure how we engage and organize space.
Speaking with artist and aceart administrator Liz Garlicki, I was also gladly informed about the center's series of critical publications, essays, and artist books that are an integral part to aceart's mandate to produce and disseminate dialogue from contemporary cultural producers.
In the same building, we stopped in on Urban Shaman, where Cliff Eyland had curated Manitoba-based artists Peter Prince and Jackie Traverse together for a mediocre painting show. While one or two mixed media canvases by Traverse shone with honest brutality, the show as a whole did not necessarily speak to each other, and certainly not to the viewer about why these works belonged with each other. As Manitoba's only Aboriginal artist run center, I was expecting more text and information from and about contemporary practitioners, but save for a darkened corner of books and a table over stacked with outdated postcards, there was no visible or accessible information about the center and its activities.
On to Plug In, where Pandora's Box was currently showing. Curated by Amanda Cachia, the show and tour was organized by the Dunlop Gallery in Regina, where I first saw it in its original presentation. Featuring ten international female artists from a multitude of backgrounds and disciplines, the show had far more room to breath in the gorgeous Plug In venue, but very notably missing was the Kara Walker short film (which was unfortunately replaced with editioned stills from her gallery in New York).
Brief stops were made at MAWA, a mentoring center for women artists where Dempsey and Lorri Millan have been working as co-Executive Directors for this past year. More of a resource space than a gallery space, MAWA seems to be an emblem of Winnipeg's cooperative spirit that espouses help and mentorship far more than competition and rivalry.
A stop was also made at Videopool, where a stack of Poolside publications, information about their various programming throughout the year, and a members' DVD catalogue later, completely affirmed its reputation as what a media arts center should be. As a meeting space for its members, Videopool is first and foremost a resource center that generates new avenues and accessibilities for distribution, technical facilities, archives, residencies, annual publications, funding possibilities, and programming initiatives. Attracting Andrew Harwood to step in from Toronto as the new Executive Director, he will follow a dynamic era led by Sandee Moore, who once again returns to her own artistic practice.
The final space visited was of course the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Sheltered entirely in tyndall stone since 1912, the WAG is just one more heritage building that continues to survive in downtown Winnipeg, though they continue to have their fair share of demolitions and renovations.
There primarily to find Allyson Mitchell's Ladies Sasquatch behind the silver antique selection, I was surprisingly taken a back by the Joe Fafard retrospective. Having seen his work countless times, the retrospective was the first time I have appreciated his work. With focus on his early works, which stand out in their curiosity, Fafard's impeccable note for the mundane detail is certainly on display as you walk by each pedestal. Placed outside of the market value context, Fafard's genuine compulsion with re-figuring ordinary folks and familiarities shine through, giving a face to the world he knows to a world that may otherwise forget.
- A.F. Edmonton
Anthea Black, Surrender No Surrender, July 23 - Sept 5, SNAP
Part working studio, part portfolio, Anthea Black's Surrender No Surrender presents a point of intersection for various interests: pop iconography, contemporary printmaking, leather culture, the power and development of limited edition printing, and queer art history making. Spread over four walls in the open studio space/gallery of SNAP, the show is rather antithetical to the status quo of printmaking shows, especially printmaking shows in Edmonton.
Opening up the perspective and entry point of printmaking as both form and as message, Black's working exhibition was coordinated in conjunction with Camp Fyrefly, a queer youth camp where participants were given printmaking workshops along with queer art history seminars by Black. From the opening image of Wonder Woman and Big Barda joining hands and forces, there is a focus of collaboration and intertextuality.
Image credit: Anthea Black, 2009.
Playing off the iconic DC Marvel character comics and their extensive character histories and their social historical relevances, Black also plays up their medium in the imperfect pasting and peeling edges. The creases may be seen as irritating to the perfectionist, but their presence emphasizes the action of putting up the works, which when combined with the history lesson provided by "I Saw This & Thought of You", remains the single most important fact in the entire exhibition.
- A.F. Edmonton
Opening up the perspective and entry point of printmaking as both form and as message, Black's working exhibition was coordinated in conjunction with Camp Fyrefly, a queer youth camp where participants were given printmaking workshops along with queer art history seminars by Black. From the opening image of Wonder Woman and Big Barda joining hands and forces, there is a focus of collaboration and intertextuality.
Image credit: Anthea Black, 2009.
Playing off the iconic DC Marvel character comics and their extensive character histories and their social historical relevances, Black also plays up their medium in the imperfect pasting and peeling edges. The creases may be seen as irritating to the perfectionist, but their presence emphasizes the action of putting up the works, which when combined with the history lesson provided by "I Saw This & Thought of You", remains the single most important fact in the entire exhibition.
- A.F. Edmonton
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