Zeke's Gallery

Howdy!

Lisa Hoffman and Natasha Rose Chenier played here last night. Natasha Rose Chenier played her three songs first (Letter from the Future, Heart and Thunder (version one) and Heart and Thunder (version two)) and then Lisa Hoffman played Losing Streak, More the Same, Friend of Mine, Came to Stay, Your Disease, Passing Through, The Real Slim Shady, and These Houses.

If you would like to hear it, click here [84.4 MB, 54:12 minutes] stream, flac, ogg vorbis.

Stuff Seen - Under Construction

zeke@zeke.com (Zeke's Gallery) — Mon, 28 May 2007 12:12:00 -0400

Howdy!

Ungraded due to way too many conflicts of interest (I don't think I have enough fingers to count how many friends I have that work there).

Still playing catch up on the reviews, last February (jeez! was it that long ago) I made it out to Pointe Claire to see their group show called Under Construction. As you might expect, I was quite pleased and entertained by the show. It consisted of work by Thomas Corriveau, Martin Dèsilets, Guillaume Lachapelle and Sean Whalley, curated by Amanda Johnston and Alexandra Hofmaenner it was a smoothly done collection of some widely different art.

I'm not entirely certain if I am as much a fan of M. Dèsilets' work as I am of the other three artists, but they all fit in very nicely to the overall theme (which if you hadn't quite figured out was 'architecture'). And this might also have to do with my sense of the show being somewhat fragmented. While each of the artists did work that had strong "I'm building stuff" happening, I missed any real connections between them, beyond that. Similar to Hampstead, Hochelaga, Saint Leonard and Pointe Claire all being part of Montreal, yet also being very different neighborhoods.

Although now that I think about it, I might be giving M. Dèsilets short shrift, due to his stuff only being 2-D, while everyone else's was 3-D.

Museums obviously can't do math

zeke@zeke.com (Zeke's Gallery) — Mon, 28 May 2007 11:14:00 -0400

Howdy!

There's all sorts of bafflegab and gobbledy-gook happening in this press release about yesterday's Montreal Museum's Day. Nowhere can I find any press release or other sort of factual documentation about attendance at the Journée des musées montréalais in 2006 which is sort of surprising since it was the 20th anniversary. But I scratch my head when last week they released something that ostensibly showed how 125,000 people participated in 2006, and then this year they state that they "maintained last year's attendance once again" but they only got 108,000 people. A 14% drop in attendance isn't maintaining anything.

This article by Cheryl Cornacchia in the Montreal Gazette does a better job of analyzing the results. Le Devoir on the other hand doesn't let the facts get in the way of a photo op.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer vs. David Altmejd. The Montrealers at Venice

zeke@zeke.com (Zeke's Gallery) — Mon, 28 May 2007 10:39:00 -0400

Howdy!

I just set up a Google News Alert to track who gets more internet press in English, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer or David Altmejd. Right now there are nine for Altmejd and five for Lozano-Hemmer. For comparison purposes Felix Gonzalez-Torres (the dead American artist at Venice this year) has 13.

Three Le Devoir articles

zeke@zeke.com (Zeke's Gallery) — Sat, 26 May 2007 17:28:00 -0400

Howdy!

Musées en quête d'espace
St-Pierre promet plus d'argent au CALQ
Les collections d'entreprises: acheter localement

l'exposition Le Sentier du bonheur au parc du Mont-Royal

zeke@zeke.com (Zeke's Gallery) — Sat, 26 May 2007 16:25:00 -0400

Groupe CNW

Artefact Montréal needs a conflict of interest policy (as does Voir)

zeke@zeke.com (Zeke's Gallery) — Sat, 26 May 2007 14:48:00 -0400

Howdy!

In the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal most recent magazine they announced who the artists in Artefact Montreal 2007 are going to be. 53% of them have been written about in Voir by Nicholas Mavrikakis over the past 18 months.

M. Mavrikakis gets paid to write about them, then M. Mavrikakis gets paid by all three levels of government to curate a show with the same artists that he wrote about. The readers of Voir are not informed that he is using his job as a reviewer to curate at the same time, and while the audience for Artefact Montreal 2007 are informed that he is a reviewer the extent of his double dipping is not revealed.

The artists chosen (and the article where applicable):

Mathieu Beauséjour, BGL, Jacques Bilodeau, Catherine Bolduc, Diane Borsato, Marie-Claude Bouthillier, Alexandre David, Robbin Deyo, Aganetha Dyck, Marion Galut, Trevor Gould, Peter Hasdell & Patrick Harrop, Caroline Hayeur, Mireille Lavoie, Mathieu Lefèvre, Samuel Roy-Bois, Henri Sagna, Stephen Schofield, and Chih–Chien Wang.

I fail to see why it is so difficult for Voir to either inform its readers that one of its writers is also curating a show with the artists he is writing about, or ask him not to write about artists whom he is working with.

The Sobey Art Award Results

zeke@zeke.com (Zeke's Gallery) — Sat, 26 May 2007 14:12:00 -0400

Howdy!

I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the Sobey Art Award Game. In total there were 79 people who checked it out, and 29 people who answered any the questions. But without further ado the results:

The Atlantic region
Jean-Denis Boudreau 16%
Alexandra Flood 20%
Vanessa Paschakarnis 28%
Mathew Reichertz 16%
Mitchell Wiebe 20%

Quebec
David Altmejd 32%
Michel De Broin 9%
Raphaelle de Groot 27%
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer 18%
Yannick Pouliot 14%

Ontario
Michael Belmore 0%
Shary Boyle 45%
Frank Shebageget 18%
Andrew Wright 27%
Kevin Yates 9%

Praries and the North
Robin Arseneault 14%
Daniel Barrow 14%
Sarah Anne Johnson 23%
Rachelle Viader Knowles 32%
Graeme Patterson 18%

West Coast
Scott McFarland 13%
Luanne Martineau 30%
Damian Moppett 35%
Steven Shearer 9%
Ron Terada 13%

I'd like to thank everyone who participated, and when they announce the short list, we'll see how well we did.

globeandmail.com: Canadian art sale raises record $22.8-million

zeke@zeke.com (Zeke's Gallery) — Fri, 25 May 2007 09:34:00 -0400

globeandmail.com: Canadian art sale raises record $22.8-million

Last Chance to Play the Sobey Art Award Game

zeke@zeke.com (Zeke's Gallery) — Thu, 24 May 2007 15:18:00 -0400

Howdy!

Play the Sobey Art Award Game

and if you would like information about any of the semi-finalists, click here. Voting shuts down Friday at noon.

Contemporary Art Auctions May 2007 - Chelsea Art Galleries

zeke@zeke.com (Zeke's Gallery) — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:17:00 -0400

Contemporary Art Auctions May 2007 - Chelsea Art Galleries

Biennale de Montréal 2007 and Murray Guy, tight like that.

zeke@zeke.com (Zeke's Gallery) — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:02:00 -0400

Howdy!

In keeping tabs on where things fit together, I discovered this morning that Luis Jacob is exhibiting simultaneously at the fancy-ass and very prestigious Biennale de Montréal 2007 and at the Murray Guy Gallery in a show called Street Scene. It must mean that the Murray Guy Gallery is as fancy-ass and very prestigious as the biennale, right?

And according to this article in ArtCal Lee Plested, the curator of Street Scene, is Canadian as well. Cool, eh?

Bruce Nauman at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal by Alexander Wenderoff

zeke@zeke.com (Zeke's Gallery) — Thu, 24 May 2007 10:21:00 -0400

Howdy!

Mr. Wenderoff is interning here at the gallery, this is what he wrote about the Bruce Nauman show

There is one image from the Bruce Nauman exhibit at the Musee d’art contemporain de Montreal that really stayed with me. It was not the One Hundred Fish Fountain, nor was it Nauman’s famed The True Artist helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths. It wasn’t really even of a work of at. I was exploring a back passage which eventually lead me to Anthro/Socio (Rinde Spinning) room, where I saw a security guard trying to make sense of the situation. He looked absolutely baffled. After he noticed I was there too, and that I was part of the group of people that claim to understand it, he left me to experience the videos myself. I left about thirty seconds afterwards as I can only handle videos of screaming, spinning, upside down heads for so long. I don’t know if I have ever seen anyone as confused as that security guard, at least not in a real long time. The poor guy was just trying to figure out what the hell was going on in that room, and I’d assume also why anyone who would appreciate such things. If he had asked me, I wouldn’t have been able to tell him. I myself have no clue what the hell was going on in that room. The same can be said for the other rooms with videos, Clown Torture, Office Edit II and Square Dance.

The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign), 1967, Neon tubing with clear glass tubing suspension frame, 59 x 55 x 5 inches; Ed. 2/3, Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands, ©Bruce Nauman / SODRAC (2007)

Well that’ not entirely true. I was, to an extent, able to comprehend what was occurring, the issue I had more trouble resolving was why it was occurring. If I have the choice, which I usually do, I would rather not watch a video of a clown sitting on a toilet while other videos of said clown screaming “No No No No!” engulf me in noise. I worked one office job in my life, and it sucked, and when I left the office I left for good, so why would I want to watch a video of an office at night, as I could in Office Edit II? I’m sure it’s a social commentary of some sort in Nauman’s mind. Whatever.

The videos, needless to say, did not do it for me. On the other hand, Nauman’s neon work in the Elusive Signs part of the exhibit is great. There are tons of wires needed for this part of the exhibit, and while they are quite visible, do not interfere. Flashing lights on some works do not distract the spectator when viewing a nearby piece. I have a soft spot for word games, so maybe I’m a bit biased when it comes to discussion of such pieces as None Sing Neon Sign, which is simply the words none, sing, neon, and sign, none sing being an anagram of neon sign. Maybe I'm just easily impressed, but I think that’s pretty cool.

Run from Fear, Fun from Rear, 1972, Neon tubing with clear glass tubing suspension frame, two parts, 8 x 24 x 2 ½ inches each; Ed. 4/6, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Gerald S. Elliott Collection, ©Bruce Nauman / SODRAC (2007)

There is also an installation piece called Helman Gallery Parallelogram where one walks through a tiny space in a narrow wall into a room lit with neon green, then out another tiny passageway. It hurt my eyes and made me feel a little claustrophobic. Probably should have read the sign that warns that spectators may feel confined in the installation before I went in there.

One Hundred Fish Fountain, 2005, 97 poissons en bronze de 7 formes différentes, suspendus avec du fil en acier, inoxydable sur un treillis métallique. Dimensions approximatives du bassin : 7,6 m x 8,5 m x 20,3 cm, Avec l’aimable permission de la Donald Young Gallery, Chicago, ©Bruce Nauman / SODRAC (2007) Photo : Richard-Max Tremblay

The highlight of the exhibit is the One Hundred Fish Fountain (which actually only contains 97 fish), located at the back of the exhibit. The sound of the water flowing overwhelms the neighbouring room, and draws you in to behold the fountain. That’s fine, there were some more videos in the neighbouring room, so not missing a whole lot by zooming through there towards the sound. It really does feel as though the fish are swimming in the flowing water, even though the fish are actually suspended above the stagnant pool of water. All in all it’s a solid exhibit, showing a fascinating artist who works with various media and definitely worth checking out. I just can’t help but feel the security guards working there think we must be crazy.

SODRAC is toothless and useless organization

zeke@zeke.com (Zeke's Gallery) — Thu, 24 May 2007 10:02:00 -0400

Howdy!

Yesterday I was at the press preview for the Bruce Nauman exhibit that is opening at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal tomorrow. As has become a very bad standard operating practice, in the press package there was a notice from SODRAC that stated in unequivocal terms that the pictures couldn't be cropped, and that there must be a copyright notice.

Well, if you notice this is the current front page of the museum's website.

The only copyright notice I see on it is this one: "© 2005-2007 Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal." Then if you look at this picture

It appears to be the exact same one as on the front page of the museum's website, only not cropped. What gives? Why isn't SODRAC enforcing its policy with the museum? Or is there something I don't know?

Then just so I don't have to spend any more time in court ('cuz it really ain't fun) the fine print Mean Clown Welcome, 1985, Tubes au néon montés sur monolithe de métal, Collection Udo and Anette Brandhorst Collection, Cologne, Avec l'aimable permission de la Donald Young Gallery, Chicago, ©Bruce Nauman / SODRAC (2007)

[update 5:04 pm: And can anyone find "©Bruce Nauman / SODRAC (2007)" anywhere near or around this article in La Presse? Or this photo in La Presse?]

[update 5:50 pm: Does anyone know if there is a "©Bruce Nauman / SODRAC (2007)" anywhere near or around this advertisement?

Or what negotiations were required in order to allow the picture to be modified and used for commercial purposes? - Thanks a gazillion and a half times to Michael Boyle for taking the picture of the ad and for letting me post it here.]

O'Reilly Radar > Release 2.0.2: Web 2.0 Meets Wall Street

zeke@zeke.com (Zeke's Gallery) — Wed, 23 May 2007 21:03:00 -0400

O'Reilly Radar > Release 2.0.2: Web 2.0 Meets Wall Street