Arts Scene Round Up

There’s plenty worth getting excited about right now in the Atlantic Canadian arts scene, from new pop-up events to big gallery expansion plans. And if you’re faced with a rainy Spring day, you can always pour over some of the reviews, interviews and online projects worth bookmarking this season.

Andrea Ward, Hairstories (detail) 1989-94 hair, printed text and mixed media, Plexiglas, mahogany frames, Plexiglas shelves (8 panels from suite of 41). 35 x 35 cm.

Andrea Ward, Hairstories (detail) 1989-94
hair, printed text and mixed media, Plexiglas, mahogany frames, Plexiglas shelves (8 panels from suite of 41). 35 x 35 cm. On view at MSVU Art Gallery

HAPPENINGS:

  • Mireille Bourgeois’s IOTA Gallery, a project that “investigates the alternative presentation and production platform, supporting writing, curatorial research, and cross-disciplinary artworks spanning new media, the web, visual, interactive and performance art” has a pop up event in Halifax June 6.
  • Check out two short films by artist Lisa Lipton, screening during HIFF 2015 on June 13.
  • At An Intimate Distance, an exhibition focusing on feminist works by Andrea Ward, Glynis Humphrey and Suzanne Swannie opens this week at Halifax’s MSVU Art Gallery.
  • Featuring artists ranging from Brendan Fernandes to Brian Jungen, PEI’s Confederation Centre Art Gallery explores the theme of masks in their current exhibition Looking back at You: Masks by Artists.
  • Have an itch to travel? Check out Christopher Pratt’s latest exhibition inspired by his extensive travels across Newfoundland at The Rooms Art Gallery, and take their “Travel Journal Writing and Sketching” workshop June 13.

NEWS

  • New Brunswick’s Beaverbrook Art Gallery recently revealed their expansion plans, which include new amenities such as artist studios.
  • The shortlist for the Sobey Art Award was just announced.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT/FUN:

  • Our featured cover artist for the Summer 2015 issue is Kay Burns. Spend some time exploring her amusing and thought provoking project, The Flat Earth Society.
  • Canadian Art’s Associate Editor David Balzer chats with BBC about “curationism,” or the current move towards a society where everyone wants to be a curator.
  • Can’t get to Venice? Learn more about Canadian representatives BGL, whose playful installation is on view at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Via Canadian Art.
  • One of my favorite comic book heroines, Wendy, “a young woman living in an urban centre, whose dreams of contemporary art stardom are perpetually derailed by the temptations of punk music, drugs, alcohol, parties, and boys,” got some big media attention this season. Check out the feature on Wendy in Canadian Art  and see her on the cover of Broken Pencil Magazine
  • Critic Jonathan Jones complains that fashion houses are “the new patrons of art” and they have boring tastes.
  • The debate about ownership and images in the digital age rages on—Richard Prince’s “victims” speak out.
  • Out writer Daniel Higham reviews John Greer’s exhibition at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in his latest Akimblog.

 

 

 

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