C: International Contemporary Art articles from June 2005

C: International Contemporary Art archives from June 2005

Group metaphysics.(EDITORIAL)(Editorial)
June 22, 2005... In the sense that advertising is a necessary evil, C's ideal sponsors would be cigarette companies, the manufacturers of SUVs and maybe an industrial polluter or two. Even better would be a magazine financed entirely by only one genre of...

My dinner with who? Lately, I've thought that the only world-embracing life-consuming art projects left are marketing enterprises like American Apparel and Lush.(SLANT)(My Dinner With Merlin)(film)
June 22, 2005... Everything changed in LA this winter because of the rain. It was a strange time: the wettest winter on record in the past century, rain coming down like hogs from the sky. Pretty soon roofs started leaking. They kept leaking. This continued for...

Supplemental supernatural: David Askevold in Los Angeles.(THE SHOVER)(Mandarin gallery)
June 22, 2005... David Askevold was in Los Angeles during January and February for an artist residency and exhibition hosted by Mandarin, Alexis Hall's storefront gallery on the second floor of a desolate but beautiful two-storey Chinatown mini-mall and plaza...

No truth without a fight.(artists as political and social influences)
June 22, 2005... The writings of French philosopher Alain Badiou carve out their own distinct path in almost militant opposition to what he sees as philosophy's current failure to renew itself or provide effective opposition to the "repulsive mixture of power...

Two types of sacred: 1970s endurance art today.
June 22, 2005... Much 70s conceptual art (especially time-based work like video and performance) has often struck me as a relatively explicit (if ineffectual) form of meditation instruction. It's so intensely boring that it forces the viewer inward, into a...

Availabism, ferralism & Kali 101: Bruce la Bruce talks to Kembra Pfahler.(The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black band)(Interview)
June 22, 2005... 1. Kembra, you are one of the very few women I've met in my life whom I would truly classify as a goddess. You seem to operate on another plane of existence, in some other dimension which only intersects with our worldly perception of time and...

Don't you feel better? Meesoo Lee gets uneven: Lee credits pop culture as a primary influence, commenting that his video work may just be "an extension of the desire to watch more TV.".(Pleasure Dome, Toronto)(Pathetic Art)
June 22, 2005... "Some of the best and purest video art... is being made by complete morons." So writes Meesoo Lee, a video artist from Vancouver, a city on the art world radar as a hotbed of slacker art made by artists such as Damien Moppett, Steven Shearer,...

The politics of wearability: African cloth reivents the diaspora.
June 22, 2005... Imagine you saw someone (let's say me, for argument's sake) wearing a hooded sweatshirt with Maurice. Would it matter that one of the Caribbean's political revolutionaries was blazed on cotton and being sold to a mass audience for mass...

Brad Phillips: Groeflin Maag Galerie, Basel.(exhibition of watercolour portraits )
June 22, 2005... Brad Phillips Groeflin Maag Galerie, Basel When I checked out young Canadian artist Brad Phillips' European solo debut at the Groeflin Maag Gallery in Basel's up-and-coming Dreispitz Areal, it felt a bit like stepping into a dark cellar....

Micah Lexier: Gitte Weise Gallery, Berlin.
June 22, 2005... MICAH LEXIER GITTE WEISE GALLERY, BERLIN In the Gitte Weise gallery in Berlin there is a certain gentleman who maintains Canadian artist Micah Lexier's exhibit daily. By decree of the artist, every hour he gives out a specially...

Beck's Futures 2005: Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.(contemporary artists)
June 22, 2005... BECK'S FUTURES 2005 INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS, LONDON ICA's Director of Exhibitions Jens Hoffman opens his catalogue essay for Beck's Futures 2005 by recapitulating the attendant and well-rehearsed woes of the award exhibition...

Reena Spaulings: Haswellediger & Co., New York.(Reena Spaulings)(fictional identity)(Bernadette Corporation)(art collective)
June 22, 2005... REENA SPAULINGS HASWELLEDIGER & CO., NEW YORK "Then it hit me: why not just let go for once? So I'm really giving it up this time. Painting, music: I can't keep it to myself anymore. I'm hoping we can all push this thing forward...

Stephen Andrews: Cue Art Foundation, New York Participant, Inc., New York.
June 22, 2005... STEPHEN ANDREWS CUE ART FOUNDATION, NEW YORK PARTICIPANT, INC., NEW YORK The most arresting image in Stephen Andrews' exhibition at the CUE Art Foundation was a moving one. A short animation on a monitor near the gallery's entrance...

James Lee Byars: Love, Life and Death: Musee De L'art Moderne Et Contemporain De Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France.
June 22, 2005... JAMES LEE BYARS: LOVE, LIFE AND DEATH MUSEE DE L'ART MODERNE ET CONTEMPORAIN DE STRASBOURG, STRASBOURG, FRANCE It has been a decade since the last retrospective of the work of the elusive American artist James Lee Byars (1932-1997),...

Blue Republic: Peak Gallery, Toronto.(Anna Passakas)(Radoslaw Kudlinski)
June 22, 2005... BLUE REPUBLIC PEAK GALLERY, TORONTO The lead image in the artist duo Anna Passakas and Radoslaw Kudlinski's (a.k.a. Blue Republic) latest exhibition Morning Daily seems innocuous enough at first glance. The large-scale digital photo...

Germaine Koh: Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver.
June 22, 2005... GERMAINE KOH CATRIONA JEFFRIES GALLERY, VANCOUVER Germaine Koh, arguably one of Canada's most interesting artists of her generation, has practiced as artist, curator and writer (among other things) for more than 15 years. Her practice...