Art I Saw:

Antartica
Stephen Bulger
A-

Some of the most haunting photos of the scott and other early antarctic exhibitions, a slection of tight curratorially wise prints, some contemparary reprints, some documentary, some obv chosen on aesthetic grounds. Two mani fotographers, Herbert Pointing for Scott and Frank Hurley for Shackleton. In addition John Meers, nat geo standard penguins and epic ice shit, really cliched, really not worth anythnig. But the pointing and the hurley--photograms (black on white) of ships caught in ice, silver geltains of ships sailing and the ships abonded, three on a wall from the top--butch adventure, happy and excited, next one down tight grins, slight dread, the bottom, exhaustion, paranoia, fear--the kind of look of a mine who cant go back home, who will die...there were others, a guy hoisting shit on his back, with 200 foot ice cliffs towernig over him, people starving, the folds of calving bergs, etc...i think they were the oldest photos ive seen in berg, but amongst my favourites.
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Fantasy Island
Drake Hotel

mostly kinky but dull, post pop, working dirty, and not working clever...paintings, works on paper, some video, soem photographs (the outsider/insider cant draw but tries easthetic popular) but 3 worth while--super creepy taxideremd/fowered sculptures made form organic and plastic components (ie feet, tooth molds, wax, fabric, and real flowers, toys, etc) looks standardly pretty, but placed at foot level, means looking down, looking down one realises the polite menace of the work. also a mandala like photo work, with geomoetric patterns in rigous geomeotries, seperate, with lots of white space, closer up they are busby berkleesque recreations of americas favourite sluts (cheerleaders) not sure if it was cheap and misogynyst or clever and femminist, but it looked hot.

Edward o Day, middle of a group show install, but some really nice potraits from duane handle, including a photo realist, chalky white skull on a blue black background, large and lightly distended, like an attempt to correct the deaths head in holbeins the ambassodors, and some cahterine heard lace paper creations, delicate, impossibly crafted, sinsiter, and beautiful.

retro at angell had a really nice paul butler (from the series i want to do with him n harcourt), a 6 foot animontronic mickey hand, some goodbad painting, heard's russian dolls, made like she was stripping skin, the last doll a small perfectly craved human heart--like what a prisoner would do w. too much free time.

also saw a brilliant, 60s death metal pop painting, 6 feet high, 4 feet across, of a satanic mass, with naked woman in black cape, pentagrams, inverted crosses, naked babys (one on the altar), but no matter how evil it looked, it just failed (it had this gimmicky, poppy, mel ramos edge)

york quay gallery
brilliant stephen shoreesque, photo show, clean, concise, perfectly sized, well coloured, sqaure cibrachromes of arch(typal) canadiana, in BC mostly--taxidermys, wolf shots, deer (one which might be good for stag show), and then female sasquatches, trailers, rocks in cottage country, etc--hot!

power
on kawara (the gallery is white, gray, black and outside is the granite benches to the lake ontario, it was pissing rain, and windy, so everything had this victorian death hue--making kawaras work even stronger/stranger) the wall panels are interesting, they come in 8 sizes, 6 were shown, and the date was painted in the ocuntry he was in (showing the international nature of the art world) and some of the work was not strictly black, but had brown or navy tones (from the decay of the paint, from another concept) they were uniform in painterly techinque though, and strangely moving...as well, a series of his telegraph work, form the mid 70s to the late 90s, where he told people that he was till alive (what happens when he is dead--is that the central question of kawaras work, what happens when he is dead?) there were also 10 binders, also black, with columns of numbers typed, a million dates, 500k from the future, 500k from the past, facing each other in hermetic glass cases.

also saw a film work by javer tellez, double screen (v. filimc, red velvet curtains to get into the spacE) one was showing dreyers joan of arc, interposed with chalkboard comments, the other was showing interviews with autralian pysch patients--talked hugely but obliquely, about the culture of pysch depections, the role of martyr/saint, the implications of holiness, what it means to be committed, and all of that--intense

a retrospective of art from the old cold city gallery, mostly useless but the discovery of garry neil kennedy--a conceptual painter and poet, who currates the names of paint chips (into the middle east, first nations themes, midatlantic seaboard, seasons, etc) lingustic and vencualur, with a hard minimalist charm