In recent years, though, things have changed for Luis Jacob, and quickly. A few days earlier, he had just finished showing in the distinctly less gritty, gracefully curling rotunda of the fabled Guggenheim Museum uptown. One of his Album series — carefully arrayed selections of found images grouped to build what appear to be highly personal narratives using mass media — was shown there in a sprawling, superstar-laden show called Haunted, alongside work by such icons as Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol.
It was just the most recent signal that, in the fast-paced churn of the international art world, Jacob has become perhaps Toronto's most notable export. In 2007, he was invited to show at Documenta 12, a sprawling, prestige-laden international exhibition in Kassel, Germany that takes place only once every five years.
Some 750,000 people saw his work there, a video piece and Album III, including an elite of international curators; since then, Jacob's rise has been steadily stratospheric, from solo shows in European museums to his work being acquired by important museum collections — like the Guggenheim — all over the world. “It changed everything,” Jacob says, still a little incredulous.
Source: Toronto Star
How best to sum up Betty Goodwin’s impact on our visual culture? Put it this way: If you’re Canadian and have even the most casual interest in art, Goodwin’s work will loom large in your imagination, or more likely, will be seared into your psyche. Against all trend and fashion over the 60-plus years of her career, her devotion to the human figure — often locked in some kind of primal struggle, awash in her signature ochres and reds, blacks and deep, sooty greys — forged her a singular legacy in our world.
Source: Toronto Star
He’s the champion of the avant-garde with his Cannes Film Festival winner about sexy catfish and laser-eyed monkeys.
Yet even as Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul confounds and challenges the mainstream with Uncle Boonmee Who Can Remember His Past Lives, a vivid fantasy of dreams and memories opening Thursday at Bell Lightbox, he prefers to make people laugh.
“For me, it's a comedy, a melancholy comedy,” said Weerasethakul, 40, whose name is roughly pronounced as Api-sha-tome Weera-seta-koon (he encourages people to call him “Joe,” his nickname).
Source: Toronto Star
Korean artist Kim Joon takes body art to a whole new level using his subjects as a creative, sprawling, slightly flawed (hey, we’re only human) canvas on which to create hi vibrant, colourful, and dynamic artworks.
Source: Lost At E Minor
A European Union ban on seal products was temporarily suspended Thursday, the day before it was set to take effect, because of a legal challenge by Inuit leaders.
The Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, representing Canada's 53,000 Inuit, and Inuit in Greenland filed a legal challenge against the EU's ban earlier this year, calling it illegal and immoral.
The Canadian Seal Marketing Group and the Fur Institute of Canada are also involved in the challenge.
Before news of the injunction emerged, Prime Minister Stephen Harper spoke out against the scheduled ban, saying the federal government is "very strongly in opposition" to it.
Harper said it's "flagrant discrimination" against the Canadian sealing industry, which he described as a sector that employs "hard-working people who are also of modest means."
"It is a disgrace that they're treated this way in some countries based upon no facts or information whatsoever. So, we strongly object to the decision," Harper told reporters at a government announcement in Miramichi, N.B.
Last November, Canada made an official complaint to the World Trade Organization about the European ban. Norway has joined that complaint.
Source: CBC News
1. Ireland - Debt/GDP: 997%
2. Netherlands - Debt/GDP: 467%
3. United Kingdom - Debt/GDP: 409%
4. Switzerland - Debt/GDP: 273%
5. Portugal - Debt/GDP: 228%
6. Austria - Debt/GDP: 214%
While the U.S. and Canada have large economies, their respective debt-to-GDP ratios are 93% and 62%. The U.S. gets most of the attention because of the size of the numbers that comprise the ratio - $13.5 trillion debt (June 2009) and $14.4 trillion GDP (2009 estimate).
By comparison, China and India have ratios of 7% and 20% respectively. Their economic growth rates have also exceeded the western nations over the past few years, thereby keeping their debt ratios relatively low. If the western nations don't implement policies to reduce their debts, they run the risk of jeopardizing future economic growth and prosperity.
Source: Yahoo
New research suggests if you’re suffering from a broken heart taking a Tylenol may relieve some of the pain.
Source: Toronto Star
Art Gallery of Ontario ... Sept. 1, ... “Julian Schnabel: Art and Film,” ... Shary Boyle’s ... “Flesh and Blood,”
... “At Work,” ... Betty Goodwin, Agnes Martin and Eva Hesse ... photography finalists Leslie Hewitt, Kristan Horton, Josh Brand and Moyra Davey ...
Vancouver artist Stan Douglas’s “Klatsassin” ... Stephen Bulger ...
South African William Kentridge ... “Journey to the Moon” ... Gallery TPW ...
Both open Sept. 7 as part of TIFF’s “Future Projections.” ...
colourful Tim Burton show ... importing from the MoMA in New York, ... Nov. 22 at the Bell Lightbox ...
Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art ...
Halifax, David Hoffos ... “Scenes from the House Dream” ... Sept. 10. ...
Albright-Knox Gallery ... Micah Lexier, Fastwurms, Daniel Borins and Jennifer Marman, Reinhard Reitzenstein, James Carl and Kim Adams, ... Sept. 24 ...
Royal Ontario Museum ...
... El Anatsui ... “When I Last Wrote to You About Africa,” ... Oct. 2 ...
Gardiner Museum ...
“Breaking Boundaries” ... Shary Boyle ... Brendan Tang ... Carmela Laganse and Marc Courtemanche. Oct. 7. ...
The Power Plant ...
Iain Baxter& ... Pae White. Oct. 8. ...
University of Toronto galleries ... “Traffic: Conceptualism in Canada,” ... Sept. 10. ...
Georgia Scherman Projects ... Shaun Gladwell ... on Sept. 8 ...
Hadley + Maxwell ... YYZ Sept. 9 ...
Jessica Bradley Art + Projects ... Nicolas Baier ... Sept. 11 ...
Mira Godard ... Christopher Pratt ... Sept. 18 ...
Oil spills and polaroids ... Edward Burtynsky ... Nicholas Metivier ... Sept. 16 ...
Barbara Edwards Contemporary ... Eric Fischl ... opening Sept. 24 ...
Isabelle Hayeur, Dana Claxton and Val Klassen ... responding to the work of legendary director Werner Herzog ... Evergreen Brickworks ... Sept. 26 ...
Diaz Contemporary ... James Carl and Kim Adams ... Oct. 21. ...
Nuit Blanche thing ... Oct. 2. ...
Sobey Prize in Montreal in November ... Brendan Fernandes ...
Source: Toronto Star
The artist was chosen by a national selection committee comprised of senior contemporary art curators from across Canada and formed by the National Gallery of Canada (NGC), organizer of the Canadian representation for the 2011 Biennale.
Source: View on Canadian Art
“This will be province No. 7 of our 10. We’ll continue that process until our provinces and states in North America, indeed countries around the world, recognize MMA as a sport.”
In truth, Ontario’s decision may be less about tapping out, or giving in, to pressure to allow the fighting events, and more about cashing in.
The Ontario government is estimating that a major MMA event could attract as many as 30,000 fans and generate as much as $6 million in local economic activity.
Mixed martial arts fights pit two competitors against each other in a fighting style that typically combines striking, grappling and submission techniques.
But bloody images of fighters going at each other inside a cage until one taps out — gives up — gets knocked out, or time runs out, has been slammed as barbaric by critics.
Source: National Post
