News And Tidbits

The Décarie Project have launched at Liane And Danny Taran Gallery. Basically a group of "social interventions" in the lyrical sense of the word: art involving the lives of "ordinary people".

I am not here to announce a gallery show, that is not my aim.
I simply insist on pointing on a few a-day-only events that I
think are of relative importance:


On Sunday the 8th of May, Althea Thauberger
is presenting a choral concert that she organized
with people living in the neighborhood of the gallery.
It's at 16h30 at 5170 Chemin Côte St Catherine (metro
of the same name, but expect a 10 minute walk).


On Sunday the fifth of June, at noon, there will be a group
crawl performance organized by non-other than William Pope L.,
the "friendliest black artist of America", whom I
consider to be a landmark (no pun intended)performance artist,
also involved with sculpture, film, installation, painting, and web art.

Here is the Hour interview about Montreal project.

There is another good interview here.


There is another intriguing performance by D'bi.Young, who propose you
to follow the path of everyday labour of one worker of the Saydie Bronfman Center,
and move with her to her second nighshift job. That is the 4, 5 and 7 May at 19h.
You need to call for reservation (find the info on the website).


Farine Orpheline will also inhabit the neighborhood in early June with
a certain autocar that you will be able to observe at the gallery exhibition,
along with the results of participatory works already organized this last
season by other participants of this project.


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Manif 3 has started in Quebec.
Yes there is a lotof art to see, but if you can make only one day, try the main exhibit and the Ben Vautier wall painting.

Tommorrow night (30 Avril, 19h) are a couple interventions/performances by Folie Culture, Christian Messier, and what I guess is Matthieu Beauséjour: International Virologie Numismatique.

Look at website for ther events.

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A lot of stuff is going on at Ottawa Art Gallery.

Part of OFF Grid, another exhibit on social interventions, are students projects tomorrow (the 30th), a screening of "socially resistant" video art on the 19th May ("Avert Your Eyes / Stare Back"), and a special project by performance artist victoria Stanton between the 20 and the 24th of May.

Then there is a cool survey of art from Alberta, part of a festival on the matter:
the "Alberta Scene" (if you are like me you are goingto find the opening page very cheesy, but the exhibition
section is huge, including another survey at the National Gallery).


-----------------------------------


Elektra kicks off
on the 10th of May, bringing together the major electronic arts events of
Montreal under the gap of a single month, sharing (or actually fighting to get the best artists with) Mutek.

I mean...what is Autechre doing at Elektra?


Nevertheless, don't miss the few installations at Musée D'art Contemporain
and Place Des Arts, notably Rafael-Lozano Hemmer between the 11 and 15th of May at MAC.

Resniper at Usine C Wednesday the 11th sounds like a thrill.

Than "L'Archange" involves an installation by Alain Pelletier. I wonder ifwe can visit it during the day. (12 to 14th May at Station C).

The director of Transmediale gives a talk on the 12th (17h, Usine C)
If you never heard of Transmediale than it is likely you will
not be interested by the sort of activity going on at Elektra. ;-)


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Victoriaville's Festival of Musique Actuelle is kickin on the 19th of May.


As usual tickets are a little bit expensive, but the concerts are generally
of high quality, including both sound and performance.

Zeena Parkins and Ikue Mori is not to be missed for all the great reviews their abum received. Maybe try the Plsatic People Of The Universe right before it. (Friday the 20th of May).


Boredoms are back, so is Tenko. I wonder if I will be.


----------------------



Last but not least (I'm short on Toronto for the moment)
is the launching of the Festival Du Théâtre Des Amériques on the 25th of May, one of the best Montreal Festival.

"100 Rencontres" organized by Benoît Lachambre is of interest for this site
for involving both visual artists and performers into a living installation piece
that you can visit at SAT between the 25th and 29th of May (at night, and there is an entry price).

"Cinema Cielo" (Danio Manfredini), "The Room" (Amal El Kenawy), "Biokhraphia" (Lina Saneh, Rabih Mroué), "E" (Alain fraçon), and "Je Ne Sais Pas Si Vous Êtes Comme Moi" (a collective walk performance) are my suggestions.

Ok...maybe add to this the new play by Theatre Ubu.
Check the site for programmation.


At least one or two of these will mark you as some of the best art moments
of the year, as is always the case with each FTA.



Cheers,

Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com

Art(T)wit Site Of The Month: Avant Gaming.

My art site of the month is a site devoted to the archiving
of links concerning experimentation with art and the gaming industry.
I bet on my readers' enthousiasm while they peruse the wonderful Avant Gaming
website.


I realize my aim with these monthly selections is to point
toward sites that offer hints, clues, proofs, that they are new
paths, avenues and directions happening within the arts at a
time when we feel they are not much interesting possibilities left.
Therefore I am not so interested in linking art projects themselves
(unless they are particularly eloquent), than pointing at the emergence
of perticular "scenes", and the people able to circumscribe and categorize
these "new agendas" for art (be them mediatic or theoretical).



But....for those who don't have the time to browse the site above
in its full glory for the time being, let me spot you two fave links of
mine that represents well the sort of materiel that is categorized and written
about on Avant-Gaming.


I feel like presenting them the same way Jennifer McMackon would on her
Simpleposie.




Have you ever played Pac-Man with a Mondrian painting ?

Pac-Mondrian




Have you ever played Asteroids with a sexy poem?

Arteroids



Cheers,

Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com

Where I'm Art

(that image is from James Farmer at Seblogging Cognitive Architects)





I am very confused and shifting, these days.


I let myself shocked by details that would
probably not cross the mind of many.

I take as argument the fact that even the public friendly William Kentridge exhibit
in Montreal shocked me when it received a lot of great press everywhere else.


I won't go here about what went wrong in my mind.


I am questioning wrether it's time or not for me to do art,
and wrether that wouldn't be my best option to respond to what
is going on around me, instead of sitting here blogging
about art shows that not much people care about.


I remember last month when I finished writting a whole
show review on Sarah Lucas, linking some images, right before
the gallery took all the images off, probably at the request of the artist.

I thought: Oops...ok, well...this one is going to be all
text with maybe one or two links to artnet.

But then, and perhaps under the influence of whom I was writting
about (Lucas had always been an extremist thinker), I
started to question: "Why do I care?".

I mean, Does Sarah cares ? Is it like she has a blog,
and talks about what she wants to do next, shares her opinions
on the world and other people's art, and show images
of her art??


No way. Her art is out there, take it or leave it
No discussion.


Not that I'm reproaching her anything, because what I
just described in fact would be the situation with 93 per cent of
visual artists I know.


I even thought Damien Hirst had a website until recently
when I realized that it was a devoted fan site.


It used to be complex enterprise to start a website, but the era
of blogging is shifting all this.

It is becoming almost the reverse situation when anyone will
soonly get nailed against a wall and asked why or why not are they writting
blogs.


I believe blog will have a strong impact on
the development of art and the artworld.
Not only blog are a new form of art,
accentuated on the now, the everyday,
the archiving, and the flutuaction
of process (admitting your mistakes),
but they shift a lot of parameters
in the conventions of information control,
much more directly than it was ever
predicted since internet became
a popular application in the early 90's.


I don't think Google Video is such a revolution
when you can already blog your own videos.


I don't think Kentridge in museums will last when
the next Kentridge will blog their own video animations on the web.

Why go in a museum see a video about the urgency
of the situation of aids in Africa when someone
else can blog his art about the same subject
the morning it's done (Google even offers you
to make people pay for a stream). For now at least
you can reply "Because Kentridge is much better", but that
is temporary. Chances are the future Kentridge will be decided
upon by the public, when they will not need anymore to be told by gallerists
the art they should be gazing at.


The media canvase is irremediably shifting (once again).
Media artists are getting new means to develop their way
of collaborating with the world. "Instantaneification of broadcast".
Designers don't have the monopole of web expression anymore as new media systems are
implemented. It will be interesting to see where all this go.



----------------------------


In the meantime, I've seen a lot of art lately
that didn't leave an impression.


I've seen art non-stop since 1987, and yet it's
the first time I'm getting a serious sentiment of
getting "blasé". I wonder if the sentiment is shared.


Even artists we once dearly believed in
now bore us (Damien Hirst).


"Why did I come to see this?" was a question
I asked myself a lot recently. Not too
far from "why do I write this?" or "why would
or should I write about this?".


Recently I have been more preocupied with
making art than sharing opinions about what
others do, probably because I feel my
skills are there in the first place.
I have no idea, to be honest (yet, plenty of ideas).


I've seen art in Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, and Boston,
during the course of April, cancelling a New York
trip after seeing samples on the web of artists I
planned to visit (I'm tired of painters using the skills
of other people without citing them...at least call it
Art Inc., or any name implying you are not alone, like
on the programme of a theatre presentation).


Nothing...I insist... Nothing enthralled me.
(except Claire Savoie in Québec, which was an
old idea of hers but, much enhanced).


Either I questioned the pertinence of a lot
of stuff, or I was left with art I had already seen
before (Lemieux in Quebec).


My hopes are on Toronto (that Dedicated show, that Bruce Mau show)
and Quebec (Manif) for some great art. Than Public Art Fund in New York
this May, with Ernst at the Met, and Janet Cardiff (again) in Washington.

Is that all ?

....maybe that Alberta Scene thing in Ottawa? (in May).



Until I decide to review more art (or not),
I will be sending notices about personal
wherabouts and projects here.


Here is my promissed Art Link Of The Month for April,
in a series attempting to dig ou where lies the real,
true, new art:


Avant Gaming


If you didn't know that one at least that gives you
a reason to come back here once per month. ;-)


Cheers,


Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com

Have You Got The Mallarmé Blues?

What's with Mallarmé Blue and the MACM these days ??

Cynthia Girard's paintings have it, William Kentridge exhibit walls have it,
the MAC historical site has it, and now what? If you bare with the color of this text for a sec,
there's a colloquium happening today at the MACM which sounds like not much more than
a huge plug hype for a future show at Optica by artist Klaus Scherubel, an impression
not foreign to the obvious clue that the invitation pamphlet, sports the exact same typo and blue layout than for the book project that this artist is soon to be releasing in its french version.


What is this all about ? Mallarmé's unrealized project of producing the ultimate book.
Throw him a Borgès anytime.


My reason to boycott all this? Including colloqium, publication, and artist's show?


This lame ass, retro-conceptual piece of publishing a book made of styrofoam.

Oh, what poetry...

The empty book hommage to Hervé Guibert published by Emmanuel Gallant last year felt much more honest and, besides concept, not devoid of emotion and more precisely: "poetry".



For blue bring me back some Yves Klein (dammit),


Cedric Caspesyan
centiment@hotmail.com