ArtToronto

Category: Daniel St. Germaine

  • Brothers of the Weird

    Todd James, Vanity Nemesis  2011, gouache and graphite on paper, 30″ x 22.5″

    November 25, 2011 – January 22, 2012
    COOPER COLE GALLERY

    The opening of Cooper Cole Gallery’s new exhibition, Brothers of the Weird, also marks the relaunch of the former Show & Tell Gallery under a new name. Brothers is a group show featuring the work of five artists—Todd James, Devin Flynn, Ian Flynn, Billy Grant, and Joe Grillo. Though most of these artists have never shown work together before, their vivid and uproarious visual language makes the grouping feel like a conversation among friends, which it is in a way—two of the artists are brothers, while Grant and Grillo are both members of the New York–based Dearraindrop Collective.

    The work is sharply psychedelic, graphic, and lushly-coloured. Todd James’ “Chloe” paintings are the stars of the show—with their still life-inspired composition, exuberant palette, and blonde bombshell in the foreground. James’ work takes cues from art history heavyweights like Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, yet also shows signs of influence from his fellow Americans Philip Guston and Roy Lichtenstein.

    Dearraindrop members Grant and Grillo’s work also satisfies a need for colour and bounce. The group’s graphic design background is evident in the paintings which feel like Saturday morning cartoons reimagined by graffiti artists. The Flynn’s work is quieter by comparison. You can still hear the message—you just have to listen more closely.

    Daniel St. Germaine

  • Kent Monkman: The Art Game

    KENT MONKMAN. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

    October 28 -31, 2011
    Toronto International Art Fair
    Metro Toronto Convention Centre

    The centrepiece of Art Toronto 2011 is the fair’s flagship work by Toronto-based Cree artist Kent Monkman, curated by Steven Loft. The Art Game is a life-size maze, constructed from booth walls identical to the Art Fair itself, which will lead the audience through an art world “funhouse”. The meandering corridors are made more confusing with the use of double-sided mirrors, trick windows, and fake doors, creating a feeling of disorientation and forcing the audience into a challenging experience of perceptual distortion and multiple choice. Dispersed throughout the maze are four “dioramas”, each presenting one of the four key players in the Art Game: artist, curator/museum director, gallerist, and collector.

    This monumental installation draws on many of the same themes that reoccur throughout Monkman’s work, articulating them with trademark wit and whimsy. Monkman’s film, painting, and performance practices consistently deal with notions of subjectivity, history, sexual identity, and colonial legacies. In The Art Game, Monkman zeroes in on the business of art as the subject for his wryly humours treatment, presenting the audience with something that is at once a critique, an homage, a condemnation, and a fantasy.

    by Daniel St. Germaine