Querying the New Appropriation Art: Is This Cynicism?
The Denny Gallery may have given themselves a curatorial headache with the title of their current exhibition, Share This! Appropriation After Cynicism. There are…
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In Praise of Good Art Writing
I took this task a bit too seriously. I read every back issue of every magazine snow-drifting throughout my house, fingering all the books…
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Alien vs. Predator: The Critic in Three Recent Films
“What has to happen in someone’s life for them to end up becoming a critic?” asks Michael Keaton’s desperate, contemptuous Riggan Thomson in Alejandro…
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30 Art-Writing Clichés to Ditch in the New Year
It’s a new year, which is a fine excuse as any to ditch old bad habits. Here below, I have assembled a not-at-all exhaustive…
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Year in Review: Montreal From the Ground Up
A principal difference between year-end lists, rankings, and recollections about art, and those about music, books, or films is that it’s much more difficult…
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Year in Review: The Women Represented
To cast back and select my favorite art this year requires a mnemonic leap of faith. I’d hope the ‘best’ exhibitions, pieces, and events…
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Playing the Double Agent: Kathleen Ritter’s “Camoufleurs”
Kathleen Ritter is an artist. This may come as a surprise to some who knew her better as associate curator at the Vancouver Art…
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Translation & Transcription: A Conversation with Shelagh Keeley
The narrow central clerestory of The Power Plant in Toronto rises from the main floor up between its east and west gallery zones. It…
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Identity After the Internet: Three Berlin Exhibitions in Search of Commonality
Does anyone write diaries any more? Does anyone learn about themselves through reflexive engagement with their own written word? Or do we form conceptions…
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Women and Influence and the Other Things He Got Wrong: A Rebuttal To Brad Phillips
At a time when so many critics are perfunctorily setting about their annual “best-of” surveys, Brad Phillips published a 3,000-word article that carried the…
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