James K-M’s Art: Opening Tonight!

I’m really looking forward to the opening for James’ exhibition tonight.

There’s info here on the Baron site, as well as on James’ site, which features photos of the whole exhibition.

Return from Cuba

We have just returned from two months in Cuba, staying first in Camaguey for the majority of the time, with a final week in Havana.

It was a transformative and extraordinary time that I will be unfolding within myself for months to come. Right now I’m in the process of sorting out the photos and videos, and will post them soon. For now, here’s a chicken on the roof in Colon.

Until  I have more to post, I refer you to James’ site, where he shows the images from his remarkable exhibition of paintings in Camaguey, and the catalog of the show that is available for download. Find all that here: The Artist Magicians

Below is an image of the collaboration painting created by the artists for the exhibition: James K-M (Canada), Joel Jover Llenderrosos (Cuba), Osmany Soler Mena (Cuba)

Many Moons

Here’s one of James’ more recent paintings.

Many Moons by James K-M, 24" x 24", acrylic and stain on plywood

For more on his work, go to his artist site.

Inadvertent National Exposure

James K-M’s art got some inadvertent national exposure during the CTV coverage of the Canadian leadership debate last week. Students from SFU were gathered in the Teck Gallery space at Harbour Centre to give their feedback. Watch as the camera swings to the left: there are his paintings adding some flash and colour to the environment. To see more, go here to his site.

Performance on Carrall Street this Tuesday

This post is a duplicate of a post in my Carrall Street Journal.

Art on Carrall – literally about Carrall Street. This is the kind of thing I’ve been thinking about for years, and now it looks like Althea Thauberger is making art about this street and its complexities.

Can’t wait to walk out my door and see what she has put together.

ARTSPEAK | CARRALL STREET | ALTHEA THAUBERGER | SEP 30
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CARRALL STREET | ALTHEA THAUBERGER

Tuesday, September 30, 2008
8-11pm in the 200 block of Carrall Street, Vancouver

Carrall Street Public Forum
Thursday, October 2, 2008
7pm at 33 West Cordova Street

Althea Thauberger’s one-night performance, Carrall Street, will present the
street (brightly lit like a film set at nighttime) as a stage, or zone of
illumination where the roles of performer and spectator blur. The
interweaving of organized performers, passers-by and audience members will
allow for unforeseen interactions to take place that reveal something of
the street’s history, its current issues, as well as its future. Carrall
Street is planned in collaboration with local directors, performers and
community members.

Carrall Street is one of the oldest streets in Vancouver. It can be argued
that the entire history (and pre-history) of the city can be mapped along
its six blocks. Caught between urban gentrification and decay, the street
marks transitions from the most touristic parts of the city to what is
often described as the poorest neighbourhood in Canada. In ways that are
both unique and similar to other inner cities, it has been affected by
development, public policy neglect and polarized politics.

A publication accompanying the project will be available in 2009.

Althea Thauberger is an artist based in Vancouver. Her work involves
research and collaboration that result in performances, films, photographs,
audio recordings and books.

The performance and forum are free and open to the public.

This project has been supported by Arts Partners in Creative Development,
The Canada Council for the Arts, the City of Vancouver and the Portland
Hotel Society.

Video Talks from James K-M’s Opening

Here are the remarks from James’ Cave Paintings exhibition opening at SFU Teck Gallery in Vancouver from Bill Jeffries, James K-M, and Oldhands.

James K-M’s Upcoming Show

Image: Hearing Bone (detail), stain and acrylic on plywood, 24” x 24,” 2007

James K-M: Cave Paintings, September 2 – November 22, 2008.
Opening: Friday, September 5, 8 – 9 pm. Open daily during campus hours.

Please join us for the exhibition opening at the Teck Gallery, SFU Vancouver Campus, 515 West Hastings St, Vancouver, BC. The artist will be in attendance. Opening remarks at 8:30 pm.

Artist talk: Monday, September 15, 7pm
The artist will present a talk titled “Is There Anything Old Here?”
Room 1600, SFU Vancouver campus

Phone: 778-782-4266 Web: sfu.ca/gallery Email: gallery@sfu.ca

James K-M is a Vancouver-based painter who has, since 1983, created a vast series of hard-edge, optically charged works. These paintings reference primordial languages, the linkages between aural and visual phenomena, as well Op Art—a key historical avant-garde movement.
The question of how the social is contained within abstraction has been raised in many arenas over the twenty-five years since the first of these paintings were made. This exhibition addresses that societal role, while querying the rationales that continue to exist for new work in hard-edge abstraction. – Bill Jeffries, August, 2008

Publication: This exhibition is accompanied by a 24-page catalogue with essays by Eric McLuhan and Bill Jeffries.

Recipes as Ultimate Learning Objects?

Francesco makes a great case for recipes as the ultimate learning objects in this post from the Rouxbe Blog. He’s right. Stick around long enough and you see that much of the academic and artistic experimentation eventually ends up in a real-world application that people can taste, touch, eat, use. What was once rare and esoteric (and mega-funded in many cases) soon becomes common knowledge, and isn’t even seen anymore – it just gets absorbed into the fabric of our environment.

Here’s a brief quote – by the way, the site is gorgeous and really useful – educators take note!

And the great thing is that all this convergence that is happening now is based on the early work that artists and academics were doing a number of years ago. I guess the conclusion that I’m getting at is that if our society has artists and academics that push the boundaries, even if we don’t see it applied to our daily lives, chances are that their work will have an impact on us eventually.

Diane Feught’s New “Queen of Heaven” Series

Good friend and amazing artist Diane Feught sent me this invitation to the opening for http://www.women, a significant group show upcoming in Toronto’s Headbones Gallery. Diane’s Q’an Yin drawing on the invite above is part of the “Queen of Heaven” series featured in the exhibition, while her darkly stunning Yama image can be seen here in the Press Release from Headbones Gallery.

This promises to be a powerful exhibition, with work from Aleks Bartosik, Louise Bourgeois, Judy Chicago, Donna Cleary, Diane Feught, Angela Grossman, Geurilla Girls, Heidi Hatry, Donna Kriekle, Julie Oakes, Allyson Mitchell, Faith Ringgold, Carolee Shneemann, Robin Tewes, Betty Tompkins, and Monica Weiss.

(Link here for a random post from my blog.)

City Strike Grinds On

This post is a duplicate of a post in my Carrall Street Journal.

Carrall Street has been kept relatively clean by volunteers, the United We Can folks, and as a result the whole place doesn’t look too bad, or seem too terribly unhealthy, despite the city strike.

However, the Carrall Street Greenway has been very affected by the strike, and no work has been done on the whole thing for much of the summer. Tall grass and weeds are growing in the square areas that had been left for tree planting on the one area that had been constructed so far. The whole schedule for this improvement has been suspended, and this could have serious repercussions in the timeline. Hopefully there will be a resolution to the strike soon.

Meanwhile, September brings new exhibitions in the galleries, ACCESS, ArtSpeak, InterUrban and Centre A.

The New York Times Style Magazine this Sunday featured the designer at Richard Kidd, and positive mention of Carrall Street’s Irish Heather and Hunt and Gather.

Now equinox is past, we will see earlier nights, and that also means colder nights for the homeless. People are seriously nested in under the awning on Cordova Street just west of the old Pig and Whistle, and also in any nook to be found in doorways of the old Ranier Hotel. That place has been increasingly covered in graffiti through the summer, with more coming along through the month of August and early September. Almost every brick in the doorway to the former chicken place has a tag of some kind.

That’s the September wrap-up for this street of high contrast!