A window into the dirty work of creation
Fall keeps picking up pace this week with a spate of openings and events too many to list, but herewith a cheat sheet for some top picks:
OPENING: Talking Back, Otherwise: The University of Toronto’s Jackman Humanities Institute is an odd place for an art exhibition, sitting way up on the 10th floor of a campus building, safely out of sight. Nonetheless, it’s been the site of several thoughtful, compelling shows over the years and the current offering won’t disappoint. Talking Back, Otherwise, curated by Cheyenne Turions (for the JHI’s current theme of “Things That Matter,” no less) brings together sharp-minded Canadian artists such as Valérie Blass, Jérôme Havre, Maryse Larivière, Marvin Luvualu Antonio and Jennifer Rose Sciarrino to consider the lives of objects and images: both what we demand from them and what unexpected meaning they may choose to give us instead. No rush: the exhibit is on view until June 2016.
Jackman Humanities Institute, 10th floor, 170 St. George St. Opening Sept. 16 at 4 p.m.
Stephen Appleby-Barr, Sigillum: Appleby-Barr, a still-young painter with both the interests and, increasingly, the skills of an old master, seems like a man unstuck in time in two regards: his devotion to the bygone craft of classical oil painting portraiture, and his tendency to inflect the convention with science fiction, fantasy and the surreal. Whatever the disparate ingredients of his painterly brew, it works. His canvases are some of the most engaging to be seen in this city or anywhere else.
Until Oct. 10 at Nicholas Metivier Gallery, 451 King St. W. Opening Sept. 17 at 6 p.m. Dark Commander: The Art of John Scott: “I believe it is the artist’s job,” John Scott once told me, “to bite the hand that feeds.” For 30-odd years, Scott has been doing a lot of that, with his rough, gestural works seething with a primal unrest. His primary targets — the tyranny of power structures, the ugliness of aggression, war or otherwise — have never changed, which you can see for yourself at McMaster University this fall. A retrospective organized by the Faulconer Gallery at Grinnell College touches down with more than 30 years of gnashing teeth. Scott offers his own take on his oeuvre this Thursday with a public talk at the gallery’s opening reception.
McMaster Museum of Art, Alvin A. Lee Building, 1280 Main St W, Hamilton. Opening reception Sept. 17 at 6 p.m. Joseph Hartman, Artist Studios: Most of us see art in tidy white galleries, without a speck of dust to be found. I often wonder if this is why the art world can be so intimidating for so many, denying as it does the dirty sweat-equity investment artmaking often requires. Joseph Hartman must agree, having spent years photographing artists’ studios across the country in an attempt to pull back the curtain on the process and show the human hands at the gears.
Until Oct. 17 at Stephen Bulger Gallery, 1026 Queen St. W. Opening Sept. 19 at 2 p.m. Elsewhere: The Canadian Art Foundation’s annual gala and auction takes place Thursday, Sept. 17 at the Carlu; Derek Sullivan and Jessica Eaton open new solo shows at Oakville Galleries’ two distinct locations on Sept. 19, with opening receptions beginning at 2:30 p.m. (for Eaton) at Centennial Square, Oakville, and 3:30 p.m. (for Sullivan) at Gairloch Gardens; on Sept. 16 at 5 p.m., U of T Mississauga’s Blackwood Gallery opens The pen moves across the earth, a group exhibition featuring such artists as Kara Uzelman, Pascal Grandmaison and Sarah Anne Johnson.